Khajjiar-Mini Switzerland
Khajjiar-Mini Switzerland
Khajjiar’s elevation of 1,960m keeps it utterly pleasant. A handful of hotels and a twelfth-century temple apart, the sweeping expanse of an emerald meadow surrounded by dense pine forests inevitably evokes Alpine comparisons, the pastoral backdrop home to grazing herds with a small lake, mostly over-run by weeds, at its centre
Wait for the day-trippers from Dalhousie and Chamba to leave as the sun sets. Khajjiar’s serenity grips you then. You will have to stay a tranquil night to fully comprehend it.
Khajjiar can scarcely help being called ‘Mini Switzerland’ ever since a certain Willy Blazer, then reputedly the Vice Counsellor and Head of the Chancery of Switzerland in India, or thus goes the Himachal Tourism website and its many clones, came by in 1992. Whether he was inspired or homesick it shall never be known.
but he did plant a yellow Swiss hiking trail signage pointing to Bern, 6,194km away, and sealed Khajjiar’s reputation forever. The same vignette tells us Khajjiar is among the 160 such locations around the world that bear a topographical resemblance to Switzerland, although it seems unlikely that Mr Blazer arrived at all of them himself. Fortunately for us, Khajjiar is only 550km from Delhi, 100km from Chakki Bank, the nearest railhead, and nearly equidistant from both Dalhousie (23km) and Chamba (26km).
Khajjiar’s elevation of 1,960m keeps it utterly pleasant. A handful of hotels and a twelfth-century temple apart, the sweeping expanse of an emerald meadow surrounded by dense pine forests inevitably evokes Alpine comparisons, the pastoral backdrop home to grazing herds with a small lake, mostly over-run by weeds, at its centre
Wait for the day-trippers from Dalhousie and Chamba to leave as the sun sets. Khajjiar’s serenity grips you then. You will have to stay a tranquil night to fully comprehend it.
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