Next morning, we started the drive at 9 am towards Haripur Dhar. The area ahead is sparsely populated with a few small villages here and there. The roads are not in a great condition. Few patches are good, some with a few potholes and in some stretches, there is just a dust track. The ride was smooth and bumpy accordingly. Along the way we kept speculating the location of Habban valley. On the map, it was marked about half way on our route with a small river marking the spot. We came across two such possible spots, but it looked nothing like Habban valley with peach and apple orchards the HPTDC people promised us. We asked some locals who were waiting for a bus and they informed that Habban valley is near Rajgarh but on a very route leading somewhere else.
They also pronounced it slightly differently. I never like this thing of writing words of one language in to another script, specially Hindi in to English.
The villagers were mostly farmers who had just harvested their crop of garlic. Apparently this area is a big producer of garlic and the smell was in the air almost everywhere. The markets in every village were overflowing with garlic being sold at Rs 25-30 per kg, less than one-fourth of price in cities.
Along the way, a grey wild cat crossed our path. It was an interesting looking animal with different fur and facial structure from ordinary house cats. It stared at us for while vanishing in to the bushes near the road. The road near Haripur Dhar was very new for a stretch of 9-10 kilometers. The driver informed us that this was the first time that a proper road was laid there. An obvious exaggeration, but understandable. Another driver had claimed that all cherries in the world are infested by some kind of worm which one can see by peeling away different layers carefully.
We reached the town at 12:30 pm. The temple is 10-12 minutes drive from there on a hill overlooking the town and nearby area. One side of the ridge is in Shimla and the other in Sirmaur district. Whatever information I could find about the place on internet indicated that there was one PWD guesthouse and one hotel in town and another guesthouse in temple premises. I had called PWD guesthouse previous day, but the relevant staff was gone for the day and they asked me to call next morning. We had decided to either stay in Haripur Dhar or go back towards Rajgarh to spend the night. There were some hotels on the way which could be used if there was no accommodation available in the town.
The temple had a huge parking area and a few dhabas and small shops selling temple offerings of coconuts, puffed rice etc. One of the dhabas offered rooms for night stay. There was a small guesthouse just outside temple area which seemed interesting due to it’s location.
As we were getting out of the car, we saw one family with a young woman walking up the stairs. She kept on screaming every 2-3 minutes. Driver said that she had a “saayaa” on her (she was possessed) and coming to the temple of a powerful goddess is bothering the spirit which was troubling here. Later on we saw that family sitting in temple courtyard and a priest claiming some cure. She still kept on screaming every now and then and looked pissed off.
THis temple was more or less just like Kali Ka Tibba we had visited the previous day but was much filthier. The complex itself was clean but the wooded area nearby was covered in plastic and styrofoam waste. The visitors and shops nearby dump their waste wherever they feel like as long as it’s not inside the temple. The view of surrounding area was good but nothing special. The rant which I wrote in previous post about places of worship holds true for this place too.
We had lunch of rice and daal in one of the dhabas which was served in styrofoam plates. The state govt. needs to ban this nuisance too. It’s as bad as the plastic bags.
For nightstay, we first considered going to PWD guesthouse we saw on the way, but decided to check the guesthouse on top of the hill. The building itself is just a house with 3-4 rooms rented out to guests and a small hut outside divided in to two units. No rooms were available and we took one hut for Rs 500, which was a ripoff made amply clear by wifey. But it was out of town in a peaceful location and apparently starting point of some trekking routes. The caretaker seemed uninterested in his work and knew nothing about this except pointing out random hills in a vague manner.
After resting for a while, we went up the rocky path going up the hill. It was dug up probably a few weeks back and was full of rocks and rubble. After 10-15 minutes, I found a small goat trail up the hill and abandoned the path to climb up. We kept on walking up and met an old shepherd gathering wood. He asked us if we were visiting “kilaa” which was just on other side of the ridge. I had no idea about any kind of kilaa or fort and was intrigued by the possibility of seeing some ruins in such a place. He gave us some general directions and we went on our way. First landmark on the way was a concrete water tank which was still under construction. Tree cover was really thick at this point and there were some places which rarely if ever saw any direct sunlight.
We found a few goats and some cows grazing on other side of ridge presumably owned by the old shepherd . We kept walking on the ridge and came across a stone house under construction. Later on, I found out that it was an office kind of thing for forest department and was called kilaa by the locals. No fort or anything similar there.
The trail ended there with more wooded area up ahead. Wifey at this time was crying bloody murder and demanding that we go back. But I persuaded her to bear with me for a while. Along the way, we some beautiful groves which can be really nice camping sites. The goats had vanished down the hill and there were only a few cows wandering in between the trees. It was a few minutes past 4 pm and we started walking back to our hut.
Walking back I declared that going back the same way we climbed up was against my principles and I almost never do it. hehe. It was not appreciated much by wifey though. We took a different route which was more or less made by the rain water flowing downhill and comparatively more difficult to walk upon. We reached back to the hut to wash up with ice cold water and have something to eat.
It was a nice walk, not as long or challenging as I like but not too bad either.
Called the driver to take us to the town. Bought some snacks for next day and walked around the town square.
Places like this can be covered by foot in 8-10 minutes. I wanted to check out the local meat dishes so I walked in to a small eating joint with just 2 tables. It was owned by an old couple who answered my questions about the place. Menu was daal chawl and mutton chawal. Latter cost Rs 80 and was fairly good. Wifey had her meal in a vaishno vegetarian dhaba nearby. During most of our trip, we were drinking tap water or spring water, whatever the locals were drinking instead of bottled water and never had any problem.
After the meal, we reached back to our hut and packed for next day. Evening weather was cold and the views were nice. When night fell, we were really happy to see thousands of stars up in the sky. Living in cities, it’s impossible to see more than 20-30 stars , but here the stars covered almost every bit of night sky. After wifey went in, I stayed outside trying to take some pictures, but I don’t know much about this kind of photography and didn’t have any suitable equipment either, just an old 18-55 lens and no tripod either.
After fiddling with different camera settings for a while, I too went off to sleep.