My World: Journey from Amritsar to Dalhousie...

While the first day of our Punjab and Himachal Pradesh tour was for Amritsar, second day we had booked our train from Amritsar to Pathankot, and then after had planned to take bus to Dalhousie. Our train was at 8:30 in the morning and we were quite on time, but the train was almost 3hours late and by the time we reached Pathankot it was 2. Pathankot railway station and bus station are quite close by, but with baggage and kid, we took auto rickshaw. We had lunch at Hotel Green and inquired at Bus station for Dalhousie. We had missed Pathankot - Dalhousie bus by few minutes and they suggested us to take the Chamba bus, which would drop us at Baniket and there after we could take taxi to Dalhousie. That was the ordinary State Government Bus, while there were other AC buses to Dharamshala and near by places. You start the climb to the Himalayas, with-in few kilometers drive from Pathankot. While we were looking for the snow capped Himalayan peaks, the drive was similar to any hill-station, with turns and steep valleys, but with no signs of snow, and kiddo throughout the journey was checking when she could find snow. By the time we reached Baniket, it was 6 in the evening and it was already dark and it started pouring heavily. There are quite a number of taxis at Baniket bus stand(which is just a road on the Pathankot-Chamba Road) to take you to Dalhousie, we took one. We had checked for a budget hotel on net at Dalhousie and asked our driver to take there. The hotel was quite a distance from Dalhousie bus station and our driver instead suggested us to take to a hotel near station at the same price. He suggested, its only during peak season, thats in May you need to go for online bookings and rest of the year, you can get hotel at budget rates for direct check-in. As we neared the hotel, the pouring rain turned snow. Just as we reached the hotel, it snowed so heavily, with-in minutes, the road was filled with snow. It was our first experience with snow fall and we went crazy. Hubby and driver went to check the hotel, the hotel was ok, but with heavy fall, we had no other option as well to drive to other hotel. It was freezing cold and we went to our room to warm up in the heater. We were in no mood to sleep and waiting for the sunrise, to go out and play in snow outside. But a very tiring journey from Amritsar to Dalhousie made us fall asleep.