Jibhi is a beautiful village situated at a distance of 58 km from Mandi town in Banjar valley. This village is surrounded by an array of majestic mountains, on all the four sides adding to the scenic beauty of the place. The language, culture, history, food and the panorama of this mesmerizing place will make you forget everything once you enter, or in my language it’s the perfect place to feel the Himalayas. When you live in a country with 29 states with each state having different food, culture, history andlanguage, it becomes really tough to find the perfect destination for a weekend. Some may go for places like Manali, Shimla where you can roam around the market, chill in the discos but for me its always the peace and the tranquillity that matters, which I get in the places like Jibhi, Kasol or Malana.
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| welcome to Tirthan valley | | | | | | |
Tripping on Road to Jibhi
It was a cold winter day, with the cool breeze flowing around when I planned my weekend trip to Jibhi with my friends.We started our bikes and drove under the stony mountains of Pandoh along the gushing Beas river flowing opposite to our direction. The scenic beauty of the mountains along the highway to Jibhi is enough to feel the real Himalayas. After a 2 hours drive we reached the Aut tunnel from where we moved to Banjar Valley. The breathtaking views along the road were making my heart pound widely. Banjar is a land of rawness and purity, every village and temple in the region has a story lurking behind it. When you drive along such a beautiful valley with the cold breeze rustling around your hair and herd of sheeps slowing down your bike, then you can feel the rawness and the magic which these offbeat destinations provide you.
Jibhi is around 8 km from Banjar so we drove slowly and clicked some great pictures from our mobile. While driving I remembered Pico Iyer’s words, he said
“We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspaper will accommodate and we travel, in essence, to become young fools again- to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more”- Pico Iyer.
These great words always inspire me to travel more and more. The 8km journey from Banjar to Jibhi literally took us around 1 hour. I stopped number of times on the highway talking to strangers asking about their life in the valley.
Prem lal described me about the mysteries of the mountain close to his hometown in Banjar where his sheeps used to get vanished. He’s my first local friend. He told me many such stories related to the valley.
We reached Jibhi around 7 in the evening. The first sight of village was amazing, you could spot small houses made up of woods with few shops in the area. I have always traveled to places before with huge crowd, like Manali, Shimla but this time the view was totally different, it was something which I never saw before. The peace that Jibhi offers is somewhat different. You can feel the essence of pure air of deodar trees lingering around you, cleansing your soul.
I FEEL HIMALAYAS
As it was too cool and we were hungry so we started looking for budget options for our stay in Jibhi. We parked our bikes and started wandering on our feet to find some cheap accommodation for the night. As we were crossing across the village I spotted a beautiful cottage in the midst of valley. We crossed a small bridge made up of wood to reach that cottage. The first sight of the cottage made me remember the lines of Katherine McIntyre-
“Being inside this cottage, with dark wooden walls and hand carved furniture like my own home, cast a darkened strain onto my heart.”
Such was the beauty of that cottage. We looked around the cottage but could not spot anyone and then the sound came from the midst of deodar trees wait wait, we could spot a tall person with long beard coming toward us. The name of the guy was Saket Sankhyan, he told us that he was the owner of the cottage. We inquired for the rooms but the price was, little off of our budget. After some long negotiation we settled for some decent price. The warmth of the hospitality was the kind that could get us through a cold night of Jibhi. We changed our clothes, had some dinner and enjoyed the beautiful sky full of stars. After that we entered a room with highly intricately designed roof where we sat with some local people enjoying the local tales of the place. The owner himself being a Photographer showed some of his interesting pictures of the place and the culture of the people. And around 12 o’clock we all went to sleep.
About the day in Jibhi
As the first ray of sunlight broke over the snow canopied mountains entered our room, I dragged my self to the corner of bed pulling away the curtains. The first sight of the valley seemed like an artistic interpretation of the fairy tale drawn by some renowned artist.
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| Scenic view of the valley |
After that we took a bath and prepared ourselves for the local sightseeing of Jibhi, as the owner of our cottage Saket Sankhayan has promised to show us around. He took us through the whole village and introduced us to the local people of the village. The men were going for hunting “as snow brings the animals down from the mountains” according to our guide. The whole village was looking beautiful, women were collecting the fodder for burning, childrenwere playing in the snow, whole panorama was fabulous and can not be delineated in words.
Then, at the end of spending a blissful day, it was time to return from Jibhi to my eagle’s nest Sundernagar. And yet another trip of my life was successful leaving behind the faded memories of the place.