I had zero energy to blog last night after getting back from the trip, so I am doing it now and backdating it. Yesterday was simply a day of travelling from one point to another. We left the snow-capped Rotangarh mountains to head down to our next hillstation Dharmsala (or Dharmshala). En route, we hit some of the most beautiful winter scenery with dried out apple orchards, yellowed leaves, long spans of green (farms) against yellow (leaves) against brown (soil) against white (snow). The journey took forever and rolled across some very very windy paths (which was a bit sickening to be honest), but the air was fresh for the most part and I enjoyed the trip. We even ran into a religious group from a tiny hamlet (there were many of those) along the way. Every so often, they hold this ceremony of carrying an idol of a goddess hoisted on a single pole between two men to different hamlets and villages nearby. The procession takes with it a bunch of men with really cool musical instruments and some who go empty handed. They believe that some form of "life" enters the idol of the goddess and as the two men carry it along, it becomes heavier and heavier and makes the whole procession go forward/backward, and what not... they claim that it gets to be so heavy that sometimes you need more than 10 people to hold up the light statuette! It was really cool to see this...
From there, we headed through a township called Palampur where we stopped by the Bhaijnath Temple, which is a UNESCO world heritage site. This ancient and small temple was so incredibly beautiful with its worn architecture that still stands along the Dholadhar Hills in full majesty. Amazing sight.
Our last stop along the way was at the Chamunda Devi temple. Today we'll cover the rest of the goddess' temples in the area, so I'll explain the concept in tonight's post. Very cool experience that involved entering a small cave!
That's it really, we came up to our hotel in Dharmsala fairly late, so it was really dark outside. It seems like a cute city, but more on that later. I'm going to visit the Dalai Lama's shrine on this side of the border today!
Here are some photos from yesterday. They're not of best quality, but I don't have time this morning to sift through all of them:
From there, we headed through a township called Palampur where we stopped by the Bhaijnath Temple, which is a UNESCO world heritage site. This ancient and small temple was so incredibly beautiful with its worn architecture that still stands along the Dholadhar Hills in full majesty. Amazing sight.
Our last stop along the way was at the Chamunda Devi temple. Today we'll cover the rest of the goddess' temples in the area, so I'll explain the concept in tonight's post. Very cool experience that involved entering a small cave!
That's it really, we came up to our hotel in Dharmsala fairly late, so it was really dark outside. It seems like a cute city, but more on that later. I'm going to visit the Dalai Lama's shrine on this side of the border today!
Here are some photos from yesterday. They're not of best quality, but I don't have time this morning to sift through all of them:
The apple orchard I mentioned
Snow-capped Dholadhar Hills (that surround Dharmsala and Palampur)
The temple where the procession started
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