Do Dham in Dev Bhoomi

This was a long-awaited group trip that we friends wanted to check off since last few years. What started off with  a plan to visit Kailash Manasarovar, ended with a Do Dham Yatra. With initial research we found that the Govt of India was not conducting the Kailash Yatra ever since Covid times. So instead we decided to plan the trip to Badrinath and Kedarnath  and delighted that we completed it successfully.

Through this blog I would like to describe our itinerary, giving some essential tips from our experience so that it would help future travellers.

Day	Places visited	Stay @
1	Arrive at New Delhi and get picked by driver with Tempo Traveler. Drive to Haridwar, enroute lunch at Shiva Dhaba (excellent)	El Grovia (very avg- not reco)
2	Check out after breakfast and proceed towards Sersi (Rampur). Enroute visit Dev Prayag	Hotel Panchwati (neat and basic)
3	3am start to Gaurikund, Kedarnath trek. On reaching temple check in to Ashram	Behl Ashram (average but can’t expect anything better)
4	Check out and trek back to Gaurikund	Hotel Panchwati (neat and clean- reco)
5	Check out and drive towards Rudraprayag. Enroute visit Dhari Devi temple and Vishnu prayag	Hotel Mandakini (neat and clean- reco)
6	Check out and drive towards Rishikesh. Evening visit Janaki Jhoola, Ram Jhoola, Aarti	MJ Hills (neat and clean- reco)
7	River rafting in the morning and drive back to Haridwar for lunch. Visit Mansa Devi temple in the evening	El Grovia (very avg- not reco)
8	Check out and depart to New Delhi airport

*reco= recommended

A big thank you to our collaborative group without whom this trip would not have be as enjoyable as  it was. We were indeed blessed with good weather and health with just minor discomforts which were managed so easily with two doctors on the house.

Time of travel: 28th Sep '24 to 6th Oct '24. (supposedly end of season for Char Dham Yatra as the temples close by 3rd Nov).The weather was pleasant except for Kedarnath which was very cold. 

Important links:

• Char Dham Yatra registration - https://registrationandtouristcare.uk.gov.in/signin.php
• Pooja / darshan tickt booking - https://badrinath-kedarnath.gov.in/ 

Things we packed:

1.     Thermals (needed in Kedarnath)

2.     Thick padded jacket (for Kedar and Badri)

3.     Light jacket (optional for Rampur)

4.     Good trekking shoes (if your itinerary includes trekking to Kedarnath else you can manage with a good pair of sports shoes/ sandals)

5.     Camping torches

6.     Stretchable pants for trekking, rafting etc

7.     Beanies/skull caps

8.     Vaseline (highly recommended)/lip balm

9.     Sunscreen (must)

10.   Suncaps and sunglasses (must for trekking)

11.   Water bottles

12.   Thermos flask

13.   Power bank

14.   Snacks like protein bars, chocolate bars

15.   Basic medicines for altitude sickness, cold, fever, headache, travel sickness, indigestion, pain killers

[Disclaimer: please verify latest status of places before you proceed to plan your trip or ping me personally, I will share my contacts]

Day 1: We flew by Indigo airlines from Bangalore to Delhi. They had good in-flight meal options and lot of  flights to choose from. On arrival at Delhi airport, we were picked by our driver who was with us for the rest of the trip (Rajvinder). It was scorching hot when we exited the aircraft.

We had to move from one terminal to another to find the parking lot for large vehicles. We finally made it after 45 minutes (which included walk and airport shuttle service). We loaded our luggage and seeking the blessing of Mahadev, started our yatra to Haridwar. Enroute we saw the Akshardham temple (did not visit) and stopped at Shiva Tourist Dhaba for lunch on Roorkee road. A decent place with quick service. https://maps.app.goo.gl/2kxSzuTeuzkyTYyJ9

We checked into El Grovia hotel in Haridwar. We were not too happy with the cleanliness of the room but managed. We quickly freshened up and after a cup of chai , started to Hari Ki pauri for Ganga Darshan and evening Aarti. Some of our friends decided to take a dip in the river. There are changing rooms for women. After photoshoot and floating the usual flower and lamp baskets into the river, we walked towards the Aarti area. It was immensely crowded and we squeezed ourselves on the opposite bank of the river to witness the aarti. It was a very large gathering. Once aarti was over, we quickly moved to the opposite side of the river bank to enjoy some street food. We had hot samosa chaat, gulab jamun and the famous Haridwar pooris and alu sabzi. Some of us drank the matka wala chai. After loading ourselves with very (un)healthy road side food, we walked back to our hotel , a good 7 km walk to digest our food better. We skipped dinner at the hotel and went to bed.

Day 2: Checked out after breakfast at around 8:00AM and started our drive towards Sersi, Rampur. This was going to be our place of stay before we would trek to Kedarnath on the following day. Enroute to Rampur, we stopped by Dev Prayag for a quick photo session and nimboo pani. Lunch was at Samrat Resort and Restaurant. Good food and service.https://maps.app.goo.gl/fM1WHUe9kTW4c4wn8

After a day long drive, and encountering traffic bottlenecks (luckily nothing too serious) we reached Hotel Panchwati at about 6:30PM. Buffet Dinner was ready by 7:30PM.  We had a nice hot meal with a decent variety. Post dinner we packed our trek bags for next day and went to bed early as we were going to have a very long and tiring day 3. Our back pack included – one set of thermal, jackets, skull cap, gloves, one pair of clothes for return journey, basic toiletries and medicines, torchlight, sunglasses, suncaps, power bank.

Day 3: We checked out at 3AM, loaded our luggage on the vehicle and proceeded towards the Sonprayag parking lot. We stood in the queue for yatra registration verification. Despite so many people waiting at the counters, the authorities didn’t begin checking until 5am.  TJ brought us chai which was much needed. Once the verification was done we moved to the next queue which was to board jeeps that will take us to Gaurikund. We waited for almost 30 mins and all jeeps were getting full. We climbed a small hillock and caught hold of jeeps that were returning from Gaurikund. We managed to squeeze ourselves in (almost 12 per jeep) and managed to reach Gaurikund by 6am. We started our trek towards Kedarnath peak by 6:15 AM. We were carrying only one back pack each. After trekking for a short distance we realised it was better to engage a Doli (sherpas with basket) to ferry the luggage so we could walk free hand. Carrying luggage and trekking would have been strenuous. At hindsight, we believe it was a wise decision. We paid Rs. 5000 for two men to carry 4 bags each. The initial walk was exciting to see so many devotees chanting “Har Har Mahadev”, “Jai Bholenath”, “Om Namah Shivaya” etc to walk up the terrain. Ponies and dholis and palanquins were walking by the same path. We stopped for breakfast at Jungle Chatti for a light breakfast that included roti, Channa, aloo paratha, bread toast.  One good thing about this path was that, it had a good number of toilet facilities with adequate supply of water every 500 metres. And the pathway has many shacks selling cut fruits, nimboo pani, chocolates, meals and maggi. So there is no need to carry any food for the trek. 

At each milestone we counted the number of kilometres left. As we moved ahead the climb got tougher. After almost 8-9 kilometres, it was exhausting. But we somehow pushed ourselves to complete the trek successfully. It was heart wrenching to see the tip of the main gopuram from far away. That was a motivation to complete the trek. As soon as we reached, we took some pics of the temple and quickly asked around for Behl Ashram to check in. After hunting behind some very narrow by-lanes we found the ashram. It had very basic facilities. We were asked to occupy a 8 bed dorm room. The proprietor said he would provide hot water for bath and that we could freshen up and visit the temple. We went around the temple and took more pictures while waiting for rest of our group members to join. We met some Aghories settled behind the temple premises and got ourselves besmeared with Vibhuti.

We were famished by then, so TJ and I decided to have dosa (of all items). We shared one papery dosa between the two of us and I bought some painkillers as my knee was hurting badly after the climb. Would like to mention here that I was impressed with the availability of small medicine counters with a pharmacist who seemed capable enough to prescribe medicines for basic sickness.

By the time all of us gathered in the dorm, it was about 6:30 PM. Some of us were exhausted and after a short nap, we had nice hot dinner prepared at the ashram, took some rest again and by 11:30 PM we started off to the temple for darshan. We wore our thermals and winter jackets, skull caps and gloves. We had pre-booked the SHODASHOPACHAAR PUJA darshan between 12am to 4am. We stood in queue at 11:30 PM. The queue moved at a snail’s pace. In the meanwhile, we did some small shopping around, had a cup of chai and enquired about the darshan. We did not engage with any pundit outside the temple (which seemed to be the norm in this temple) but decided to go by ourselves to check out what is the actual procedure. By 2AM we got our chance to enter the temple. We were taken directly into the garbhagudi. Each of us as a family had bought prasad package outside. This contained honey, rose water, sandalwood powder, prasad etc. One pundit guided us to offer all these items to the shiv ling, offered our prayers while the pundit chanted all our names and gothra. It was a very unique and surreal experience. After a round of pradakshina, we came out of the main temple. We had left our socks and footwear outside and by the time we walked out our feet were freezing. We quickly wore our footwear. We felt contented with the darshan that we were blessed with. Some of us had midnight hunger pangs, so we shared dal chawal and aloo paratha from one of the hotels near the temple and returned to the ashram. Went to bed with some really thick fleece blankets provided at the ashram.

 

Day 4: We woke by around 6:30AM. The ashram helper provided hot water one bucket at a time and some of us who wanted to take bath, did and by 8AM we all got ready for breakfast. We had poha (for the 4^th time… hehe) for breakfast. We had called the same two men (sherpas) to carry our luggage during the return trek. They arrived at the ashram and loaded themselves with our bags and we proceeded to visit the Shankaracharya Samadhi. After a photoshoot we started our return trek down to Gaurikund by 10AM. 

The walk down was much easier than climbing up but after a while our big toes started to hurt very badly because of the downward pressure. Again we stopped at Jungle Chatti for lunch (Rajma, roti, aloo paratha). We could complete our trek in about 6 hours. We reached Gaurikund Jeep point by 5PM, bid adieu to the men who carried our luggage, took pictures with them and boarded a jeep to return to Sonprayag

 

At the Sonprayag parking lot we had to wait for a while for our driver to pick us up. We finally reached hotel Panchwati at 6:30PM and unloaded the luggage from the TT. We were so exhausted so a cup of tea helped. By 7:30PM we freshened up, had dinner and went to bed. BTW, our shoes and clothes were all stinking of horseshit. We washed just the soles of shoes and in the morning packed them into plastic covers.

Day 5: We checked out and started our journey by 5AM. We had to reach Badrinath by 5PM as instructed by the Pandit who had booked our darshan tickets at the temple. So as per our driver’s assessment, 4:45AM was right time to start. We loaded our luggage on the TT and proceeded. It was going to be a long drive. By 7am we stopped at a petrol bunk to attend nature’s call and had chai at a nearby hotel. By 9AM we stopped at Mahalakshmi hotel for breakfast. There was upma, poha (again), poori bhaji and veg sandwich. As we drove towards Badrinath, the driver showed us the Dhari Devi temple and whether we wanted to visit, but we decided to do that on our return journey. Excellent driving by our driver so we were on time despite the roads being in a bad condition on some stretches. You can see in the pic below how a large boulder is fallen due to landslide and being supported by one small rock from falling further. This was indeed mind blowing.

After such traffic bottlenecks we managed to reach hotel Kalash in Badrinath by 4PM. After freshening up, we wore our warm clothes and proceeded to walk towards the main temple., As we had not had lunch, we ate some evening tiffin at Hotel Saket which is right near the temple. We ate idli, dosa, sambar (which was excellent). The pandit was waiting at the temple for us. We dropped our footwear outside, bought prasad box outside and stood in queue for the darshan. Our pandit ji did some jugaad and helped us to get into the main temple complex without much hassle. We sat down for the Sahasranama (VISHNU SAHASRANAAM PATH) where we could sit inside the main complex for almost a good 30 mins while the pandits were reciting Vishnu Sahasranama. After a very good darshan of Lord Narayana, we came out and met our pandit who took us around the explaining the significance of the temple, the various enchanting stories behind the place. We visited the tapt kund and did prokshane (sprinkling water to purify oneself/others) with the water from hot spring. It was a goosebump situation to touch the hot water while the weather outside was so chilly. After paying our gratitude to pandit ji we returned to the hotel for a good sumptuous dinner. Some of us got a good leg massage at the hotel as we had sore calf muscles. The strong massage helped relieve some pain, the next morning.

Day 6: We got ready by 7am to visit Mana village which was a nondescript village at the borders of India and Tibet. This village had some enchanting stories from the Dwaparayuga. Our TT was tuck because of bad parking, so we walked to theman road to take a taxi to Mana village which was a 10 min drive. On reaching the village, we hired a guide who took us around to visit various spots related to the Mahabharata. Our guide (dm me for his number) was extremely skilled at story telling and we were keenly listening to his stories about Saraswati river, Ved Vyasa and the Pandavas. These were the important spots we visited.

Nar and Narayan – Badrinath is situated between the Nar and Narayan mountain range and it is believed that when these two ranges move closer and come together, the town of Badrinath will be buried under it, which will mark the end of the yuga. 

Keshav Prayag - is a sangam of Alaknanda and Saraswati. This is the only place where the Saraswati River is visible. From below the Bhim Pul it flows all the way to Keshav Prayag where it meets the Alaknanda and vanishes and reappears in Prayagraj. Therefore she is called Guptgamini.

Ganesh Gufa – this was where Lord Ganesh sat and wrote the Mahabharata. This is a bit distant from the Vyasa Gufa. So the story goes this way - apparently Ganesha complained that he couldn’t hear Vyasa because of the roaring Saraswati river. Vyasa requests Saraswati to flow a bit easy. But Sarawati refuses as she is feeling bad that the work of writing the Mahabharata was not entrusted with her ( as she is the Goddess of knowledge) and instead the job was given to Ganesha. But Vyasa gets angry with her being adamant and curses her that she will never be able to roar like the way she does. Therefore the reason that she turns silent near Keshav Prayag and disappears under the earth. Thrilling story isn’t it? 😊 To actually visit these places while listening to these stories made me feel I was in that era. It was a mythological journey

Ved Vyas Gufa – this is the place where Vyasa rishis meditated and dictated the story of Mahabharata to Lord Ganesh who was asked to write the text.

First Indian tea stall – outside the Vyasa Gufa there exists a small tea shop which is named the first Indian tea stall, on account of being situated at the border. We had chai from this historic shop. This apparently was called last Indian village but after Modi ji’s visit in 2022, Mana village was renamed first Indian village.

Bhim pul and origin of river Saraswati – as we walked further uphill we came across Bhim pul, this was a large boulder which apparently Bhim moved to form a bridge to cross Saraswati. To the right of this bridge is the origin of Saraswati from where she gushes down the narrow gorge tumbling down as white foam. The pandavas used this bridge to move towards their journey to Swarg seeking salvation after the Kurukshetra war.

After soaking ourselves in this mystic environment, we retuned to the taxi point, bid adieu to our wonderful guide and drove back to the hotel. We had breakfast and checked out around 10AM. We were going to drive to Rudraprayag which will be our next destination. On the way we stopped at a small temple called Hanuman chatti. The place has its significance from the story where Hanuman tests Bhim’s ego. By appearing as an old monkey blocking Bhim’s path, he asks Bhim to move his tail side. But Bhim is unable to lift Hanuman’s tail. Bhim then realises this is no ordinary monkey and that he is indeed Lord Hanuman, who is stronger than himself.

 We stopped at Vishnu Prayag, the sangam of Dhowli Ganga and Alaknanda for a photoshoot and proceded for lunch ay “Café Bro”( https://maps.app.goo.gl/sZ5K6ENp8oeM7caC7). This was a modern food court which offered multicuisine food. After eating poha and paratha for many days at a stretch we were keen to order pav bhaji, hakka noodles, sandwiches etc. We reached hotel Mandakini at Rudrapyag at around 5:30PM. The hotel was beside the river.  We checked in and freshened up. By 7PM we decided to walk down the hotel to experience this small town. We returned to hotel at 8PM for dinner.

 Day 7: After breakfast we checked out and started our journey to Rishikesh. Enroute we also stopped for a quick visit to the Dhari Devi temple. This Goddess Devi is believed to be the protector of Uttarakhand. This devi temple is situated in the middle of the river bed. It was a good 1km walk down from the main road. Our calf muscles were already hurting after all the walking during this tour but managed to go down and climb back up. It was scorching hot in the afternoon. 

After the temple visit we continued driving towards Rishikesh and reached hotel MJ Hills at around 1:30PM. We checked in and as suggested by the hotel manager, walked by to this nice cafe called “The 60s café” for lunch. It was a modern fine dine cafe with the Beatles theme.  We had noodles, pasta, thai curry etc, clicked some pics with Beatles’ caricatured walls in the background and walked towards the river to visit Ram Jhoola, Lakshman Jhoola. 

We took an auto ride and alighted at the entrance of Janaki Jhoola. We hired a guide who took us across the river Ganga over the Janaki Jhoola to visit the Parmarth Niketan Ashram. Inside this place there was a small garden sorts with Rudraksh plant, and 3 large banyan trees. We shopped for some authentic Rudraksh chain and srichakra made of spatika (authentic because it was govt. owned shop so to say). We then walked back to the Parmarth Niketan Aarti Sthall (https://maps.app.goo.gl/Exd6bMEoGJrjDVrp8). We got to sit right at the river bank to witness the evening Aarti. It was a wonderful experience where we ourselves got to perform the Aarti.

We took an auto ride back to the hotel for dinner and rest. Next day was going to be a thrilling one.

Day 8: The day of adventure. 5 of us who wanted to experience river rafting set off on our tour to the Club house (starting point for he 12km raft). We had booked our rafting expedition on the previous day. The hotel manager at MJ Hills helped us to book through his contacts. The vehicle picked us up at 6:30AM.

After we got our life jackets and gear ready, our guide provided the required instructions. The river Ganga was gushing through the broad river bed. From the road it seemed like the river wasn’t fierce. After the initial instructions and trials, we started off on this exhilarating rafting experience, second time for TJ and I after the first experience in Ladakh. It was a 12 km rafting journey with about 3-4 rapids. At the end of the trail near NIM Beach, some of us jumped off the raft to swim in the river. It was ice cold. It was a memorable experience to be cherished for a lifetime.

After we handed over the gear, we started with our return trip to the hotel. Another experience that we ticked off on this trip. As we were all famished, we directly went for breakfast. It was poha again but accompanied by bread toasts. The men of the group wanted to try some adventure sports so they headed to Shivpuri. TJ tried bungee jump which he was more than wanting to experience. CJ & TJ managed the giant swing as well. All of them returned to the hotel by 1pm after which we checked out and drove to Haridwar.

We checked into the hotel and quickly proceeded for lunch. We decided to go to Hari ki Pauri again as one of our friends had found a good restaurant online for lunch. It was indeed a great experience as we enjoyed authentic local food at “The Patio” overlooking the river Ganga at Hari ki Pauri. Great place and lovely companionship, a celebration lunch after a successfully completed Yatra. Highly recommended if you’re visiting Haridwar and want to try some local cuisine. Best on the menu was the thali “Himalayan Chulhey se”.

 

After a sumptuous lunch, we proceeded towards the cable car counter to visit Manasa Devi temple. The ticket counters were crowded but we managed to get tickets. People were selling tickets on black. There is a huge waiting area with chairs and fans, so no problem there. Once our ticket slot number was called we boarded the cable car and zoomed over to the top of the hill. The temple was brimming with people and slowly we made our way in queue to obtain the darshan of Manasa Devi matha after a lot of pushing and squashing. The return queue to board the cable car was a pretty long one. We were quite exhausted with the long wait but finally made it back to the base by around 7pm. Our driver pickes us up and we returned to our rooms. We had our final dinner of the trip and retired to bed.

Day 9: We checked out from the hotel after an early breakfast and started our drive to Delhi airport. We stopped for chai again at another Shiva Dhaba enroute. We arrived at the Delhi airport lounge by 12:30PM. After check in formalities we had lunch at one of the South Indian eateries. We finally landed at Namma Bengaluru with loads of memories, spiritual experience and cherish-able calf muscle aches. Thanks for reading.

To close this travelogue, I would like to share some good and not so good experiences from this trip

 Good

1.     Guides are very reasonable so ensure to hire them for a better experience of visiting these places especially in Mana village and Rishikesh.

2.     Only vegetarian food is available in all of Uttarakhand

3.     Most places accept digital payments if you are  lucky with connectivity else it is good to carry sufficient cash 

4.     There were ATMs in Kedarnath too but we never used.

5.     Chai was good almost in every place we had. We never attempted to have coffee :)

Not so good:

1.     Pandits, especially at Kedarnath, fleece you

2.     Some parts of the travel from Rudraprayag to Badrinath had bad roads.

3.     Extreme changes in weather every day from high altitudes to lower plains which your body will show up at the end of the trip. Be prepared to have some discomforts.

Tips for travel:

1.     Pack woollen socks and thermals for Kedarnath

2.     Thermal water bottle will also be handy if you are prone to sore throat due to cold weather.

Ticket fares and other charges

1.     Bungee jumping + Giant Swing combo - Rs. 6,000 per person

2.     Rafting – Rs.1000 per person for 12km

3.     Mansa Devi cable car- Rs. 480

HAPPY TRAVELS!!