Shaktipeeth Devi Darshan

The order matters more than you would think

Five temples, spread across three districts, and most itineraries you will find online drive them in the order they are usually listed rather than the order they sit on the map. That is how people end up doubling back over the same ninety kilometres twice in one day.

Geographically the five run in a line from the plains up into the Kangra valley: Naina Devi in Bilaspur, Chintpurni in Una, then Jwalamukhi, Brajeshwari and Chamunda Devi all in Kangra. Driven in that order, from Chandigarh, it is one continuous climb with no backtracking — and it finishes in the Kangra valley, where we are based, so the last day is on roads we drive every week.

Come from Pathankot and it makes sense to run it the other way, Chamunda first and Naina Devi last. Come from Delhi and the first day is long enough that we would rather talk to you about it than pretend it is not.

What the days actually feel like

This is not a hard trip. There is no altitude to speak of, the roads are ordinary state highways rather than mountain passes, and the longest single drive is the first afternoon. What it does involve is queues, steps, and a lot of getting in and out of a car in the heat.

That is the real argument for a private car rather than buses. Not comfort exactly — it is that a car waits. You are not watching the clock at Chintpurni because the last bus to Jwalamukhi goes at four, and if someone in your family needs to sit down for twenty minutes, they can.

At three of the five there are steps up to the temple, and at Naina Devi there is a ropeway if you would rather not take them. Nobody will tell you that at the time, so we are telling you now.

Bringing it together with something else

Plenty of people treat this as the first half of a longer trip rather than a trip on its own, and it works well that way because of where it ends. From Chamunda Devi you are twenty minutes from Dharamshala and McLeod Ganj, an hour from the tea gardens at Palampur, and about two from Bir. Dalhousie and Khajjiar are half a day further on.

So the common shape is three days of darshan followed by two or three of somewhere quiet, in the same car with the same driver. If that is what you want, say so at the start and we will plan the whole thing as one route instead of two.