For the final leg of our trip, we left the Club Mahindra Resort post breakfast after a ceremonial farewell from the staff as well as some of the other guests. A typical mountain road, and a few detours via some not-so-good roads (to save fuel and state taxes), a tea halt and a few hours later we were at our hotel – The Grand View Hotel, located right next to the bus stand. A heritage hotel dating back to the 19th Century, with period furniture and furnishings. Our room was a Deluxe Room on the first floor affording an excellent view of the Valley below and the mountains ahead. A very friendly and hospitable staff, especially their owner Mrs Radhika Chaddha who made it a point to greet and chat with every guest at the dinner table, their equally affable Restaurant Manager Mr. Ajay Rana who ensured that no detail was too small to be overlooked, and a great team of friendly staff always within beckoning distance to ensure your every request was promptly attended to.
After settling in, and with no other plan in mind, we decided to explore the environs of the hotel as next day we had planned to go sightseeing. Dalhousie is actually a one-horse town, with no shopping or bazaar and the only bazaar – if you can call it that – was around the hotel. A steep climb along a winding hill road eventually brought us to the Gandhi Chowk and the Subhash Chowk. Nothing great here except a few Maggi Points, boiled corn shops and some local food shops. Five minutes later we were heading back, fortunately, it was a descent this time. Along the way, we came across the Kwality Restaurant which was a known brand in the 1960’s and ’70s. Counting on its brand equity, we entered the restaurant and we had an excellent Indian Lunch – Butter Chicken, Tandoori Rotis and Apple Pie and Ice Cream for dessert before heading back to the hotel for a siesta. At dinner, Mr. Rana gave us a voucher entitling us to a 10% Discount at Kwality’s, which incidentally, also belonged to their group. However, we noted that even without the voucher, we had still gotten the discount. I guess in view of the competition, everybody was getting the discount there
The weather gods had been unusually kind to us during our entire vacay period, but today, the rain came down with a bit of a vengeance. It was bad the next day too and we decided to not venture on our sightseeing. We still had a day tomorrow, going by our original plan. But as the weather got worse, I kind of panicked and decided not to push our luck further. As such, we were supposed to check out on 18th July early morning and head straight to Gaggal Airport tocatch our flight to Delhi at around 1300 hours. We would need to reach the airport around 11am latest and it was at least a 3 – 4 hours journey even in good weather. We could of course have left in time accordingly, weather being good. But me being me, I decided to curtail our stay in Dalhousie by a day and instead head for Gaggal on 17th, spend the night in a hotel close to the airport and avoid any tension.
The next morning, there was no sign of rain at all. The sun was out and it looked like we had made a rushed decision. But we stuck to it, and left for Gaggal that morning arriving by lunch time. No problems en route at all. For lunch, we discovered a Pizza place – Dr. Deoz’s Pizza less than 100 m from our hotel and walked in. I can with an honest heart tell you that I had one of my best Pizzas ever at that place. On the other hand, the hotel, Hotel lords Highway Inn, which we had picked up after reading a random review, was one of the worst hotels I had ever stayed in. They gave us only one towel for a double occupancy room. The room was filthy, the pillows stank, and and I’m not making any guesses about when the sheet and the blanket were last washed. The restaurant tables, light switches, and anything you touched, were filled with oily grime. Fortunately there was another excellent restaurant at The Riverside Resort, not far so we walked there for dinner. We intended to have breakfast there too the next morning but it started raining in the morning so we just had to make do with the in-house restaurant. Settled our bill and headed straight for the airport, about 2 Kms away. Better wait there than in the filthy room. En route, our taxi driver informed us that most flights that morning had been cancelled due to reducing visibility, but fortunately, ours was one of the flights that came in from Delhi and later took off for the return leg back to Delhi.
We were totally relieved as we landed at Delhi and returned home after a nice adventurous holiday.
Our Picture Gallery from Dalhousie is below:
