Uttarakhand VI - Badrinath

Chopta

Prelude It was around 8 in the morning, that I woke up only to find my friend missing. As I came out of the room, I could see a couple of my friends had pulled out some chairs and were seated on the balcony. Oddly enough, they were not talking and just watching outside. It made me wonder why. I moved towards them to see what had grasped their attention. With every step towards them, my curiosity only grew. And as I entered the balcony, the realization dawned upon me and it all made perfect sense, why they weren’t speaking a word. The views that we were greeted to had stunned me as well.

We were so tired from our excursions from the previous two days, physically as well as mentally, that no one was in the right frame of mind for yet another trek. The most adventurous friend of the group was down with a slight fever. With that, our plans for the Tungnath - Chandrashila trek were put to rest. So, everyone had decided to take it easy and wake up late. 

Chopta, the paradise Although we couldn’t make much of the hotel surroundings the previous night due to darkness, the morning sunlight had revealed the location's ethereal beauty. And it is this beauty that had stunned us all. In front of us, was a meadow, surrounded by tall deodar trees on all sides. A small stream of water passed through the meadow. On the left side, there were an array of tents. Our driver had stayed in one of them. If the visuals were not spectacular enough, the morning was greeted with a cacophony of chirping birds. The place was famous for bird watching in Chopta. It was called Duggalbitta. And to make the atmosphere a notch higher, there was a  trickling sound of water bodies nearby. For once, it made sense to not speak a word and just soak in all the sights and sounds. The surreal sights, coupled with the fresh mountain breeze along with the good night’s rest had energized our tired bodies and minds, except for our bellies.

In such a nice environment, what better than Aloo parathas for breakfast. Well, it also happened to be the only item on the menu. We asked the hotel room service to put our dining table out in the open air. The experience of eating out in the environment that we were in had its unique charm. And we surely didn't want to miss one bit of the atmosphere.

Garhwal

After a sumptuous breakfast, we got ready for our onward journey. Some of us had to take bath with cold water, as the hotel couldn’t arrange for hot water. One of the rooms bathroom pipes was broken and the hotel guys took them some time to fix it. And the worst was still to come. The hotel bill. They had charged exorbitantly. All that delayed us further. What a pity, such a beautiful surrounding, but, poorly managed hotel. Finally, we left for a rather long road trip from Chopta to Badrinath. 

The route was rather long with a lot of twists and turns. On the way, we took halts for snacks and lunch and lots of photos, such were the views. Must say, the Garhwal belt of Uttarakhand offers stunning views at every nook and corner. As we went higher, the chillier it got. Everyone got their jumpers and jackets on. We reached Badrinath at around 8 PM. We didn’t have a hotel booking. We enquired at a few hotels and finally settled for one on the main road closer to the temple. After having a light dinner, we all retired into our rooms.

Badrinath

As expected at this time of the year, Badrinath was brimming with people. There were devotees all around. The next day, as we got ready and came out of our hotels, we could see the surreal beauty of the place. Nestled in between mountains all around. We could see the snow-capped peaks of different mountains, with the morning sun shining bright on them. Neelkantha peak was the most prominent of them, right behind the temple. The holy town was on the banks of the river Alaknanda.

Badrinath

Considered as part of the Chota Char Dham yatra, Badrinath has attracted millions of devotees, every year for centuries. Badrinath Dham is dedicated to Lord Vishnu. Also known as Badri Vishal, there are multiple legends of the name. There is one legend that goes like, Goddess Lakshmi appearing in the form of a Badri (wild berry) tree around Lord Vishnu while he was meditating to protect him from the cold winds. The other legend, mentioned in the Puranas, was that the temple was named by Nar and Narayana, the sons of Dharmaraja along with the other four Badris (temple dedicated to Lord Vishnu) in the vicinity of the Alakhnanda River. There is a famous pilgrim circuit that follows the different Badris, known as Panch Badri.

The temple was not visible from the road near our hotel. We had to move ahead and cross the river over a bridge to reach the other side, where the famous temple resided. As we moved near the bridge, the temple was visible now. The sight of the temple had made us forget all our tiredness. The temple was a huge and colourful, standing elegantly tall midst of the snow-capped peaks. As we crossed the bridge, we could see the might of the Alaknanda river flowing in its full might. A few devotees were taking bath near the banks of the holy river. 

Badrinath Dham

Darshan We soon reached the temple. A small queue had formed near the temple. We too joined the queue. We bought a few prasad items from the shops lined up near the queue. There was good security and management of the queue by the temple authorities. This helped the queue move quickly. Soon we found ourselves inside the temple complex. And in a matter of time, we had entered the inner sanctum of the temple. We had our darshan. Although there was some jostling and pushing around, overall it was a pleasant darshan. Within the temple complex, there were a few smaller temples, apart from the main temple. After the darshan in all the temples, we had the prasad and finally came out. Camera, phones were not allowed inside the temple complex. So, finally, we took some photos from outside the temple. With this Darshan, the core agenda of our journey had completed. 

Mana Village After our Darshan, we moved to Mana Village. Just a few km away, Mana Village can be reached by car. It was a beautiful border village, termed as the last village of India, beyond which was our neighbouring country, Tibet. The views were stunning. After spending around a half-hour there, we returned to the hotel. We had a light breakfast, packed our stuff and started our return journey. And it was going to be a long and tiring one. However, the anticipation of our next destination gave us some solace - Rishikesh.

Mana village

References: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mana,_India

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badrinath

Uttarakhand - I - The making of the journey

Kedarnath trek

The mobile phone, which was idle for the most part of our journey, rang suddenly. The call was from a friend who had gone ahead. The friend who was along with me picked up the phone and put it on speaker.

We answered in somewhat of an excited manner, "Hey man!!!, Where have you reached ???".

Our friend on the other end spoke in a sombre tone, "There is a piece of good news and bad news".

I answered, "Hmmm...OK, What is it ???".

Our friend on the phone said, "The good news is, I have reached the base camp !!!".

"Wow!!!! Cool man!!!", we exclaimed.

Our friend not being affected by the euphoria from our end, responded calmly, "The bad news is, our cottages are 5 more km from here".

My companion friend and I looked at each other with disbelief, "How could that be ??", we enquired.

Our equally despondent friend said, " I have enquired with someone at the base camp, and they advised, our prebooked cottages were far and it would be better to stay put in one of the tents at the base camp".

We were perplexed, what to do, the sun had almost set for the day, we ourselves were quite behind, and to make matters worse, it started to drizzle & the call got disconnected as the network died.   

Such were the scenes from our trip to Kedarnath early this year. It had been 8 long years since our trip to the North. Over these years, whenever we met, the discussion always came up, whether we shall ever be able to replicate our North trip of 2011. We have had some family trips, but, never the Himalayan journey - a trekking expedition, which always seemed elusive. There were many such conversations of returning back to the Himalayas. One who has been there will admit a certain unexplained feeling that makes you want to go, experience the Himalayas again. We always wanted to do the Amarnath Yatra again, this time from the Pahalgam route, since, some of our friends had missed the magical and out of the world experience of the Pahalgam route. But, looking at the state of affairs in Kashmir in recent years, we dropped the idea. It turned out to be the right decision, because, Amarnath Yatra was called off this year mid-way.

There were clearly two distinct trains of thoughts among the group - Adventure & Spiritual, which made the core basis for the choice of the destination. Our most adventurous friend often said, "Let's go somewhere, where there is trekking involved". He had his priorities clear. Whereas, there was another line of thought, the destination needed to be a spiritual one, which anybody could do it. Which I agree to an extent, I often wondered, a journey without a spiritual exaltation, how exciting could that be, reach some mountain top and return back. May be its fun, but, I feel something is amiss. After going through a lot of difficulties, crossing one's own boundaries, physical and mental, to reach the lap of God is an experience, no other journey can ever match. Perhaps, its an experience from our own journey to Amarnath caves, that I relate to.

Early February this year, in one such conversation, Kedarnath - Badrinath came up. We felt this could be a trip where the contrasting ideas could converge. Kedarnath has a good 16 km trek, with a lot of options including horses, helicopter, pitthu, palki options available. And Badrinath can be reached by car. This could be the right destination. We quickly bounced the idea around. And luckily, it fell through with everyone. Quickly an itinerary was formed. We also included the Chopta trip with the famous Tungnath temple trek added to it, with the disclaimer, whoever has the fuel to make it after Kedarnath could go ahead. Those, who wished to take rest could enjoy the hotel stay. We included Rishikesh in the itinerary, as a place to relax after the intense & physically demanding days preceding to it. There was an option to do some river rafting as well. Here is the itinerary that finally took shape. One may think the itinerary is quite tight, considering there is no room for any unexpected delays, especially travelling in the mountains.

Itinerary map

• 11th May Reach Delhi
• 11th May Delhi to Haridwar overnight train
• 12th May Reach Haridwar, sightseeing, leave for Sonprayag
• 13th May Kedarnath yatra, Overnight stay at Kedarnath
• 14th May Return from Kedarnath, proceed to Chopta, Overnight stay at Chopta
• 15th May Trek to Tungnath temple, Return back, proceed to Badrinath
• 16th May Badrinath Darshan. Proceed towards Rishikesh, Overnight stay at any mid-point (Karnaprayag/ Srinagar)
• 17th May Reach Rishikesh, overnight stay at Rishikesh
• 18th May Relax at Rishikesh, sightseeing, Ganga aarti, overnight stay
• 19th May Travel to Dehradun. Dehradun to Delhi by train. Night flight to Home

We booked airline tickets and train tickets. Our stay at some of the places was also booked. Our rooms were booked at GMVN Rampur ( Ph No. - 9868006646). This is close to Sonprayag. We booked the Kedardome cottages - near Helipad (Ph.No. - 9412045813) at Kedarnath. It was said, it is quite close to the temple. In Chopta, we had booked our rooms at a hotel called Mayadeep Chopta, which offered a spa, herbal massage. After, the strenuous trek of Kedarnath, we felt, this could be a good place to halt. Rest of the places, we decided to book based on the fly, based on where we were at that point. We also registered ourselves for the yatra on the GMVN website.  For our travel itself, we reached out to GMVN tourism, however, their package didn't work for us. It was with stay and travel all-inclusive. However, we opted with a travel agent based out of Haridwar, Yatracare Tour and Travel (+91 9897 63 6681, +91 9045 33 7002, + 1334 22 0999). The office was just opposite to the Haridwar Railway Station and run by a person named as Gurvinder. And the estimates stated by him were found to be reasonable. But, this was only for the vehicle and travel. And any sightseeing was separate costs.

And with that, after eight long years, our journey to the Himalayas was set in motion. Each one of us, started some physical preparation, a little bit of running, walking, yoga etc. We used to egg each other on to keep up the good work. The motivation for the journey was enough to leave all the laziness behind and try to be in good shape for the event. As the event came closer, some of us, who had booked on Jet Airways found ourselves in a quandary. The airlines went bankrupt and got shut down. We had to rebook our tickets on another airline. We made all the purchases for the journey, right from warm socks to trekking shoes, rainwear, even a head torch. The night before is always the longest one, last-minute packing, deciding what to keep, what to leave out is never easy. There was excitement, at the same time some anxiety. A lot of things have changed in these 8 years, are we ready for the task? But, we all knew within, we were better prepared this time, as we knew, one key thing about these journeys, "Always expect the unexpected".