Baijnath-Blessings of Lord Shiva

Baijnath is a temple town situated in beautiful Kangra Valley of Himanchal Pradesh. The temple enshrines lord Shiva in the form of Lingam in its sanctum sanctorum. The structure of temple is built in Nagara style of architecture.

Situated on the bank of river Binwa or Binduka which is a tributary of river Beas the temple compound is well preserved and maintained since its construction in 13^th century.

It also houses a beautiful well maintained garden where one can sit and relax and enjoy the beautiful Dhauladhar ranges which is just opposite the temple 

Baijnath is situated on the national highway 20 which connects pathankot to mandi. It is about 16 kilometers from palampur.

A railway station is also present here , Indian railway runs its Pathankot to Jogindernagar section of toy train via Baijnath. The toy train journey allows you to have beautiful views of kangra valley. So it is also a good choice to try a toy train ride

According to mythology, Ravana the demon king worshipped lord Shiva in Himalayas .Lord was pleased and asked Ravana for a wish, Ravana asked the lord to come with him to Lanka ,lord got transformed into a Linga and asked  Ravana to carry him but if he would put the Linga anywhere on ground it will get established there.

The Ravana had to go for nature’s call so he handed the Linga to a shepherd , but the shepherd could not hold it for long and kept it on the ground and the Linga got established here. People of Baijnath don’t burn effigy of Ravana as a mark of respect during Dussehra festival. There is also no Jewellery shop in Baijnath.

Baijnath temple is a peaceful place for devotion as well as for enjoying the beauty of the Kangra valley.

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Tattapani- a rafting gateway from Shimla

           image source- Google maps

Tattapani is a place 54 kilometers from Shimla which is famous for its hot springs and for river rafting in river Satluj. It’s a one day Gateway from Shimla for relaxing and enjoying the the thrill of white water rafting. Sitting on the banks of river Satluj in the beautiful valley is peace inducing and very pleasing.

 

We took a local bus run by state transport department to reach the spot in 2.5 hours from Shimla.

 We begin our trip with white water rafting; I did river rafting for the first time in my life so it was a gratifying experience. After rafting we sat on the banks of the river to dig the sandy shore of the river and we got hot water coming out just after digging one feet of the sandy soil. It was a bit surprising to find hot water alongside chilling waters of Satluj. Presence of Sulfur is said to be the reason of this hot water.

There is a Shiv-gufa near Tattapani but we did not go there 

We spent about three hours there and then started our journey back to Shimla…with happy hearts.

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Adventure and Thrill -Trek to Giri Ganga

Pabbar valley is a place which offers many opportunities to nature lovers: apple orchids, beautiful deodar filled mountains, less explored destinations, adventurous hikes, snow-capped peaks and spell bounding views.

One of my friend and I took a taxi till ride to  Khara-pathar from shimla which is about 85 kilometers away. Our destination was Giriganga , which is about 7 kilometers hike from khara-pathar.

  

                                                 image source-google maps

                                          the beautiful roads

It was second week of the month of December and were not expecting snow at khara-pathar and giri-ganga . so, we were confident to take our taxi upto the Giri-ganga Shrine without giving any pains to our legs.

                                         kharapathar

But when we started uphill drive from Khara-pathar we got snow on the track after 2 kilometers of ride. The snow made it difficult for our taxi to move further it caused slipping of vehicle instead. So we decided not to take any further risk and we asked the taxi driver to stay at that spot from where snow started and wait till we come back.

the uphill drive start here

                                      the snow filled roads

Now, we had a task of trekking rest 5 kilometers to reach the Giri-ganaga, which is the origin of river Giri-ganga and a temple is also located there.

 The happy souls.....

We started the hike with easy pace on snow filled track, we were also expecting to meet people on the way, so we were walking without much care taking frequent photography breaks.

     Beautiful valley

After walking about 2 to 3 kilometers we realized that we have not met a single human soul & adding to that we spotted pugmarks of some animal on snow.

This was the time when we sensed a degree of fear in our hearts. We started talking that probably some wild animal, bear or snow-leopard is also taking the trail and we two are the only homosapien present in the picture.

We started thinking about our further course of action, we thought that the shrins would be hardly 2 kilometers away and if we keep moving we’ll reach there soon and there must be some people at the shrine. So we kept on moving, but our minds were in super alert mode by now, we were look in all directions to see any possibility of presence of some mammal: man or wild while moving steadily. There were few shortcuts on the way but we avoided them intestinally. After sometime we saw the first view of the Giri-ganga shrine…huuh what a sigh of relief!

                                           The giriganaga river

                                      The Giriganga shrine

We hurriedly moved to the temple but, God has planned more surprise for us: the temple and other shelters were locked not a single human being was present , due to heavy snow the shrine was closed for the season…..damn!

 Locked Temples at Giriganga

                                            River Giriganaga

Our fears increased and now our hearts were really beating fast , one guy and a girl at a desolate valley, away from civilization but its not Romantic at all. We were thinking that some elusive wild animal could appear before us anytime.

But, we kept the faith in god and after clicking few snaps we started our journey back to Khara-pathar. I had also taken a strong stick which was lying near the temple to encounter any wild animal.

We were moving with fast pace now , thankfully we reached the spot safely

where we had left our taxi… but the taxi was nowhere we called the taxi driver many times but was not picking his phone. Finally decided to keep moving with fear on our minds of any bad incident happened to the taxi driver. Finally taxi driver appeared, he was burning some woods to keep his body warm and his mobile phone was laying in the taxi that is why he didn’t pick our calls.
 

Finally, we were on the road back to Shimla, I kept that stick I had picked from Giri-ganga shrine as a mark of remembrance that thrill filled journey.

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