Devbhoomi – Land of Gods

In the 2023 Summer vacation, we visited Uttarakhand’s famous Char Dham, Since 2020 my grandparents have been eager to visit Devbhoomi – Yamunothri, Gangotri, Kedar Nath and Badrinath & my parents were also planning but due to the pandemic Covid-19 broke out, we were not able to make it. This year we took the oath, that whatever happens nothing could stop us we would go. This story is about our trip to Devbhumi, Chota Char Dham of India.

Our trip started on the 21st of April when we boarded the flight to Delhi from Bangalore. Delhi to Haridwar there were pre-booked taxis arranged by our trip planner. we reached our hotel in Haridwar by midnight 2 AM. We had finished our dinner in a roadside Dhaba on the way to Haridwar. Our spiritual journey started with an early morning holy deep in Ganga. Everyone including my grandparents, parents, Prasanta Jethu, Siuli Jethi and my Tunka dada enjoyed the chilled water and back to the hotel. We took a day stay in Haridwar to see the evening Ganga Arati. Morning breakfast in the hotel was great and planned our lunch in “Dada Boudi r Hotel” where the experience was not as good as we expected. After that we witnessed the mesmerizing Ganga Arthi chanting “Har Har Gange”, and “Gange Maiya ki – Jay”. We enjoyed the evening with Panipuri, and the Local chats, donated food to the poor & went back to the hotel had dinner and slept.

The next day we got up and started our journey to Barkot, reached our hotel by 8:30 pm. Following early morning we started for Yamunotri & had our breakfast on the way. Around 8 am we reached the starting point of the trekking. While starting we saw on the milestone it was written as 5 km but as we started walking, we realized it wasn’t 5 km it was more than 8 KM. We reached the top of the peak by 2:00 pm. After finishing our darshan we started walking down the hill & reached down by 7: 00 pm. It took a lot of time to reach the hotel while coming as there was heavy traffic. We reached our hotel and ate food & slept. During both ways the trekking experience was not great, narrow roads, many horses, palkies and pittus were pushing us on the way. The road was slippery too. You need to walk very carefully because on one side of the road river Yamuna is flowing with high force and other side there are uneven rocks.  

The next day we packed our breakfast and started our journey to Gangotri, we stayed overnight in Uttarkashi. That day we reached our hotel by 3:00 pm. We clicked some photos in the hotel and then went to Kashi Biswanath temple situated in Uttarkashi. We offered puja to Kashi Viswanath and returned to our hotel. We had amazing dal rice. I said it was amazing as after having Paratha and Maggi all day this was the best. The next morning, we started for Gangotri. we reached there by 11 am & the experience was totally different from Yamunothri. It was just a 2 Km walk, to the roads were smooth. As we had to stand in the long queue, my grandmother got VIP entry since she had knee problems. When we finished our darshan, it was 1:30 PM & we were super hungry so we had our lunch in a restaurant and left for our hotel around 3:30 pm. 

The next morning our destination was Kedarnath, the most challenging trek in this entire trip. We stayed overnight in Hotel Panchayati near Rampur, because of the landslide and traffic we reached by 10:00 pm. We had our dinner after a long day of hunger and slept. The next day morning we were waiting for our grandparent’s Hele service. Which got canceled at the last moment. Due to this, we started late for Shon Prayag around 8:00 am & after being full of challenges one after another we could only reach Gouri Kund by 3:00 pm and we could not take the risk of walking after that. We heard the announcement from “Kedarnath Temple Management” to stay back because of heavy snowfall on the top so decided to stay back at Gaurikund only. The first time I stayed in a motel & fortunately they had their own restaurant, we finished early dinner and slept off. We took our next attempt to visit by Pony & come back on the same day. We started early morning 3:00 am. It was freezing cold & increasing continuously. We had a tea break at 6:00 am in Bheemballi and reached Kedarnath by 8:30 am. People say “Nothing can stop you from reaching him If the call comes”. Despite of long queue and bad weather, we managed to finish the visit with the help of our pittu helper who took me to the temple by a local shortcut path and our entire team followed him. We completed our visit from a VIP entry, as the weather was becoming bad and snowfall started, we started to climb down by 12:30 PM. It was a miracle exit, people behind us got trapped in the Kedarnath temple because of heavy snowfall it took 7days to resume.  We reached back to Gauri Kund & then to Hotel Panchvati by 10:00 pm.

On day 9 we started for our last destination Badrinath, on the way we got stuck in many landslides and reached Badrinath by 8:00 pm we visited the temple and booked a new hotel room near the temple for a night stay. We experienced a frozen night that day. The temperature was -3 degrees Celsius and became -5 degrees Celsius at early morning 3 am. The next day we went to Mana Gaon India’s first village in China border and started for Haridwar at 9:00 am.

The next morning, we started for Delhi airport as our was flight at 9:00 pm we reached the airport by 6:00 pm we bought many things from the airport as we had much time, we had food from Mac Donal’s and then boarded the flight back to Bangalore. 

On the flight, I felt proud as my parents said “I was the strongest in the group”. This 12-day adventurous trip was very hectic still I enjoyed every bit of it. Also, this trip taught me how to survive in the toughest situation.

Har Har Mahadev……    Baba Kedar Nath ki jai…….