Worship diaries..

Ok ....I admit that this space is updated more with my emotional n psychological journeys rather than the actual physical journey to places and yess jus now i realised that i missed to update one of the crucial trip i recently took. Yess finally I made it to Vaishno devi after 5 long years!!



I had been planning to go there from almost a year but thanks to my sweet betraying friends who always managed to flop the plans....but this time i told my best mate that listen I am going there and you let me know if you are coming with me or not. No waiting for the groups or the right time! and like always she said yess :)) So tickets were booked in hurry jus two days before the start of the journey and arrangements were made well in time as me being a good planner :P



So we started the journey from delhi station amid monsoon drama that we all saw in delhi this year but our hopes were high and there was no backing off this time. Jhelum express as I expected was a total jhelne wala package :D it took more than 12 hrs to reach jammu still we made it in time to Katra as per the planned schedule...thanks to J&K's tourism bus service.



So after little bit of rest and refreshment we were all set to start the trekking ad the weather looked good at the base.....yet there were some dark clouds waiting at the peak and they seemed as if they are all waiting to test my endurance...nevermind we started teh journey and did pretty well in first few KMs. Then the mighty rain gods showed up and we somehow liked the idea of trekking in rain and so mighty indra dev also couldn't stopped us from moving further..



With a good pace we reached the half way which is Ardhkuwari in couple of hours and because of the large turnout of crowd we decided to move on further. I must mention that my partner having a very strong diet control habits and me being a total eating freak were a deadly combination and this resulted both of us reaching Bhavan with couple of milk glasses down in our stomach and few juices because on rest of the food items there were always a mismatch :P I bet shez gonna pay for that very soon :D



So as i said earlier also there was a huge turnout of crowd so there had to be a long waiting line....but surprisingly it was for the cloak room and not for the darsans :O see these things make us indians unique ... we will have a bang on perfect arrangements for darshan but we will sideline rest of the stuff which incidentally contribute to the main attempts.....waiting in line for the cloak room locker for 1 and half hours :O :O and that too after taking bath in chilled water at 11 in the night ....i really swear that this is the last time i m taking bath in Bhavan :P Damn it was cold ......colder than winters :O may be because of the constant drizzling which wetted us.



Anyhow after the darshan we moved on to Bhairo and it was seriously a piece of cake....trekked the most steep way of 2 km in jus half hour B-) and contrary to my belief that the way to Bhairo is generally full of horse's shit and slippery mud and we being bare foot would make the trek more painful ....we made it pretty nicely.



Finally we were at our final destination in about 8 hours .....yeah i know this is the worst record so far but we also halted coz of heavy rains at places and yess there was a power blackout on the way to Bhavan and also remember that 1.5 hour waiting line fr lockers :D so we did nice right?



And we thought now the challenging part is over and we will climb down nice and easy in couple of hours.....BUT to my surprise my sweetheart had different plans !! Yess though i noticed the fascination in shutey's eyes for seeing Ardhkuwari cave in mid way only but never knew that she will make me walk 2 KM's extra to rech that cave again on our way down :| Yeah we came back by the most unexpected new route and until Bhavan climbing down was again a cake walk expect for an instance where we almost slide into the valley because of that mixture of mud, shit and what not :D



Now comes the most challenging part of the journey ...climbing down from Bhavan to Ardhkuwari via new route. Despite being the newly constructed the tiles have been totally broken by the monsoon and since it is not at all steep so it really doesnt make much difference in the timing of the trekking both ways...

This was the most difficult trek I have ever did....may be because of the fatigue of the whole journey we covered so far or may be the tiredness was because of getting drenched in rain without taking breaks and bothering to dry ourselves...My pal did pretty fair than me. I was a total wreck at this point of time and I swear that I am not coming again n foot to this place....Take a helicopter and get down near Bhavan was my ideal way f reaching there in those moments :D

We also couldn't thought of stopping by and taking some rest because covering 1 km in one hour seemed to be our pace and with this there was no way we could have made to the Jammu station in the evening to catch Rajdhani with pit stops. :| So we kept moving.....at one point i saw a empty bench and laid there telling my beloved companion (who made me come by that terrible route despite my numerous efforts to lure her for the other shorter route :P) to keep moving and i will catch her up in sometime. BUt as expected she also could not avoided the tempting benches offering their cosy space for a break and yess we slept there with our bags...shawls...jackets on and slept there for 35 minutes: O I tell you that was THE best nap i ever had apart from the two other which I am not likely to disclose here or anywhere else ;)



And yess without boring you any further I will say that finally after that pit stop and dragging ourselves to the Ardhkuwari....we finally reached and shutey ran straight to the queue with some jugaad and got into the long queue for darshans ....and I ....I headed straight to a bench crowded with some aunties and slet there for an hour by the time my Darshan craving sis was back from her fasciations :P n guess what did she say after coming back...."You know what Vinny it was only a cave" and i was like yeah so what else were you expecting :O :P :D and then we headed back downwards and against my decision of riding a baghi or a horse i went down on my bare foots...not becoz i had regained the lost stamina but because i couldn't find any bagghis or horse x-( huh :P



But it was a wise decision i actually regained my momentum later and we regained our pce of 4 KMs per hour :) n yess What i learned was pushing my limits when my head said its totally gme over for my bare foots ....I gave myself chance to prove it wrong! ;)



And after that ...we reached safely home after roaming in few temples in Jammu in the evening....thanks to Rajdhani's timing and a good night sleep.



So this was all from my trip.....and you know what I never realised I will be skipping all the important messages that I wanted to give thru the blog while reaching the climax of it. My bad .... I got bored atually! :P :P



Anyways Cheers.....Jai Mata Di :)