We have made so many plans in the past to go for the darshan to Vaishno Devi as a family but all were nothing but futile. While I was in Singapore, I could sense that I will be not that busy after coming back and taking 2-3 days off would not be a problem. I decided firmly that this time the plan should be a success - come what may and started doing all the bookings for the pilgrimage. I chose 24-Aug as the date to leave Delhi, be in Vaishno Devi /Jammu for next two days and then be back to Delhi on by 28-August and got all my train tickets booked. However, here comes the very first hurdle. The Vaishno Devi Shrine Board's website was down and I could get my room reservations done. Once the site was up, there were no rooms available for the dates I had chosen. But then I was determined this time to make it happen. I first searched for the room availability and got confirmed bookings for 23-August. I got my train tickets re-booked keeping this date in mind.
So now plan was disclosed to family in Indore as a surprise and everyone was happy that this time it looks like we'll make it as a family. Just when everything looked set, my brother informed me that he would not be able to make it as his returned date from US was likely to be after the 23-August - Second hurdle in the family pilgrimage. I had to get his ticket cancelled but then his plans got re-scheduled and he returned back from US on 19th of August facilitating whole family to be part of the trip. I got him fresh tickets which I had to get confirmed through Manu Bhaiya. He was in a different bogie but that was still ok as we were finally starting for our long due and long pending family darshan of Mataji. We started in the evening from Gurgaon for the New Delhi railway station where I parked my car at manu bhaiya's place. Train journey was comfortable and on time. I really could not recall when did we travel as a whole family last.
We arrived in Jammu at around 7:00 in the morning and after getting fresh, we started our journey for the Katra. The road to Katra from Jammu makes you witness some breathtaking natural beauty which you generally don’t find in the plains. While driver was busy negotiating the steep curves on the road, we were engaged in photography and general chitchatting. It was raining as well which made the weather cool down and much pleasant to travel. We had our breakfast at a road side dhaaba on our way to Katra. We reached Katra taxi stand at around 10:00 AM from where we hired to two auto rickshaw to reach the Darshani Darwaja - the place where you start your uphill journey on Trikuta Parvat. Bhawan (the final destination where the holy temple is situated) is almost at a distance of 13.5 KMs from the Darshani Darwaja. We hired a helper [Pithoo in local language] to carry our luggage for our journey. After crossing the Darshani Darwaja and security checks, we reached Banganga [the holy river which is believed to have been created by Mataji on her way to the cave]. We touched the water and sprinkled it over ourselves conforming to the ritual of taking bath in river before one starts his/her journey for the darshan.
I asked Mummy and Papa to take a horse from thereon. Papa flatly refused where as mom did not resist too much. Mom was of course nervous initially but then very soon got comfortable. Rest of us i.e. myself, Papa, Rinku [my brother] and Priya [my sister] started our journey by foot enjoying our journey with "Jai Mata Dee Jai Mata Dee" being exchanged with the people passing by. Needless to say that valley looked so very beautiful and priya did not miss a single opportunity/place to click snaps on our way. It took us more close to 2.5 hours to reach ArdhKumari [the place which marks half way to Bhawan]. We were all tired but papa was visibly most tired of all. Not just because of his age, he decide to quit tobacco at the start of the journey and not having had tobacco for last 3 hours had more to contribute towards his tiring state. We spent around 45 minutes there and had light snacks. We got two tickets for Battery operated cars for Papa and Mummy for our onward journey to Bhawan while rest three of decided to continue our journey by foot. Believe me - it was great fun walking amidst such a dense fog where we were also greeted occasionally by mild showers. Everything looked like as if it has been pulled out from a story book having so many beautiful pictures. I can't explain that in words but all I can say is - you need to see it to believe it. My sister was specially amused with the monkeys around and busy nick-naming each one of them she spotted on our way. The fun was on.
We reached Bhawan at around 5:00 PM in the evening where Papa and Mummy were waiting for us in the Manokamana Bhawan. From there we went to Kalika Bhawan where we had our accommodation booked. It was a well done, nice and spacious room with all the facilities. After relaxing for a while, we all got ready for our Darshan and queued up at the entrance called Gate No.1 at 9:00 PM. Temple is closed for Darshan between 6:00 - 8:30 PM. It took us almost an hour to have done our darshan of holy Pindies - the form in which Maa Vaishno Devi appeared in the cave. There after we had our dinner and went to bed. Next morning we all woke up at around 6:00 AM after a sound sleep - much due to the fact that we were all tired last night. After having our morning tea, we all got ready for our next Darshan of Kaal Bhairav. It was raining heavily and weather was too cloudy studded with dense fog. I was not sure if helicopter service will resume today or not. Since the Deccan Aviation Ltd's [the company operating the helicopter service] was still not open, I decided to wait behind while others started for the Bhairav Nath.I waited for almost an hour but there was sign of office getting opened anytime soon and gave up. Since everyone was already there, I decide to take a horse in order to reach faster. Believe me - horse journey from Bhawan to Kaal Bhairav can be very adventurous - specially if your horse happened to be a bigger one and a little extra enthusiastic. Finally, I reached Bhairav Nath mandir and perfomed my darshan there.
Now the next destination was Sanjhi Chhat as we wanted to know if helicopter would be flying or not. After reaching the place, I realized that the helipad was quite far off from the Sanjhi Chhat. Instead of taking everyone along, I went there alone only to get a cancellation done as weather was not good enough. We then stared walking towards Ardhkumari which took us lot of time as mom was walking slowly. From Ardhkumari, we hired horse for Papa and mummy and three of started walking down. On our way, we were taking stairs most of the times to make the journey as quick as possible. We did kept eating and drinking so that we get some rest as well and not get completely exhausted. We reached the Darshani Darwaja at around 3:30 PM and from there we again too auto rickshaw to reach Katra taxi stand. We then started for Katra as driver instructed us that there has been a bad traffic jam on way to Jammu due to two road accidents. Though for us situation was not bad as the road was almost cleared of the wreckage but we could still imagine how bad things would have been had we it the spot 3-4 hours ago. We made it on time in Jammu and decided to visit Rangnath Temple as well since we had enough time at hand. After visiting Rangnath temple, we headed for railway station where we had our dinner after freshening up and boarded the train for Delhi. Again, train journey was comfortable and we were in Delhi by 7:00 AM in the morning and in Gurgaon by 8:00 AM. Finally, a sense of satisfaction of having done a comfortable and long pending trip as a family was evident on everyone's face.
Jai Mata dee!
So now plan was disclosed to family in Indore as a surprise and everyone was happy that this time it looks like we'll make it as a family. Just when everything looked set, my brother informed me that he would not be able to make it as his returned date from US was likely to be after the 23-August - Second hurdle in the family pilgrimage. I had to get his ticket cancelled but then his plans got re-scheduled and he returned back from US on 19th of August facilitating whole family to be part of the trip. I got him fresh tickets which I had to get confirmed through Manu Bhaiya. He was in a different bogie but that was still ok as we were finally starting for our long due and long pending family darshan of Mataji. We started in the evening from Gurgaon for the New Delhi railway station where I parked my car at manu bhaiya's place. Train journey was comfortable and on time. I really could not recall when did we travel as a whole family last.
We arrived in Jammu at around 7:00 in the morning and after getting fresh, we started our journey for the Katra. The road to Katra from Jammu makes you witness some breathtaking natural beauty which you generally don’t find in the plains. While driver was busy negotiating the steep curves on the road, we were engaged in photography and general chitchatting. It was raining as well which made the weather cool down and much pleasant to travel. We had our breakfast at a road side dhaaba on our way to Katra. We reached Katra taxi stand at around 10:00 AM from where we hired to two auto rickshaw to reach the Darshani Darwaja - the place where you start your uphill journey on Trikuta Parvat. Bhawan (the final destination where the holy temple is situated) is almost at a distance of 13.5 KMs from the Darshani Darwaja. We hired a helper [Pithoo in local language] to carry our luggage for our journey. After crossing the Darshani Darwaja and security checks, we reached Banganga [the holy river which is believed to have been created by Mataji on her way to the cave]. We touched the water and sprinkled it over ourselves conforming to the ritual of taking bath in river before one starts his/her journey for the darshan.
I asked Mummy and Papa to take a horse from thereon. Papa flatly refused where as mom did not resist too much. Mom was of course nervous initially but then very soon got comfortable. Rest of us i.e. myself, Papa, Rinku [my brother] and Priya [my sister] started our journey by foot enjoying our journey with "Jai Mata Dee Jai Mata Dee" being exchanged with the people passing by. Needless to say that valley looked so very beautiful and priya did not miss a single opportunity/place to click snaps on our way. It took us more close to 2.5 hours to reach ArdhKumari [the place which marks half way to Bhawan]. We were all tired but papa was visibly most tired of all. Not just because of his age, he decide to quit tobacco at the start of the journey and not having had tobacco for last 3 hours had more to contribute towards his tiring state. We spent around 45 minutes there and had light snacks. We got two tickets for Battery operated cars for Papa and Mummy for our onward journey to Bhawan while rest three of decided to continue our journey by foot. Believe me - it was great fun walking amidst such a dense fog where we were also greeted occasionally by mild showers. Everything looked like as if it has been pulled out from a story book having so many beautiful pictures. I can't explain that in words but all I can say is - you need to see it to believe it. My sister was specially amused with the monkeys around and busy nick-naming each one of them she spotted on our way. The fun was on.
We reached Bhawan at around 5:00 PM in the evening where Papa and Mummy were waiting for us in the Manokamana Bhawan. From there we went to Kalika Bhawan where we had our accommodation booked. It was a well done, nice and spacious room with all the facilities. After relaxing for a while, we all got ready for our Darshan and queued up at the entrance called Gate No.1 at 9:00 PM. Temple is closed for Darshan between 6:00 - 8:30 PM. It took us almost an hour to have done our darshan of holy Pindies - the form in which Maa Vaishno Devi appeared in the cave. There after we had our dinner and went to bed. Next morning we all woke up at around 6:00 AM after a sound sleep - much due to the fact that we were all tired last night. After having our morning tea, we all got ready for our next Darshan of Kaal Bhairav. It was raining heavily and weather was too cloudy studded with dense fog. I was not sure if helicopter service will resume today or not. Since the Deccan Aviation Ltd's [the company operating the helicopter service] was still not open, I decided to wait behind while others started for the Bhairav Nath.I waited for almost an hour but there was sign of office getting opened anytime soon and gave up. Since everyone was already there, I decide to take a horse in order to reach faster. Believe me - horse journey from Bhawan to Kaal Bhairav can be very adventurous - specially if your horse happened to be a bigger one and a little extra enthusiastic. Finally, I reached Bhairav Nath mandir and perfomed my darshan there.
Now the next destination was Sanjhi Chhat as we wanted to know if helicopter would be flying or not. After reaching the place, I realized that the helipad was quite far off from the Sanjhi Chhat. Instead of taking everyone along, I went there alone only to get a cancellation done as weather was not good enough. We then stared walking towards Ardhkumari which took us lot of time as mom was walking slowly. From Ardhkumari, we hired horse for Papa and mummy and three of started walking down. On our way, we were taking stairs most of the times to make the journey as quick as possible. We did kept eating and drinking so that we get some rest as well and not get completely exhausted. We reached the Darshani Darwaja at around 3:30 PM and from there we again too auto rickshaw to reach Katra taxi stand. We then started for Katra as driver instructed us that there has been a bad traffic jam on way to Jammu due to two road accidents. Though for us situation was not bad as the road was almost cleared of the wreckage but we could still imagine how bad things would have been had we it the spot 3-4 hours ago. We made it on time in Jammu and decided to visit Rangnath Temple as well since we had enough time at hand. After visiting Rangnath temple, we headed for railway station where we had our dinner after freshening up and boarded the train for Delhi. Again, train journey was comfortable and we were in Delhi by 7:00 AM in the morning and in Gurgaon by 8:00 AM. Finally, a sense of satisfaction of having done a comfortable and long pending trip as a family was evident on everyone's face.
Jai Mata dee!
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