Misty Mountains Part 2 - Kasauli

Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh, India
 

 

 

Down memory lane, was the Kasauli leg of my mountain holiday. I went back to the quiet little hill station opposite the Lawrence School Sanawar, where I studied for seven years, and dragged my family to experience all that I had in those long ago days, including the food I ate and the places I roamed.

Being an army cantonment and due to restrictions on land purchase it's probably the only popular hill station in India which hasn't fallen prey to rapid haphazard development (so far) and the sleepy little town, which you can pretty much cover in one whole day, is a real delight for people looking for a quiet holiday. It's the perfect weekend getaway. Though June was peak season and not so sleepy with loud tourists chattering up and down the hills.

Our trip was a continuation from Naldehra (see earlier post) and took us about three hours because we got stuck in a bit of a traffic jam in Shimla and stopped for lunch. We checked in to the Kasauli Castle hotel in Garkhal, a teeny village between the Sanawar and Kasauli hills. Peak season and last minute booking (seems to be a common thread in my posts) it's all we got. Garkhal, which was a four-shack village in our school days, has been rapidly developed and a multitude of hotels, many calling themselves Kasauli something or the other, have popped up.

I was told the hotel was located above Mushroomlee, the only proper restaurant in Garkhal in those days and very prominently visible from the road, which now can't be seen amid the crush of buildings around. So naturally we overshot as I couldn't spot it. Imagine staying in Garkhal. Never thought I'd see the day! The road up to the hotel is really steep and narrow and you'd better hope there's no car coming down at the same time.

Commercial Comfort

After a quiet, peaceful homestay in Naldehra, the full on commercial establishment was quite disorienting. A modern construction with 15 rooms which got pretty decent reviews on tripadvisor. It had a hall where they played loud popular Hindi and Punjabi music every night and the lawn had tables and chairs where you could also eat your meals and a huge concrete patch on the wall where they showed a new movie every night by projector. Oye Lucky Oye being one of them. 

 

Kasauli Castle

My idea of the hills is to enjoy the beauty of nature and the peace and tranquility it affords so I was quite disgruntled at this situation, but got over the gripe after I realized the benefits. The rooms were very comfortable and one of the restaurant staff members who happened to be a Bengali far away from his homeland, was so happy to meet fellow countrymen that he went out of his way to help us. The entire staff was very friendly and responded quickly to all calls and that really was the selling point of the hotel. More importantly, the brats were quite happy fooling around in the play area with swings and slides all day, which left us to our own devices to explore Kasauli at leisure.

 

The weather was beautiful. It would threaten to rain but it wouldn't. Cool, crisp and misty mostly. Every once in a while a cloud would pass through us. Such a wonderful feeling especially after coming from the sweltering National Capital Region.

We walked the steep upper mall road, past the Kasauli Club, the TV Tower (which I spent many an hour gazing at from my classroom on the opposite hill wishing I was somewhere else)  right up to the Nature Trail, a scenic path wrapped around a hill that takes five minutes to cover. Thanks to our workouts on the steep slopes of Naldehra, I was quite the mountain goat by then. The road has little paths leading into the hillside which seem interesting to explore and are spaced with driveways leading to charming colonial era cottages owned by admirals and major generals and the like. So envious. How I'd love to have a place there.

Came back down to the lower market where we had bunsams (samosa in a bun with chole and chutney), jalebis and chai. The market is a long narrow line of shops selling ethnic products, cheap Chinese toys and street food. We sat on a bench against the wall and enjoyed our fare amidst flies and stray dogs loitering around. Yeah, that's one area they would do well to clean up. Has potential but falls prey to the typical dirty street market category. The only not-so-clean part of Kasauli.

I Famous

Jalebis coming up!

The owner of the Narindar Sweet House shop where we had the bunsams was quick to tell me about how famous persons have frequented his place. He thrust a laminated article written by Khushwant Singh about his shop, showed me a picture of himself with Omar Abdullah and said  ``do you know who that is? Do you know who that is?'' God(eyeroll) that was irritating. Apparently Rocky and Mayur, hosts of a food show on NDTV Good Times, have eaten there too. Yeah well you know.. don't care. Surprisingly,  the food is still the same, though the enjoyment of it a little less than I remembered as a perpetually starving student in boarding school.

The shops in the main market are still the same after at least 20 years. Sharma & Bros, photographer for the school, Gupta Brothers, the grocery shop and round the corner, Daily Needs, the place to go for burgers and cold cuts. I remember going to Daily Needs in 2001 and asking for barbeque chicken. It was November and quiet and the owner actually walked down to the market to buy the bird. I told him about it this time and he laughed. You have to buy minimum two burgers as they use the oven to heat the chicken part of it (conscious about electricity wastage) and it was totally fine because I ate them both back to back! Still nice.

We saw an array of different fruit flavoured wines made locally in Himachal as well as stuff like apple cider vinegar, which we bought (apparently it aids weight loss). I bought a rhododendron (their specialty), apple and strawberry wine too. So far only opened the apple wine and the verdict .... it would find better use in desserts.

Lawrence School Sanawar

The next day, after I took everyone on a tour of my beautiful school, with its stunning landscape spread over an entire hilltop (though I'm very happy not to be a student anymore), we went back to Kasauli for lunch. Ross Common, a Himachal Tourism department owned property on the lower mall road, is in my opinion the best located hotel in Kasauli and has some pretty decent food at great prices. The service is horrendously slow though.

The grilled chicken was succulent and a very welcome change. The hotel was my first choice but was fully booked, though Kasauli Castle was the better place to stay especially if you have your own car. Being government owned, Ros Common's furnishings are a bit old and musty and maintenance is not their strong point, BUT..... location, location, location.

Holy Places Are Holy Hell to Get to

After lunch, two of us walked the 3.5 kilometres to Monkey Point. A hump at the end of the hill on top of which is a Hanuman temple. The point is guarded by the Air force and visitors are not allowed to enter after 4 p.m., or take any phones or cameras into the area. We barely made it in time, avoiding getting splashed by cars bumping up the badly maintained road with potholes filled with water.

As we huffed and puffed up the steep 350-foot climb to the top, stopping to catch our breath every once in a while (we had to be back down in half an hour), one guy on his way down told us that his eight year old son who has asthma issues just ran up the hill in like five minutes.....I don't think that made us feel any better and we huffed and puffed on. We reached the top, paid our respects at the temple and then stopped to admire the view. On a clear day, you can see the city of Chandigarh from there but that day, a misty cloud passed through us. Ah well, still good.

Cheeky!

After that we took a very steep short-cut down to our hotel in Garkhal, picking up fallen pine cones along the way, and I remembered all the times I wheezed UP the slope (which is quite a killer) in my school days. As my walk down memory lane ended, I wondered if the next time I came back, I would see a big change in this wonderful little town as property developers are now building villas all around the hills at exorbitant rates. It seems that Delhi land and food prices have stretched as far as the cars from there can go. Totally ridiculous. But as of now, it's like time's stood still in Kasauli and sometimes, that's the way it should be.