Vaishnodevi trip


When entire Delhi was running in the half Marathon I decided to do a different trekking for the weekend. My manager had cancelled the weekend work so @ 9 PM friday i became a free bird for the rest of the 2 days. I decided to go to Vaishnodevi, went to kashmere gate bus stand by 11:00 PM. To my bad luck all the buses to Jammu had gone, finally one guy shouted Katra Katra( i thought there was something dangerous goin on- In Hindi "katra" means Danger). When i got into the bus i was seated in the cockpit(cabin) behind the driver. No one would have thought of sleeping in such a awkward position, behind the paan spitting driver, noise of the engine, High sounding punjabi songs , Powerful headlights of incoming vehicles. But still i slept. Even the guy sitting besides me was amazed at my talent, then we all had a nice time the rest of the journey of a tiring 14 hours. The bus reached Katra by 3:00 in the evening zig-zagging through the green mountain terrain. The places the bus stopped in Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Hoshiarpur and Lakhanpur all in Punjab and also some unknown place for an hour due to lack of Diesel.

Getting the Yatra Slip

Right near the bus stand there is the office for the Yatra. I went there and got the yatra ticket(no charges). Fortunately there wasnt much crowd for that and i got that in 1/2 hour time. The entry point for the base checkpost is called Banganga(a stream flows nearby in that name). This is about 1 Km from the bus stand. Your baggages will be X-ray scanned here and then your ascent starts to the holy cave or Bhawan.

The new path is well laid and lit till the top with proper shelters for resting with toilets at every 500 mtrs. Before this path the only way to the tops was through steep steps, which will take a toll of your heart(some of them counted 360-350 in one stretch). I used a combination of both which made me reach to the top in just 4 hours. At 6 Km you will reach Adhkawari where Mata took a deep slumber(Meditation) and at 9.5 km you will reach Sanjichaat. You will get Blankets/Accomadation here. From Sanchi chaat bhawan is only 3 KM. Overall the distance is about 12 Km. You get very good view points in between which can be captured in the camera.

Getting Darshan

I reached Bhawan by 8:00 in the night of Saturday. I was given a group number(you will be sent in based on the group number for darshan--much similar to Tirupathi). I had to wait for 2 hours in the cloak room to keep my baggages whereas i had to wait only an hour to see the deity itself.

I came back from teh cloak room and stood in the queue. No leather goods were allowed in the temple so i had kept my Belt also in the luggages and put it in the cloak room. I was thinking more about my Jeans when it was going to give away, fortunately got a lengthy red rope(some fellow had tied it there for the sake of getting blessing of mata) inside the queue and replaced it for the belt. There is no Idol in the cave, it exists in the form of naturally formed Pindis, three in number each representing the forms of the mata she took before killing the demon. Please see the site for religious details as i dont give much heed to them.

My Darshan inside the cave lasted only for a 2-3 seconds after that i was pushed away by the army personnel(remembered Jargandi of Tirupathi). Came back and collected the Prasad and immediately started my return journey.

My darshan was complete by 00:30 AM in the morning and so i reached Katra by 5:00 AM. Got a bus immediately and came to Jammu by 6:00. Jammu is 48 KM from Katra. There was a Harayana Road transport bus waiting for me to take me to Delhi, he got me into the Heavenly city of Delhi by 7:30 PM after spending 14 hours. Throughout the journey i had only Tea and Water nothing else.

If you want to test your Patience, Stamina try Vaishno devi by feet, otherwise you have the option of Pony /Helicopter(Air Deccan)/wait for the Rope rail. My roomies were amazed to see me in running condition and it seems no one has done this feat in just 2 days and that too alone, i had also not told them where i had been until i returned back, so they had been hunting for me too :)).