Drive to Warwan Valley, a piece of paradise on earth!

Amit Pahuja
Oct 1, 2022
6 min read

If you're someone who would like to enjoy Green meadows, beautiful landscapes, lovely scenery, mesmerising rivers, cattle and horses grazing grass along with wonderful weather, you need to head to Warwan, a beautiful valley in the suburbs of Jammu district, just few hours drive from Kishtawar or Srinagar. Warwan valley is an unexplored valley where tourists are yet to reach and maybe that's why it's untouched and pristine till now. It is a place where you will find mesmerising views all around along with beautiful and caring people who will make you feel like home with their hospitality and warm attitude. It is a place where you will easily find solitude if you are in search for it.

We were on our annual trip to Himalayas and that's where we discovered this beautiful Warwan valley while looking for offbeat places to visit in north. We heard about this valley from one of the YouTuber and immediately understood that this could be our kind of place where the general tourists do not or would not dare to go and this is something which will fit into our criteria of visiting places which are far from crowds, serene, have good landscapes and is cold and have something to learn from. Warwan fitted into every criteria and we decided to head there.

We started our journey from Bangalore and after visiting few places en-route, we landed up in Warwan after a lot of changes to our plan because of the disruptions caused by monsoons and the landslides en-route. We started from Kishtawar, Jammu and it took us almost 6-7 hours to reach Warwan via Margan top (pass). Here is the route we took

Kishtawar - Sinthan Top - Larnoo Village - Margan Top - Warwan

The total distance from Kishtawar was around 180kms and it took us around 6-7 hours to cover this distance as 1) it was so beautiful and scenic drive that we stopped every few meters to take pictures and enjoy the views, 2) the road was very narrow, twisty and a major portion was off-road which was a bonus for us as we love driving in such terrain. The route was simple enough to follow and if you follow Google maps, it works till few kms after Larnoo village and then it's just single road that leads you to Warwan valley. You can ask locals en-route if you're lost anywhere which is highly unlikely as it's clearly marked as well.

So we were hungry and didn't had or I must say didn't get anything to eat today so we stopped at a local tea shop and had some local noon-chai and breads for breakfast here

Noon-chai (Salted Butter Tea)

Kashmiri breads..

Kashmiri breads.. I think this was called Kulcha if I remember it correctly!

Look at the all-wooden construction!

The woodfire oven ..

Lovely Views .. en-route

Lovely Views .. en-route

Beautiful Landscape all around

Me :)

There were a lot of horses here on this route like we cattle on the roads.. here it was horses and asses

The road from Kishtawar to Sinthan top at the time we went was fully tarred and pretty wide for the majority of the route. Just 10-15 kms before Sinthan top it became narrow and a little rough because of landslides and rocks falling on the road. If you maintain slow speeds, the road is pretty safe to drive and that also enables you to enjoy the drive rather than just rushing to the destination. Enjoy some scenes of the places en-route..

Road to Sinthan top

Road to Sinthan top .. notice the rocks fallen rom top .. it is dangerous and you need to be very careful while driving here or anywhere in mountains specially in and after monsoons..

Traffic Jam en-route to Sinthan top

Beautiful River en-route to Sinthan top

Lush green forests on the Road to Sinthan top

On the way, we saw one temple and decided to pay a visit. We also had a make an entry at the check-post just outside the temple to move further.

Mata temple on the way to Sinthan top

There are a lot of temples in this region and specially in Kishtawar district and this was one of the temples we visited as it wasn't crowded and was looking beautiful with no crowd :)

Mata temple on the way to Sinthan top

Mata temple on the way to Sinthan top

Mata temple on the way to Sinthan top

Sinthan Top

Beautiful Sinthan top

My beast at the Sinthan top

Lovely views from Sinthan top

Beautiful views of the valley from Sinthan Top

Roti Omelette at the top of the world!

Our late breakfast .. Yummmmmmm......

Weeeeeeeeee @ the Sinthan top

Sinthan Top .. Done .. What's next..

We spent some time here flying our drone and capture the beauty of this lovely piece of earth. Enjoy the shots!

Shot at Sinthan Top

Shot at Sinthan Top

Shot at Sinthan Top

Top view of Sinthan Top

View from the top @ Sinthan Top

Winding roads @ Sinthan Top

Beautiful views of the valley and roads @ Sinthan Top

Beautiful views of the valley and roads @ Sinthan Top

360 degree view of Sinthan Top

After Sinthan top, you need to get down to the other side of the mountain, take the road towards Larnoo village, pass through the village and go towards Margan top. Larnoo village is a decent place where you can get some stuff to eat as well if you're hungry and also pick some snacks etc. if you need. After this there's not much available options for food/snacks towards Warwan. So we picked some rotis (bread) just in case if we don't get anything to eat in Warwan. We were anyway carrying kitchen with us and ready to eat stuff so carrying rotis would have saved us if nothing was available in the Warwan valley as we were expecting anyway.

Beautiful lush green landscapes of Jammu region

The road from Larnoo was twisty and like any of the hilly roads was pretty narrow and after few kilometres, the road turned into off-road trail with broken patches and road works in progress at several places. We also encountered road jams at quite a number of places but not with traffic - it was herds of sheep and cattle and horses 😀.

One of the villages we passed through...

Village on the way

Village houses.. notice the all wooden construction here of the houses except the roof which is generally made of steel tin to stay safe from the snow fall in winter months..

Local villager enjoying hukka and sun - what a life!

Anyway, we started the climb to Margan top and enjoyed the beautiful scenery all the way. The route has amazing views of the pine forest all along and beautiful waterfalls. You also get to see a lot of houses made with traditional methods and made of wood and mud. Generally these houses are occupied by "bakharwals" known as the "shepherds".

Bakharwal houses..

Bakharwal houses..

Bakharwal houses..

Some pictures en-route

Beautiful lush green landscapes of Jammu region

Selfie to banti hai na :)

One of the many beautiful waterfalls en-route

Another beautiful waterfall en-route

Beautiful landscapes all the way..

Beautiful landscapes all the way..

On the way to Margan top, we also got one local restaurant, tea stall where we got some basic food to eat. The guy running the place was very nice and welcoming old aged guy who was very curious to see us there and was surprised that we drive all the from bangalore to visit Warwan as tourist. We enjoyed our conversation with him, had lunch and then proceeded further.

Tea shop en-route to Margan top. We stopped here for some snacks/lunch as we were sure that we might not get any thing later so better to top up :)

Dal chawal for lunch. A luxury meal here..

Notice the wood fire and traditional chulha!

Much needed break.. Me relaxing like the locals do :)

Delicious Roti omelette :) It was a Luxury here!

Photo-opp with the executive chef! He was a nice guy and we had good conversation!

When we were about to reach Margan top, it started raining heavily and it was so very heavy that the visibility reduced to few meters only. The rain turned into hail storm and then became even heavier and scary. At the top, the road construction work was going on and we had to be very careful while driving as it was rocky, slippery and very dangerous because of the poor visibility. We continued further with caution and slowly moved forward. After about 30 mins or so, the rain stopped and the weather cleared up. By now we started the descend towards Warwan valley. The roads disappeared for about 20-25 kms but after that we were greeted by lovely newly made tarred roads all the way till the Warwan town.

The entire drive was beautiful and scenery around us was simply mesmerising. We stopped a lot to take pictures and capture the beauty of this amazing place on earth. Some pictures of the beautiful vistas

Beautiful views of the valleys

Beautiful views of the valleys

Beautiful views of the valleys

View of the Warwan valley from the top

View of the Warwan valley from the top

Just before we entered the Warwan town, there was a police check post where we had to register ourselves and provide our details for security purposes. Upon conversation with the police folks, we were told that there are 2 stay options here in Warwan, 1) a guest house which was just few meters from the police check post and 2) a tent/camping accommodation which is 5 kms away but at a beautiful location. We decided to check both the places before deciding where to stay or pitch our own tent that we carried with us.