Rohru

Rohru is the kind of town that serves two very different types of travellers, and knowing which one you are matters for how much you enjoy it.

If you are headed to Chanshal Pass, Dodra Kwar, or anywhere in the upper Pabbar Valley, Rohru is your last supply stop. Period. Fill your tank here. Hit the ATM. Stock up on food and water. Charge your phone. After Rohru, the infrastructure disappears and does not come back for a long time.

But Rohru is also worth spending time in, and that part gets overlooked because the town itself is probably not what you are picturing. This is not a quiet hill station. Rohru is a working commercial hub, noisy and energetic, built around the apple trade. During harvest season (September to November), the main road is thick with apple laden trucks, the bazaar buzzes with buyers and traders, and the whole town runs on fruit and commerce. The rest of the year it is calmer, but it is always a market town first, the kind with provisions shops, loud morning activity, and the purposeful bustle that comes from being the last real town before the mountains get serious.

So where is the beauty? Around Rohru, not in it. The apple orchards lining the valley road between Hatkoti and Chirgaon are thick and productive. The Rohru, Hatkoti, Jubbal, and Kotkhai belt is sometimes called the Golden Apple Belt of Himachal, and it earns the name. Rich Red and Royal Delicious are the varieties you will see stacked in crates at every roadside during harvest. And the Pabbar River, grey green and fast, running down from the Chandan Nahan glacier in the Chanshal range, is one of the oldest trout fishing stretches in Himachal Pradesh. Brown and rainbow trout have been in this water since the British stocked it.

The town sits on the left bank of the river at about 1,525 metres. You will find a bazaar with provisions shops, a few hotels and guesthouses, dhabas serving north Indian food, an HPTDC rest house, a government hospital, a post office, and the one ATM and fuel pump that everyone heading to Chanshal needs to know about. There are a couple of carved wooden temples in town, including the Shikhru Devta temple in the centre, the presiding deity of Rohru and the focus of an annual festival in April with genuine local energy.

The Pabbar River is the thread connecting everything in this valley. Downstream, it passes through Hatkoti and its 9th century temple complex. Upstream, it narrows through Chirgaon past the Dhamwari trout hatchery (about 25 km from town) and continues toward the headwaters near Chanshal Peak. The stretch between Rohru and Chirgaon is considered some of the best trout water in Himachal. Fishing is regulated. You need a permit from the state fisheries department, rod and line only, and the season is generally March to October. Ask at the fisheries office in Rohru for current rules and prices, as these change.

Honest framing. Rohru is not a place you come for luxury, silence, or pretty backdrops of the town itself. The hotels are basic. The food is standard north Indian dhaba fare. The town is loud during apple season and functional the rest of the year. What it gives you is a comfortable altitude, a genuinely good river, apple orchards in every direction, and the fact that it is the last place with real facilities before the road climbs into some of the most remote and rewarding country in Himachal. One night here before a Chanshal run is the minimum. Two nights if you want to fish, visit Hatkoti and Giri Ganga, and let the valley settle in instead of just driving through it.