Few weeks back we planned to visit Mandi from Delhi and this time we thought of taking a little different route. We planned to visit Naina Devi temple and Bhakhra dam. I visited Naina Devi 15 years back and wanted to know how this part of Himachal has changed over the years.
So instead of taking right from Kiratpur Sahib, we went straight towards Una and took right from Anandpur Saheb. Naina Devi temple is 12 kilometers from the cut from main highway.
Road condition is good, even when we drive in monsoons. And it's not steep. It' goes up steadily and offer great views from top.
After reaching near Naina Devi temple, you have 2 options to park the car. One is near bus stand, which is paid parking and from here you need to walk up for 1.5 kilometers to reach temple.
Above photograph shows the kind of path one needs to climb to reach temple. Although it was raining, but walking was pretty comfortable because of covered path.
Other way is to park near ropeway station, take ropeway and reach at the top of the hill. Main temple is 5-10 walk from here. We realized it after we parked the car at Bus stand, climbed up and came down through ropeway. Taxi also goes up till ropeway station near temple, so that's 3rd option if you have driver. I didn't check this place, so not very sure if there is parking there.
Weather was lovely so walking up went smooth, but we realized that it's bad idea to come down on feet as we saw few folks slipping down badly.
I found this very interesting - this boy was giving 9 coins for 10 rupees and it seems that he does good business. So usually people keep the change and keep giving on the way to folks cleaning the compound.
Overall it was nice experience to take a break at Naina Devi and started our next journey towards Bhakhra Dam.
This drive is beautiful with Govind Sagar Lake on right side.
After crossing Bhakhra Dam and driving for few kilometers, we stopped Sea Rock hotel for food. Food was nice but we found it little expensive w.r.t. portion size. All the prices were matching to good restaurant in Delhi, but portions were small. But overall we enjoyed what they served.
Anyways, the journey continued without any break after that. And we reached when it was dark. The day had started early at 4am, but it was day well spent around natural beauty and Naina Devi.
If you liked this post and found it helpful, I would request you to follow these things when traveling -
- Manage your waste well and don’t litter
- Use dustbins. Tell us if you went to a place and found it hard to locate a dustbin.
- Avoid bottle waters in hills. Usually you get clean water in hills and water bottles create lot of mess in our ecosystem.
- Say big no to plastic and avoid those unhealthy snacks packed in plastic bags. Rather buy fruits.
- Don't play loud blaring music in forests of jungle camps. You are a guest in that ecosystem and disturbing the locals (humans and animals) is not polite
.jpg)