Our weekend trip to “Nah…what”!

Nah…what! This is the reaction I got when I told my colleagues that I was planning a weekend trip to Nahan. Both Shubhra and I wanted a quiet weekend away from Delhi heat, so we zeroed in on Nahan for a 3 day trip. The place is located in Himachal Pradesh, but not on the mountain side that houses Simla, Kasauli, Chail, and other more popular hill stations. The route to Nahan is fairly straight-forward: we drove down on NH 21 till Shahbad (just before Ambala), took a right to Naraingarh, proceeded to Kala-amb, crossed Himachal border to reach Nahan, and finally bypassed Nahan to reach a place called Jamta (where our resort was located). Total driving distance was about 300 kms (from Gurgaon) and total driving time was 6 hours. The roads were quite bumpy once we got off the main highway.

The place however was a revelation. Nahan/Jamta is clearly one of the most under-rated hill resorts. Probably because unlike a typical Shimla-type-popular-tourist-hunt where you have a huge market place (invariable called the mall-road!), cinema halls, several popular restaurants, and a zillion people; Jamta has a total of seven shops selling fruits and basic grocery, there is no “mall road,” and very few tourists. There are not many options to stay either – it is the Grand View Hotel, where we stayed or another adjoining hotel (I don’t remember the name).

For us, just the driving distance (along with a 1.5 year old who wanted to play ball in the car!) was enough to sap all our energy, and we were really looking forward to a quiet weekend. And I am glad we got one. We just lazed around at the resort. Krishnav had a wonderful time catching butterflies and kicking his favorite foot ball around in the relatively huge lawn at the resort. I wanted to go swimming, but the chill that ran through my spine the moment I put my toe in the pool, was enough for me to go back running for my clothes! The resort organized a fun evening (realizing that there is not much to do outside) both days with open air movie screening and other activities. Though my wife caught some part of the movies, I was mainly running around to make sure Krishnav’s football does not land on fellow-guests’ dinner tables!

On the second day, some of the more adventurous folks went to Renuka valley (22 kms) and Ponta Sahib (50 kms). Renuka has a beautiful lake surrounded by temples and a huge zoo; we had been there a few years ago so we gave it a pass. We just played with Krishnav in the lawns, went for a walk, slept in the afternoon, and woke up to another fun evening with yet another movie screening!

The drive back the next day was however hard (I guess return journey from a vacation is always hard!) since Krishnav did not sleep much in the car and was very restless. We stopped on our way back at a restaurant near Karna lake for a quick lunch. We reached Delhi a lot quicker (in about 5 hours) since there were no trucks on the road (it being a Sunday); I guess we started at 11:00 am and hit Delhi at 4:00 pm in the afternoon.

Overall, a good trip – highly recommended for folks who (like us) are not big fans of hill-station “mall roads” and seeing a zillion tourists around. Perfect place to just laze around for a weekend…