Every morning was a joy in Dharamkot, not only because of the variety of birds in the area but also due to a reasonably priced restaurant, Gecko, which was just few minutes away from our guest house. Gecko served some wonderful breakfast combinations with juice, eggs, sandwiches, baked beans on toast, salad and more, a mouth-watering start to the day.

Since we were quite active it went down well, though we also ended up relaxing in Dharamkot as compared to our previous destinations. Today was one such day, it was pouring at noon, so after breakfast we ended up going back to the room, sitting in our balcony. Guess what we were greeted by, not one but two rainbows.

One above the other, we were ecstatic, this was the first time we had seen two rainbows placed like that, one was radiating much more than the other. We stood and watched till both of them faded away as the gray clouds slowly descended into the valley spreading a gloomy sensation. Soon there were sporadic showers giving us an excuse to laze around the entire day, sipping wine playing UNO and watching television. In the evening we went for a short walk, well not really a walk, we decided to eat all over again. Except not a Geckos this time we went to a restaurant with a captivating view, Radha Krishna.
Radha Krishna has a huge balcony laid out with mattresses, so people could just sit, stretch their legs and enjoy their meal. It was lit up with lovely lanterns, and perhaps the best view that any restaurant in Dharamkot can offer. The entire valley can be seen from here, flickering spots of light dotting the scenery.

Not only was the place beautiful, but the food was also presented beautifully and that left us licking our lips for more. Of course not everyone was happy with what they ordered but we were delighted. We spent the day lazing around and feasting.
No feast is complete without a dessert and a name so apt, “Hello to the Queen”, we were too tempted to order for it. It includes ice cream, banana, cookies, nuts and caramel, if your mouths watering you have company, for the saliva seems to accumulate rapidly as I recollect the moment we said Hello!

After that all we could do is slowly make our way back to the room, our stomachs exploding after committing the sin of gluttony. But thankfully the next day we planned to do a short trek from Dharamkot to a small hamlet called Naddi, which was 4 kms away. From Naddi we planned to visit Dal lake.

We woke up early, had a quick breakfast, asked for directions to Naddi and were soon on our way. The road to Naddi is in the opposite direction to the shortcut that leads to McLeod Ganj, the view is the same as you walk through the road with trees on either sides.

We were surrounded by Fir and Deodar trees, they seem to expel energy, we all ended up taking pictures of ourselves and the tree. Not many people were there on the path, so we were walking peacefully, enjoying the surroundings of the Tibetan land.
Soon the road split up and we were a little confused, there were other tourists but they didn’t seem to know the way. We decided to get off the main road and walk on the natural path that laid before us.

On our way we came across an open spot that was decorated with Tibetan flags, here the road split again with one road leading to the Buddhist temple, we were completely lost by now, all of a sudden we could hear some loud noise as though an entire stadium filled people were cheering.

We could not make out where the sound was coming from, except that it was down hill, so we went off route trying to figure out what was happening until we realized that we needed to get higher as the lower we got the thicker the forest seemed.

We climbed back up and far in the distance through the trees we got to see what looked like a football stadium. People were cheering and the atmosphere created was sending ripples through the valley, even the monks seemed to be having a good time here.

After walking for atleast an hour, we decided to take a short break and have a few sips of water. That’s when we came across a couple of women young and old gathering twigs from the forest. It was laden with yellow brown leaves, thanks to the amount of trees.

A group of women who were gathering leaves passed us, we were awe struck, human beings exhibiting the qualities of ants. The ability to carry something much larger than the size of their bodies.
These women were on their way to a village down the same path that we were on. So we were assured that we would reach Naddi village.

The view was spectacular, no matter how many times we stopped to soak up the sights on this holiday we never got tired of doing it all over again with every journey.

We ended up reaching a village that had a concrete road and couple of new houses were being constructed there. Just beyond a house under construction we came across some steps, that led to the top of the hill.

On climbing these steps, there was another path leading to a vast expanse of green fields. As we moved ahead the view got spectacular, we were at the peak. Horse stable, stepped fields, birds chirping all put together with a gorgeous sky left us content with our short trek. Of course at that time we didn’t know where Dal lake was located.

We walked through some of the fields, looking for a good spot to relax, there were flowers blooming around us. So we opened up another bottle of wine, we carried these fruit wines with us everywhere on this trip, they were really nice.
After a bit we started walking around yet again through the fields, trying to figure out what vegetables or pulses were growing. We found ourselves in the midst of a Eggplant or Brinjal field. These are the brinjal flowers before the fruit grows.

There were wheat fields as well, quite similar to that of old Manali, some of the fields were already harvested with only the stubs of the stems rooted in the ground.

This village, not sure if its Naddi, had a couple of houses along the stepped fields.

A bare tree stood tall among the fields here, trees don’t have to be alive to be fascinating. Their fractular branch structure generally tends to attract attention.
We got back on the path from where we took a detour, and asked a passerby about Dal lake. He pointed down at the bottom of the hill, and we were surprised, because the lake seemed very uninteresting. The water looked polluted and muddy, and lots of cars were parked outside, so it wasn’t worth walking down. We decided to head back to our hotel in Dharamkot, in a short while the sun would begin to set and we wanted to be back while the path was still visible. These birds who seemed to be playing a little game, there were a few more in the vicinity darting about. A monk was making his way to the same village we had just departed from, their cloaks add colour to these places. We walked back with the setting sun in view.
If you recollect earlier on in the post we had a picture of the flags, where the road split and led to a monastery. This is the same place where the rocks were piled up. We noticed a similar thing, except that the rocks were well-balanced, in Tabo, Spiti. It must be having some significance in Buddhism. As soon as the sun started to set the grey clouds started coming in, luckily we made it back before it started to pour!

Connect with us: