Kalga Village - Heaven on Earth

I had planned my Ladakh trip in August 2018. Before reaching Manali, we had 3 days, of which I decided to visit Shimla. Since we had planned to go to Shimla, one of my friends suggested me to visit Kalga village where his brother had a guest house.

Kalga is a village near Kasol in Himachal Pradesh (8200 ft above). It is surrounded by the mountains in Parvati valley.

This is how we reached :

We took a bus from Shimla and reached Bhuntar. From Bhuntar we have to take another bus (we will get buses from here around 7:00 am), but we took a cab since we reached very early in the morning. The cab driver dropped us to Manikaran and told us to catch a bus from there. There was a Gurudwar in Manikaran. When I went inside, on the left side I saw some people in a pool and it was a 'Hot Spring'. This is the first time I saw a hot spring.

From Manikaran, we took a jeep and reached 'Barshini' (nearest bus stop). Then I saw that Kalga village was on a hill. There were around 10 dogs waiting to go with us. First I was scared, then some other tourists told me that these are friendly dogs and will be going with us. We started our hike crossing the dam and these friendly dogs showed us the route to reach Kalga. Once we reached the top , we started calling Raj - 'Naam toh suna hoga' 😉. Raj was the host of the beautiful guest house in Kalga village.

The guest house was in between the apple trees and these apple trees belong to mountain and grow on its own. I was surprised to see so many trees. We can just pluck the apple and eat. You can see so many drawings on the walls of guest house, especially you can see the images of Lord Shiva. There will be a dining area in the guest house where you can sit and spend your evening talking with foreigners. I saw many Israelis staying in this village . They spend their holidays for 1 to 3 months here. I heard that during winter, the Germans will spend their holidays here. Whenever we start a hike from this place , a dog will come with us.

India is so beautiful that other country people are fond of exploring the places like Kalga. I think we Indians should also explore such places and make it famous. You can even plan for 'Work from Home' since there is proper network here.

Guest House Details :

https://instagram.com/parvativalley_newmoonlight?igshid=697v0ofhjt6x

Season to visit :

You can visit here during all the seasons. In winter, Kalga will be covered with snow completely and looks very beautiful.

After the winter , you will get to see the apple flowers and then in the month of July and August , you can see the apples.

Places to trek from here:

• Pulga: A short 3 km hike is needed to reach Pulga from Kalga. These 2 villages are separated by Parvati river. On the way you will find the bridges, small waterfalls and horses in the dense forest. I even saw the landslide here and the road was cleared very quickly . The houses here are made up of wood and also we can find some friendly children here. We had pizza and ginger lemon drink in Devraj restaurant. I loved the Ginger lemon drink.

• Kheerganga: I could not visit this place, but I would like to give the information so that others can visit. This is one of the famous trek due to its hot water spring. Hot water spring has a variety of minerals and has healing powers. It is at a height of 2950m and is around 12km trek from Barshini. It is believed that Karthikeya, son of Lord Shiva came here for meditation after losing to Lord Ganesha. Parvati came here to bring back her son and flowed a river of kheer. Lord Parashuram stopped the kheer since there will be fight between people in Kalyug and this remained here as a hot spring.

Kalga village has its natural beauty due to friendly dogs, mountains, wooden houses, apple trees and Parvati Valley. Staying here will bring you close to nature.