[erohit]

Very very nice pictures. I just love them. I personally like drive from Mandi to Rohtang. It is full of natural + manmade beauties. You will see pandoh dam + beautiful hadima temple location + 3-4KM road tunnel + nice view near manali and then road to heaven towards rohtang. The other must visit place is Nagar. It is across the river when you go from Kullu to Manali. Very beautiful. If you remember 'yeh ishq haaye' song from 'Jab we met', that is picturised in Nagar small caste.

[mobike008]

There was another couple at the same place who had come down from Chandigarh. In that beautiful place, there only two indica and 5 people.

Here are more pictures of snow and the frozen lake.

[mobike008]

Originally Posted by erohit

Very very nice pictures. I just love them. I personally like drive from Mandi to Rohtang. It is full of natural + manmade beauties. You will see pandoh dam + beautiful hadima temple location + 3-4KM road tunnel + nice view near manali and then road to heaven towards rohtang. The other must visit place is Nagar. It is across the river when you go from Kullu to Manali. Very beautiful. If you remember 'yeh ishq haaye' song from 'Jab we met', that is picturised in Nagar small caste.

Thanks Rohit. I did that drive in the reverse. We drove back from Manali to Mandi towards Pathankot to go to Amritsar. That road is just beautiful and would like to add tiring too as the number of turns on those ghats will tizzy your mind.

Another beautiful stretch that i absolutely loved was the drive from Narkhanda to Tirthan Valley in Bangar district. Those pictures are coming up in next installment. Absolutely gem of a driveable stretch

In this final installment of Narkhanda pictures, you get to see the small, trecherous roads back to Narkhanda from Mt.Hatu Peak and a few of the lawns at the hotel.

In short, i highly recommend a night or two's stay at Narkhanda if your looking for some peace and just want to sink into those lovely sights

[mobike008]

Sorry about the slow progress update as severely impacted by tons of work which i am not too used too

Continuing with where i left off last time around. As per our original plan, which was adviced by TSK1979, we had planned to stay enroute Shimla-Manali ( Narkhanda being the first stop and then proceed towards Tirthan Valley).

One word of advice, in Himachal i was surprised nonone knows or refers to Tirthan Valley by its name. It's best to refer as Tirthan in Bangar District.

A brief word for Hotel Hatu, It's a beautiful place to stay and they were quite warm in their welcome and guidance. After a blissful day and night at Narkhanda, got early and the reception guy mentioned "Jalori Pass" is open Which means we shave off atleast 150kms to Tirthan if we take this route instead of the conventional one. Our driver was not convinced, I had to practically coax him to take this route as its known to be one of the most " scenic and trecherous at the same time in entire himachal pradesh"

Thus, our journey towards Tirthan started around 9AM and trust me those 150kms will not be forgotten. It took us more than 5 hours of continous driving as after crossing the scenic section, you come across one of the steepest roads in Himachal where the road goes straight into sky and also one the steepest slope gradients as well.

Next couple of posts, i will dedicate a few photos of this breathtaking route and will continue with progress updates as and when i can as my hectic schedule does not seem to just let off.

Now enough of talking, it's time for some photos !!!!

[mobike008]

A few more pictures of the passing landscape captured from the moving car

[mobike008]

Continuing with photos from the same stretch ( Narkhanda to Tirthan Valley) in Himachal Pradesh.

Dont you think, it's a fantastic scenary all around?

[mobike008]

These are the final set of pictures of this trip from Narkhanda to Tirthan

[Ravveendrra]

5 stars for a truly deserving thread. Be warned that the next time we meet I am going to pick your brains for detailed info!

Is there any way you could tell your boss to give you less work. You could tell him that you are working on a very important top-secret assignment.......(this travelogue).

Cheers,

[mobike008]

Originally Posted by Ravveendrra

5 stars for a truly deserving thread. Be warned that the next time we meet I am going to pick your brains for detailed info!

Is there any way you could tell your boss to give you less work. You could tell him that you are working on a very important top-secret assignment.......(this travelogue).

Cheers,

Ravvs, truly appreciate your comments and thank you for rating this thread 5-stars.

I am at your disposal for any information you need. Having travelled now thrice in quick succession, i can be termed as slightly better than an amateur about information of this beautiful state.


After having started from Narkhanda at 9am and driving continously except for stopping a couple of times ( once for a tea break and other was for nature break) it took us around 6 hours to reach Tirthan Valley which was about 150kms away due to some treacherous roads where we must have done about 20kms in 1st gear due to some extremely steep roads and another 20kms slopes were again done in 1st gear due to some dangerous slope gradients and there were warnings galore that we should not attempt driving in any other gear---except the 1st one.

When we reached the Bangar district around 2:30pm, we went right past the Tirthan Resort as we had no clue that this place is on other side of the river while we are driving on a narrow hilly road on other side. And, there is a manual cable car that will take you one-by-one to other end of the fast flowing water rapids.

None of us had any mobile signals here so it was tricky to contact the owner who was in Delhi to get the right directions. We had to stop at a phone booth to make that call as only BSNL has signal in that area and all other carriers have very very limited signals.

I must say thanks again Tanveer for stressing on staying in Tirthan which was one of the best stay in entire trip, where we are practically in the lap of nature.

And, the owner of this place ( Anirudh) was very courteous and constantly kept in touch with me through my trip and made sure that our stay was pleasant, even though he was managing things remotely

The deal that we got for stay at this place was a steal. more on it a bit later.

Now its time to let the pictures do some talking.

[mobike008]

First thing after checking into the cottage was to order something hot to eat as we all were famished.

We ordered for mixed pakoras ( Paneer, Aloo and Onion). It was a superb snack to go along with a hot cuppa.

The deal that we got for this place was as follows :-

Rs.500 for Room
Rs.300/Person for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

And, you can order whatever you want. Say for e.g : Poori and Subji, Paranthas or Omlette Bread for Breakfast. Lunch was roti, subji and dal. Dinner was same but inclusion of a non-veg curry.

I would say it was worth every penny.

There is absolutely nothing to do at this location. You just sit by the fire or simply on those rocks near the water and enjoy the nature. If someone is planning on doing some self-introspection, nothing to beat this place.

[WanderNomad]

Lovely long shots! Loving every minute of your log man. I am completely hooked.

[mobike008]

Thanks Wander Nomad, keep your eyes peeled out, there are still quite a few pictures to be posted

Here are some more pictures of us enjoying that scenic place and also a few of the cottage care-taker and his cute baby

[mobike008]

Just to take the monotony of the photoblog, posting some close-up shots taken during the entire trip. Whichever subject i found interesting, was just clicking away.

Enjoy !

[srikanthpotluri]

wow, the baby is so cuteeeeeee. amazing snaps again. continue posting.

[mobike008]

Originally Posted by srikanthpotluri

wow, the baby is so cuteeeeeee. amazing snaps again. continue posting.

Thanks Srikanth. That baby was indeed quite cute. Absolutely roly-poly

Alright, so this post comes up with final set of pictures from Tirthan Valley. We spent a blissful night at this awesome location.

Evening was a special event, where we had a bon-fire for ourselves and they cooked us a special dinner with 2 Veg curries, 1 Chicken curry, 1 Meat curry, Rotis and Fried Rice.

Having that meal after a few rounds of soft drinks in that freezing weather sitting in front of that bon-fire right next to river listening to the sound of water was one of the best experience of our trip.

Our plan was to check out after a late lunch and our next pit stop was Manali which was about 100kms away.