Dalhousie - A Trip to the Hills

Every year, Botany students go on a trip to a hill station for collecting plant specimens. We were taken to Dalhousie hill station this year for a trip.

As the day approached, we realized what a task it was to go on a journey. Packing proved to be most difficult. As a result, the questions discussed in college were not intellectual or academic but revolved around packing bags and luggage. Will it be cold over there? Do we take 'soft or hard luggage'? Whether the bags should possess safety chain locks or not? Finally, the day arrived and a crowd of students, three professors and two laboratory assistants sat in the Shalimar Express bound for Pathankot. This group got off on the Platform of Pathankot by the express train which was four hours late. From there, we boarded a bus to Dalhousie which is situated on an altitude of 8,000 feet above sea level.

The bus journey was both enchanting and horrifying. On one side were the breathtaking landscapes, on the other side were deep chasms in the hills ready to create fear in our mind the moment the bus drive erred. Thankfully, our bus journey ended uneventfully and we reached our destination soon. We were put up at the youth hostel, built primarily for visiting students.

One morning, we started our first trekking experience to Panch Kula 30 km from where we were stationed. Loaded with our refreshments of scalpels, forceps, polythene bags for collecting specimens we covered the route in three hours time. The result of our sweat and pain was not beautiful but bewitching. The green terrace slopes were studded with multi colored houses. The winding and unwinding roads sometimes lined with huge coniferous or rocky cliffs made us realize what we have lost in exchange for the comforts of science and technology.

Panch Kula is bestowed with a fresh water streams running through a series of boulders. We would pass the day by preserving the day's, collection of various bryophytes. That night all of us slept with a dream of what tomorrow might bring for us.

Khajiar, to put mildly is a picnic spot or more aptly a paradise, it is a vast area of plains with a lake in the water. Guarding the paradise are hill ranges which change from light green to a deeper shade. It was on Panch Kula, the virgin forest at the top which has now been declared as a sanctuary.