Trip to Patnitop: Jammu& Kashmir, India

Patan Da Talab

 

Patnitop is a small hill station in Udhampur district in Jammu and Kashmir. It is 130km from Jammu and is on the NH 44 that connects Kashmir valley with the rest of India via Jammu. This highway is 663Km long and run from Jalandhar in Punjab to Uri in J& K which is 18km from the line of control. 

This highway is also recognized as most strategically important road and passes through some of the most difficult terrains and also shutdown frequently due to landslides or snowfall especially in winters. 

Sorry to distract, let us come back to "Patan Da Talab." Yes Patnitop was known as “Patan Da Talab” sometime back which means Pond (bathing place) of the princess but as British people   couldn’t record the correct name of this place and captured it as Patnitop in their records and this place become popular as patnitop over a period of time. 

4^th Jan 2012

Katraha -->Patnitop -->Jammu

Why now?

 

The idea of writing this post comes to my mind because I am really missing winter this time and all the associated luxuries. This is the first time in my life that I have not witnessed winter as Presently, I am posted in Hyderabad.  

Our journey to patnitop was kicked off at 11 am from Kathara in a tempo traveller. We started quite late because we have returned from the Vaishnodevi, same day in the morning at around 5am. We took a sleep for 4 hours. We were close to group of 10 people. 

 

This was my 2^nd trip to patnitop but in a way, it is first because my last trip was in summer of 2005 and Patnitop in summer is quite different from Patnitop of winter. This time, we were welcomed by thick blankets of snow all around in patnitop. 

 

This place is really a perfect place to appreciate the beauty of mother earth. It is a very small city with small population and there are not many hotels and resorts. That is why everything looks so natural here without human intervention. 

What you see in Patnitop all around is not hotels/resorts but dense cedar and Deodar forests and greenery all around and If you happen to visit this place, then this complete place gets covered with snow turning it into white forests. The vastness of the nature is enough to make you realize that you are not more than an iota of dust on the earth. Summer is a peak season in Patnitop.

 

We reached at 3pm in Patnitop and spent 4 hours playing in snow with snow. At around 5, we saw some sunlight and it is amazing view to enjoy the heat of sun when it is really required. But, sunlight was only for 5, 10 minutes and soon it become very dark and cold. We started for our next destination, Nathatop, which is 14km from patnitop but unfortunately, the route was closed due to heavy snowfall. We then spent some more time in Patnitop. 

At such natural places, one can find very good quotations painted at different places on road about nature and its importance and that is always inspiring. I have read lot of quotations but right now, I am able to recall only one “Pollution is a tax human is paying for misusing the nature.” This place was so beautiful that returning to Jammu was a painful process. But I must say that survivals at such places are really challenging and not everyone’ cup of tea. 

 

  
There is also very famous place called Sanasar Lake 20km from patnitop but we couldn’t visit it due to time constraints. 

 

We reached at Jammu at around 10 pm soaked in memories of Patnitop and started our search for hotels. Fortunately, we easily found one good budget hotel. This is the advantage of big group that you easily get good discounts. After that, we had our dinner and then simply retired in our rooms for rest contemplating about how the day went.

Next day, we planned for local sightseeing in Jammu. I was particularly excited about visiting the famous Raghunath temple which was once attacked by the terrorists. 

You can read here about another post which is part of same trip.

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