Naina Devi Temple in Mandi - On great Himalayan hill-top on the terrain through seven lakes and the lake town Rewalsar
Recently when we were roaming around Rewalsar lake in Mandi region of Himachal Pradesh and also thought of driving uphill till the temple of Naina Devi. This temple is located at a beautiful location on the hill top having views of snow covered peaks around Rohtang Pass and layers of different himalayan mountain ranges. The drive from Rewalsar lake to the temple takes 30 minutes and we crossed few other beautiful lakes on the way. Let's check out this Photo Journey and know why it's a must go place when you are around Rewalsar.
We drove during monsoons, so first thing we want to share is that road conditions during rainy season can be unpredictable and as a thumb rule it's not advicable to travel to Himalayan mountain ranges in monsoons. Every year during monsoons, lot of landslides happen in hills and destroy various things. You must be wondering why I drove to this place in monsoons? I would say, it was not a wise decision and we had our own share of learnings. Probably it's best we know more about the place and why it deserved a special post on Travellingcamera.com .
Above photograph is clicked from the road which connects Rewalsar with Naina Devi Temple. This photograph shows Rewalsar Lake and the town around it from a high viewpoint. The views are stunning from this road and as you go up, you enjoy spectacular panoramic views with great weather & winds.
Rewalsar is a popular tourist destination and has different mentions on tourism websites. But here is something that we recommend every traveller to visit Naina Devi Temple which is 30 minutes away from the lake and a place with spectacular views of Himalayan ranges. And the 30 minutes drive is very beautiful through small villages, peach orchards and lakes. It seems that the region around Rewalsar and Naina Devi temple has 7 lakes. We could locate 3 which were just on road side. Although one of them was dry and land was being used for farming.
Above board will give you an idea about the location of this temple. This board was just at the main gate of temple. This place is just 35 kilometers from Mandi town and 11 kilometers from Rewalsar. Since this 11 kilometers drive is in hilly regions, it takes around 30 minutes.
Here is the first lake we hit after we started driving from Rewalsar lake (above photograph is from last trip which we did in summers). This photograph is clicked from road-side, so that's the view you get while driving through this lake. One can take a pause here and go close to the lake.
Naina Devi temple is one of the important temples in this region and has a very well maintained campus. During this visit, we saw lot of improvements in terms of infrastructure and covid protocols were being followed pretty well.
If you are visiting the temple during first half of the day, you may want to enjoy bhandara (food) in the campus. Bhandara space is open for everyone till 2pm. There is no major hotel or dhaba around the temple, if you want to eat anything. So it's recommended to have your meal at Rewalsar and then climb us. Light snacks, cold drinks etc are available around the main gate and if you are looking for a recommendation, we would suggest to have a 'Kulfi', which was amazing and that only costs 10 Rs.
Above photograph shows interiors of the Naina Devi Temple in Mandi. I am writing 'Mandi' multiple times when I mention Naina Devi and the reason is that there is another famous Naina Devi temple in Bilaspur. The other Naina Devi temple is very close to Chandigarh, Anandpur Saheb etc. Above photograph shows woodwork done in central part of the temple with beautiful carvings all around. Seems like, temple administration has improved overall infra during covid times when footfall was negligible. Lot of organisations made good use of this forced lockdown, because otherwise it's extremely hard to close the premises. So they always need to do construction with normal operations.
Above photograph shows the main part of the temple with Naina Devi idol decorated beautifully with silver frames and all these idols sitting inside a beautiful wooden temple having some intricate carving work. Many temples in Mandi, Kullu, Shimla, Kinnaur, Lahaul have beautiful wooden work.
There are multiple temples connected to main temple and some of them are on first floor of the building. When you go to the first floor of the temple complex, you see beautiful panoramic view of Himalayan ranges and During monsoons, the scene was even better with all these clouds roaming around. Just look at the above photograph again and notice how small these 2 men look against these huge view of mountains with white clouds all around.
Above is another photograph from first floor of the Naina Devi temple in Mandi, near Rewalsar. Just look at the dense clouds in the background.
Above view is not from the temple but on the way from Rewalsar to Naina Devi. See carefully and you will notice those colourful dots indicating houses around Rewalsar Lake. This whole region is surrounded by high Himalayan ranges and on a clear day, the views are stunning. I loved driving around these terrains, although a little tricky as well given the width and height of these roads.
There is ample parking slots close to the main gate.
Eyes made up of silver at one of the shops outside Naina Devi temple. 'Naina' means 'eyes' and pilgrims offer a pair of silver eyes along with prasad at Naina Devi temple.
Here is one of the lakes around Naina Devi Temple, which had dried during winters. At this point of time, it was a farming field but soon it will get water during monsoons. This region of Himachal Pradesh gets heavy rains as well. I think this is only lake around these hills which looses it's water during summers and hence seasonal farming happens during those times.
If you are planning to visit Rewalsar, we strongly recommend a visit to Naina devi temple. Many folks find this place more interesting as compared to Rewalsar because of various reasons. One of the main reason is clean spaces around the temple as compared to Rewalsar town which is little dirty. But I am sure that a true traveller would love both the places equally. Because it's more about exploring two very different things.
If you plan to stay around this place, there is a HPPWD guest house but you need to book it in advance. There is a HPTDC hotel in Rewalsar as well, but spending a night around temple would be more fun because of the weather you will experience on the top of this hill. There are few Home-Stays on the way from Rewalsar to Naina Devi Temple. The one which is closest is just on the roadside and opposite of the dry lake. It's not the top most hill but can be a good place to stay if you don't find place in the guest house.
Feel free to drop your comments to know more about the place and if you need more about other places around this region.
We had a wonderful day driving around Rewalsar Lake and Naina Devi Temple. Throughout we were surrounded by dense clouds and weather was amazing. Having said that we don't recommend planning road trips to hills during monsoons.
It was dark by the time we reached back Jahu, where we were staying. Sunset colours in monsoons are also worth witnessing. Imagine a walk around the town when you are surrounded by such brilliant hues in the sky.
If you liked this post and found it helpful, I would request you to follow these things when traveling (follow the following even if you didn't like this post :) ) -
1. Manage your waste well and don’t litter Use dustbins.
2. Tell us if you went to a place and found it hard to locate a dustbin.
3. Avoid bottle waters in hills. Usually you get clean water in hills and water bottles create lot of mess in our ecosystem.
4. Say big no to plastic and avoid those unhealthy snacks packed in plastic bags. Rather buy fruits.
5. 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.
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