Dalhousie is a very unique and beautiful hill station in Chamba district, Himachal Pradesh. This tiny tinsel town seemed like paradise when I looked it over the internet and, so I decided to visit this place with my friends. We did not have a lot of time so, we kept the trip short and that is why deciding what places to visit in Dalhousie was a tough one. I think that 3 days are enough to visit this place. So, anyone who’s looking for a short trip to heaven and back might want to keep reading to know the best places to visit in Dalhousie.
We started our journey on Wednesday night and had to catch our train (Dhauladhar express) at 11 pm from Delhi to Pathankot. I think travelling at night is best because not only it saves you a day but, you can spend your ride sleeping because you gotta save your energy for the actual fun, right?
DAY 1 IN DALHOUSIE
We reached the Pathankot railway station at 8:30 am and, from there, we hired a cab to Dalhousie, the taxi costs us 2000. The taxi service is just outside the station. We saw the explicit beauty of the Ranjit Sagar dam on our way. I had already booked rooms at a hotel called “Atithi resort”, which was in Banikhet, 6 km away from main Dalhousie. We reached our hotel at noon. The only drawback of this hotel is that it is a bit far away from the mall road.
After settling in our rooms and getting all ready, we ate a decent breakfast at the hotel and hired a taxi for the day, we planned to go to Khajjiar that day as there are a lot of fun and adventure activities but, mainly we had planned to do paragliding, that was the only thing that attracted me. The problem was with that plan was that we went in July and as soon as we were about to reach Khajjiar that was about one hour away from our hotel, it started raining heavily. Well, everybody knows that you can’t paraglide in the rain so, that’s how the first day of our trip was ruined, or so I thought.
We cheered each other up and tried to save the day. We waited for the rain to stop while eating Maggi & momo’s and enjoying our way in the car. Soon the rain stopped and, we went to the mini Switzerland of India that is Khajjiar. We couldn’t do paragliding in that weather but, we certainly had a lot of fun clicking pictures there. The place was a combination of forest, meadows, a small stream-fed lake and a lot of Instagram-worthy beautiful views.
We went to the mall road of Dalhousie from there which is called Garam Sadak and, I have to say that it had some different vibe about it, the market was so full of life with so many varieties of food and aesthetics all around. We had a delicious dinner at Monga’s cafe and later had rainbow ice cream at Satish ice cream corner and then returned to our hotel to put an end to that joyful day. So, concluding this day , Khajjiar and Garam Sadak are 2 of the best places to visit in Dalhousie. And when looking for the things to do in Dalhousie, Paragliding and eating momo and maggi should come first.
DAY 2 IN DALHOUSIE
The second day of our trip was the best of all days, a day that I can not forget about even if someone put an oblivious charm on me, a day that is very hard to describe but, I tried my best to do so. We went to Sach pass on this day for which I have made a separate blog. And believe me, you need to read it if you’re planning on going to Dalhousie. It is an unexplored place that has snow 365 days. You can thank me later. So, Sach Pass is the best of best when it comes to the best places to visit in Dalhousie or when in Dalhousie. Click here to read about Sach Pass in July.
DAY 3 IN DALHOUSIE
This was our last day in Dalhousie, we had to catch our train at 11 pm from Pathankot and had to leave from Dalhousie at around 7 pm, so we pretty much had all day. We started our day with a hearty breakfast at our hotel and, needless to say, every meal in Dalhousie came with a great view. After that, we enjoyed the swimming pool at our hotel, taking a dip in the swimming pool in between the mountains can be very therapeutic.
We got ready and hired a taxi to Dainkund peak as we planned on trekking that day. Dainkund peak is the highest point of Dalhousie which gives you jaw-dropping views and an amazing experience of a short 4-hour trek. There’s a proper entry gate from where you can start your trek. The noise of the breeze passing through the trees makes a musical sound here and, so Dainkund is popularly known as the singing hill. At the top hill, there’s a beautiful temple and a food stall where you can relax. It was an amazing experience as I had never done trekking before. It only took us 4-5 hours to reach the peak and come back down.
After this, we had lunch at a restaurant and went to see the waterfall at Panchkula. You have to climb a lot of broad stairs to reach the waterfall at Panchkula, there were shops and cafes all around that place and even some adventure activities like zip-lining. There was an amazing cafe called shiva cafe, we sat there amidst the greenery, waterfalls, small bridges, views to die for and had the best pizza of our lives. Their mushroom pizza is to kill and die for. I sat there dipping my legs in the cold water of the waterfall for some time and relaxed. Sadly that was the end of our trip. Another ones in the best places to visit in Dalhousie? Dainkund Peak and Panchkula.
We left Dalhousie around 7 pm for Pathankot and had dinner on our way to the Punjabi restaurant. We stuffed ourselves with authentic Punjabi food to the point where we could not even speak. We caught our train to Delhi and reached around 10 am with lots of sweet memories and stunning pictures.
The best part about Dalhousie was that we didn’t have to buy even a single bottle of water there, we filled our bottles from the water coming down from mountains, that water was coming directly from glaciers and was pure and fresh and, it’s also good for health.
CONCLUSION
The best places to visit in Dalhousie are –
- KHAJJIAR – THE MINI SWITZERLAND OF INDIA
- GARAM SADAK – THE FOOD AND AESTHETIC PARADISE
- DAINKUND PEAK – THE SWINGING HILL
- PANCHKULA – THE EPITOME OF NATURE
- SACH PASS – THE MYSTICAL PARADISE
To know more places to visit in Dalhousie , I would suggest you to visit this link – more places in Dalhousie.
Things to do in Dalhousie –
- PARAGLIDING
- TREK TO DAINKUND PEAK
- NATURE WALK
- ADVENTURE SPORTS AT PANCHKULA
- EXPLORING GARAM SADAK
- HAVE TANDOORI CHAI
- PIZZA AT SHIVA CAFE
- REJUVENATE AT PANCHKULA WATERFALL
Things to eat at Garam Sadak, Dalhousie –
- OMELETTE
- TANDOORI CHAI
- MALAI CHAAP
- THUPKA
- SPRING ROLLS
- GOL GAPPE
- WAFFLE, BROWNIE SIZZLER AT MONGAS CAFE
- DINNER AT CAFE DALHOUSIE
- JALEBI RABRI
- ICE CREAM AT SATISH ICE CREAM CORNER
HAPPY RIDES!
