[wanderernomad]

Rewalsar, a quaint small town dominated by a lotus lake and sacred to three religions. Its one of the hidden gems which is tucked away in a small bowl and does not lie on any major route, therefore, remains undisturbed most of the year around. The detour location and being a single destination, had precluded me from visiting it for the many years that it had remained on my radar. Finally, during the summer of this year when a group of us were planning a summer family outing, the name popped out and the trip materialized in April.
Four families with kids and four cars, all exotics barring one. By exotics I mean, the unicorn types, often heard but seldom seen.

The teaser pictures as per the norm.

[wanderernomad]

We all started around 0740 hours from Chandigarh and decided to take the route Via Una and consciously avoided the Swarghat-Bilaspur route. The route took us around the western periphery of the Govind Sagar. The route followed was as follows:

Chandigarh 92029 0740 hrs
Anandpur Sahib 92114 0900-0940 hrs Breakfast stop.
Una 92151 1030 hrs.
Bangana 92178 1105 hrs.
Lathiani 92199 1130 hrs.

At this point we went off road and travelled through some amazingly narrow lanes to hit the shores of Govind Sagar. The kids had a lot of fun playing and splashing around, while we enjoyed driving the cars around on the green grassy slopes around the lake.



Barsar 92208 1305 hrs.
Bhota 92228 1345 hrs. Pit stop for lunch.
Jahu 92251 1535 hrs.
Rewalsar 92275 1610 hrs.

Now about the town itself.
The dominant feature of the Town is the imposing statue of the Guru Rinpoche, over looking the lotus lake. The Three tiered statue has a monastery on the second level.
The Statue.



The monastery beneath the statue


The entire town is around the Tso Pema Lake or the Lotus lake. Its scared to Buddhist as the meditation spot for Guru Rinpoche and draws huge crowds from as far as Tibet and Bhutan. We met a couple who had sneaked into India to leave their child at the Dalai Lama School at Dharamshala and after paying homage at Rewalsar would again sneak back into Tibet on foot. Apart from them we met a lot of people from the Himalayan regions who said that they spend the winter months here worshiping.

Tso Pema Lake with the white Gurdwara Sahib in the background.




The Monastery by the lake.



For the Hindus, there is a Naina Devi temple on a hill overlooking the town, besides an old Krishna temple on the lake shore itself. The drive to the Naina Devi Temple is very scenic and one also comes across the holy caves in which the Guru Rinpoche had meditated. Also there are supposed to be seven lakes associated with the Pandavas here, though we could hardly trace not more than 2 of them.

Naina Devi temple


A circular Rainbow high up in the sky.


Old Krishna Temple


Guru Rinpoche meditation caves.


The valley as seen from the Caves


Sikhism holds it sacred with respect to the Tenth Guru, Guru Gobind Singh ji. He had parleyed with the Hill Rulers of that time in his war effort against the Mughals. A gurdwara was built here by the Mandi kings to commemorate the Guru ji's visit.

The place is an idyllic getaway to spend 2/3 days and there are lots of lodges etc for stay options. Best location would be the the HPTDC Hotel Rewalsar. Its the stone building with the green roof in top left of the picture frame with birds on the lake.The people with sarkari contacts can also get the Forest Guest House booked but be advised that there are just 2 rooms there.

The three Unicorns

[GTO]

Thread moved from the Assembly Line to the Travelogues Section. Thanks for sharing!