We walked down to the bus stand in Chamba market place from our GMVN Guest house. To our surprise the bus was already there for going to Mussouri via Dhanolti. We occupied three convenient seats and waited for the bus to start. After about 45 minutes the bus started and our impatience melted into cheerful disposition as we could catch few glimpses of the parenial icy Himalayan beauty.
The drive through the dense forest was a refreshing one and the range of mountains kept our eyes delighted with changing panoroma. Very soon we reached Dhanolti. It was surprising to see the GMVN guest house was located just on our left where we alighted. It was so close we never imagined. But the wonder of wonders was it is a very quiet place only a few vehicles use this road from Chamba to Mussouri. Without any difficulty we got one of the best rooms of the guest house. The treatment was better here in comparison to Chamba. One of the reasons for this was, I suppose, a large of number of tourists do visit this place being in proximity to Mussouri. Dhanolti is colder than Chamba. There are few standard guest houses and we found most of them had no occupancy during the month of October when we visited.
After keeping our rucksacks in the room that was allotted to us, we had a cup of tea and snacks. We placed order for our dinner around 2 p.m. and we went out to the ‘view point’ up the hill. The walk through the deodar forest and now and then the glimpses of the icy mountains kept our enthusiasm alive till we reached the top. The view was good but not very impressive. A small portion of the range was visible because another range of mountains blocked the view of the Gangotri glacier.
I was adamant to see the full view and hence went alone in search of a path which could lead me to the highest point from where I could see the whole range. But it was not to be. After some distance I could not find any trodden path and I came back to the view point where my wife and daughter were waiting. On the way we saw some houses and a school building were lying vacant. Naturally the question came up in our minds was, how is that people are not saying in these houses! We met one person on our way back who told us that the whole area was given to an industry for horticulture cultivation.
From Dhanolty one can visit the surkunda devi temple atop 3000 meters height having a breathtaking view of the long range of the Himalayas. In our case we completed this trek while we were at Chamba.
After coming back to the guest house we had hot water bath and we were ready for the lunch. The dinning hall was quite neatly laid but there were big size honey bees and flies were buzzing and flying near the windows. Fortunately, these insects did not trouble us much. After finishing our lunch we went to the nearby Forest guest house. The location of this Forest Guest House is excellent. We throughly looked at the guest house and liked it’s royal touch. But suddenly around 3.30 p.m. the whole are was covered by fog. Nothing could be visible even a few meters away. This kind of fog we experienced in Chamba but that too at night time. And here it is happening during day time! This fog continued till 6.30 in the evening. By that time it was already dark.
However, after finishing our dinner we took a walk along the road and saw some of the guest houses lying vacant. It was so chill but the sky was very clear. We could see the milky way and some of the big starts twinkling which we never see in Delhi sky.
There was another family from IIT, Kharagpur. We spent some time with them listening to their experience of the Himalayan expeditions. The real life experiences were so interesting that we forgot about time and place. When it was about 10.30 p.m. we had to reluctantly wind up our ‘adda’ and go to bed.
Next morning after a quick breakfast of sandwich, we picked up our rucksacks and were on the street waiting for the bus to Chamba. The bus turned up quite soon and we raced towards Chamba on the way to Rishikesh. Before entering the Chamba bus stand we could see our old guest house where we stayed for four days and felt like going back to that place once again. But no chance. We had to catch another bus for Rishikesh and very soon by lunch time we were at Rishikesh