Seems like time has come to a standstill.... My wanderer soul is restless, locked inside the four walls of my house; I have never felt so helpless.... This gruelling experience of Corona Pandemic is taking a toll on my physical well being. Last evening, while sipping my cuppa, I started scrolling the gallery of my phone and bumped upon the memories of my trip to Naldehra, a quiet, lush green and unexploited hill station barely 25 km from Shimla, Himachal Pradesh. Every pic was looking as fresh and recent like I have visited there yesterday only.
In October 2019, my friends and I were planning for a trip to Amritsar but all of a sudden, we have ditched the idea of Amritsar and thought to explore a less exploited hill station to feed our eyes and soul. Therefore, we have decided to visit this pristine beauty, which is nestled in south-western ranges of the Himalayas at an elevation of 2004 meters from the sea level. It is truly a paradise for nature lovers like me who loves to hike amidst the beautiful and serene mountains. Lord Curzon, the British Viceroy of India, discovered this place, and was completely spellbound with its untouched beauty.
We have boarded a Delhi to Shimla Volvo around 10 PM in the night from Majnu ka tila, Delhi and have reached Shimla at 6 AM in the morning. There are several buses running between Shimla and Naldehra at regular interval but we chose to hire a taxi to reach our destination. It took us approx. 1 hr. to reach our Hotel in Naldehra, which we have booked in advance. Hotel was reasonable with very good facilities and cordial staff. All of us were very tired but at the same time we all were excited too. Everybody had gotten fresh and then we had breakfast. The view from my room window was one worth dying for. Continuous mountain chains with tall standing pine trees, herd of sheep roaming, chirping of the birds and stray clouds appearing out of nowhere and playing the game of hide and seek with the sun was making everything so appealing that I am short of words to describe it. I remember, I was having hot chocolate that time, though it was a normal hot beverage but so far the best one with the view offered by the hotel room.
Naldehra is not only famous for its peaceful and mesmerizing beauty but it also boasts a gorgeous and vast 18 holes golf course, which is a 5 kms trek and challenging one too. One can also hire a pony to reach there but we preferred trekking, as we did not want to miss to capture the beauty of this picture perfect place. While climbing towards this beauty we took a halt and decided to have a cup of tea and some pakoras at a stall run by an old man. There were chill in the air and we still were a couple of kms away from our destination. After finishing our tea, we proceeded again and finally reached the golf course . The moment we saw the entire stretch of green grass our tiredness vanished. Honestly speaking, this golf course looks like someone has painted a scenery on a canvas. We clicked some pictures and started descending towards our hotel.
By the time we have reached our room, it was 7pm. We have ordered local Himachali thali for dinner and retired to sleep by 10 in the night as we had to start early next day to go back to Delhi.
Next morning, we all woke up at 6 am and after having morning tea, we boarded a taxi to Shimla. The trip had come to an end but, everybody was happy as we were taking back lots of fond memories of this place which we will be going to cherish always.....😊😊😊😊😊