 There is many a slip between the cup and the lip. Little did we realise, when we planned a 10-day holiday in the Himachal hill resorts of Dalhousie and Manali and in Delhi that the railways or the weather could play spoilsport. As it happened, we almost missed the connecting bus at Pathankot. Mercifully, there was no landslip or rockfall.
We had left Mumbai by the Swaraj Express bound for Jammu in bright sunshine on the morning of June 16. But for some obscure reason our train was held up for more than half an hour at the Bandra terminal, a delay that snowballed into two hours so that when we reached Chakki Bank, the railhead for Pathankot, the next day, it was three in the afternoon. I wonder how the "unrivalled South-Eastern" trains of company days could be detained at the drop of a hat at wayside stations and still manage to arrive at the terminus "punctually." (So E M Forster informs us in his "Iron Horses of India" ).
Soon we were speeding away in an autorickshaw from Chakki Bank, a small station like Aryankavu in the south. We left Pathankot bus stand, full of puddles and rickety Himachal Roadways buses, by the last bus and reached Dalhousie after a 31/2 hours' drive. Four of us -- my brother-in-law and his spouse, my wife and myself-checked into a hotel with the fanciful name of Shangri-la. We engaged a porter at Rs 40 to carry our luggage. (Taxis and private cars vie for space on the narrow and undulating paths of Dalhousie, a town with a population of 10,100, according to my travel guide.). Our fatigue and impatience had vanished as we sipped tea at half-past eight in the quiet of our spacious room.
 When the sun rose the next morning, we could see from our hotel window the stunningly beautiful, cloud-capped Dauladhar mountains beckoning to us. Dalhousie is named after the British Governor General who opened India's first railway line and set up its first telegraph. It spans five hills - Kathlog, Potreyn (Podreen), Tehra, Bakrota and Balun. It has a dense forest cover of pine, deodar, oak and flowering rhododendron, its height varying between 1525m and 2378m.
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The best visiting season is between April and July and between September and October. Taxis can be hired for sightseeing through the local taxi union. The hotel organised a conducted tour for us.
The main attraction at Dalhousie is the beautiful glade of Khajjiar (1960m),
27 km away, with a circumference of 5 km. "Along its fringes thick forests of deodar climb the slopes. The snowline rests above these woods and a small lake fed by streams that traverse the green carpet is at the centre of the glade . The 12th century temple here dedicated to Khajjinag has life-size wooden images of the
Pandavas," says the Tourism department's guidebook. The disc-shaped lake has shrunk over the years but still continues to attract throngs of visitors as we saw for ourselves.
A stroll from the General Post Office square leads to Subhash
Baoli, 1.5 km away. It is recorded that Subhash Chandra Bose, who was Congress President for two terms, spent seven months in 1937 at Dalhousie to recoup his health. He found the mountain spring here beneficial to his recovery and used to spend time in meditation. The crucial Haripura session of the Congress was to follow soon after.
Two kilometres from the main post office is a mountain stream flowing beneath five bridges. The place is called Panjpula (five bridges) and is surrounded by small waterfalls. The samadhi of Bhagat Singh's father is also located here.
Other places of interest in Dalhousie are Satdhara or the Seven Springs, rich in mica and known for their medicinal properties, Kalatope (8.5 km from
Dalhousie), a weekend retreat housing a small wildlife sanctuary.
Dalhousie has charming colonial architecture, including some beautiful churches. "Its location presents panoramic views of the plains, and like a long silver line, the river Ravi twists and turns below
Dalhousie." It is 485 km by road from Delhi. The nearest airport is Gaggal in
Kangra, 135 km away.
(to be continued)
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