VAISHNO DEVI TRIP

Hello Friends,

A trip to the temple of Vaishno Devi should logically find a mention in my blog "One God" but as I am now going to describe my journey to the Temple and refrain from discussing anything else I find it more suitable to enter it in "Jaipurblogger".

The trip this time was not planned. In fact right from 2000, when I first visited the Temple very rarely have we been able to plan it in much advance. It is therefore strange that never have we faced any difficulty in reaching there and coming back home without any hiccups.

When we came back from Diu and Ahmedabad, I still had a lot of things to attend to at home in Jaipur and going to Vaishno Devi was furthest from my thoughts. I had Radhika's birthday coming up on 28th and we had also been discussing a get together of friends from SBBJ. But somehow all of a sudden Radhika insisted that plan the trip in between these events.

So I booked my plane tickets from Delhi to Jammu and back and started off for taking the bus from Narayansingh circle. I got the only vacant seat in the Bus and was off within two hours of having planned the trip.

The bus trip was uneventful if you ignore the fact that the lady (A Govt School teacher from Jaipur) sitting next to me insisted on pouring her heart out and telling me about the problems she was facing with her son. This young man was in his final year of Engineering at IIT and although a brilliant student, he was now adamant that he did not want to study any further. He had already got a job of teaching students on how to get thru GMAT (which he had cleared with flying colors) and was insisting that the Engineering Degree would not help help him in any significant way.

I would have agreed with his logic if he had taken this decision on joining but I felt he was a fool to drop out when he was almost thru. I told the lady about my trip to Vaishno Devi and took 52 rupees from her to put in the donation box at the temple. I asked he to visit the temle if her wish got fulfilled and her son agreed to complete his course.

I stayed the night at Mayur Vihar and took the morning flight to Jammu. When I boarded the flight I realized that I had booked a Executive class ticket on the KF flight. It was real comfortable journey. Jammu to Katra was covered by Taxi.

I had planned to stay in the Shrine Board hotel in Katra but the Taxi Driver, who obviously had some commission to make made me stay at a better place. I rested for an hour and then took off for the temple.

For people who have not visited the temple I will make the details as explanatory as possible.
You first have to que to get the Yatra Ticket at a place near Katra Bus Stand. Luckily I did not have to do this as the Hotel package was inclusive of the Yatra ticket supplied in the room. There is another que when you get to the foot of the climb. The frisking by the police takes place over here and sometimes (as it was with me this time) you do get a big crowd at this place.

I started climbing at 6 PM and when I did start I felt so comfortable that I decided that I will do the 11 KM uphill stretch in one go. Even after so many trips I once again forgot that the first couple of KMs is the toughest. I was fresh and full of excitement and therefore pressed hard over this stretch. By the time I finished this I was sweating profusely. I admit that the weather was humid but I was sweating much more than any of the other walkers. Anyway so after I had done the first stretch I took off my shirt so that I would at least have something fresh to wear when I entered the temple. My vest was wet and I thought then that with the difficult start covered and going up into the breeze I would have a dry vest by the time I completed the climb.

The journey is tough and people try to make it easy on themselves by singing songs praising the Devi. The facilities along the way are excellent with a cafe and restaurant located at every interval of two to three KMs. There are benches placed all along the route and in general the climbers encourage each other.

As decided by me I did not use the facilities and the bench and did a very fast non stop climb, completing the distance of 11 KM mostly uphill in two hours flat.

The vest was now so wet that the sweat had dripped into my underpants. When I completed the climb many people actually thought that I was roaming around after having taken a bath with my vest on. This gave me the idea of taking a bath at the ghats.

Most times when we have been to the temple we have booked a room at the top and have visited the temple after having a bath in the attached bathroom (reasonable facilities). So I reached the Men's ghat hoping that it would be a covered area. The ghat turned out to be an open space with taps. I took the bath with my underwear on and then discarded the vest and the underwear, wore my trouser and shirt and made for the last que for the temple.

Unfortunately it was arti time and I had to wait for a long time before I got my chance to get into the temple.

We generally get back to Katra after the visit to the Devi temple but I do not know what came over and I decided that I will climb further to the Bhairon temple (a good 2 km steep climb). On reaching there I rested for a while, had some desi ghee ka halwa and then started my downhill journey at midnight.

For most of us this would seem the easy part but I was really tired by then and my knees really hurt when i stupidly used the step (359 of them plus another couple in the early 100s). I reached the bottom of the hill (13 KMs now) at 3.30 AM.The use of the steps made me sweat once again and I actually did most of the downhill journey bare bodied. It was quite a ridiculous sight, a person sweating while going downhill but I was beyond caring.

Reached the hotel and found it extremely difficult climbing the four floors to the room (lift was not working).

Next morning I was back in Jammu and then took the flight to Delhi. A bus ride to Jaipur then ended my journey to Vaishno Devi.

The journey has always given me a lot of satisfaction and this time it was different as I actually did a non stop climb in my personal best time of two hours.

The idea of taking the bath at the ghats, the visit to the Bhairon Temple was all spur of the moment decisions and the accomplishment gave satisfaction.

I am sure everyone who has made the climb will have their own stories to tell.
Best regards
Manoj