Kedarnath: the road to Heaven

Kedarnath: the road to Heaven 

    One of the most sought after destinations today in India is the Kedarnath Dham. Many dream of visiting Kedarnath once in their lifetime. Whenever I tell people about my recent Solo journey to Kedarnath they are like, "man that is so great, why didn't you take me along?" Even though none of them would have got the permission to travel😂😂😂. 

    Well, Kedarnath is one of the most spiritual places of the entire world. The final destination is a blessing in itself. That mesmerizing view of the temple in front of the Garhwal Himalayas adjacent to the Mandakini river just takes your breathe away. The place has such a positive energy which you will only experience when you visit there. 

    You might have heard from the elders in your family that the journey to Kedarnath is a challenge in itself. In earlier days of 1900s anyone who would come back alive from Kedarnath Yatra would be treated with utter respect and would be felicitated by the entire village because back then very less people could return back. 

    It is said that you get to travel to Kedarnath only when the lord shiva calls you. This has been experienced by me in my personal life too. Even though it is said that you visit Kedarnath upon the wish of Mahadeva, still the journey will be very tough especially if you are a Shiva Devotee. You will be tested from the time you decide to take the journey. 

Well I decided to take up this journey even though it could not be done earlier against my will. I wanted to offer my prayers at the Kedarnath temple for something very special to me and I wanted to do it this year, i.e. in May 2022 itself.
    Initially I decided to take up this journey with an organization called as Invincible NGO. Somewhere in my heart I felt that this is not going to work and this trip will be cancelled. I am bases out of Pune and the tour was from Ahmedabad. I booked return tickets to Ahmedabad and was waiting patiently for the date to come. I had kept this plan a secret from everyone as I wanted to tell people once I returned. But my fears were true and due to some genuine reason the organization cancelled on the trek for the entire month. But I was so strong headed that I decided that no matter what I will complete this trek on the pre-decided date itself. No matter what the weather conditions are, or let there be any reason as for me offering the prayers was of utmost importance. So, I called them up and asked to provide my travel tickets as they had kept an option of partial cancellation. But, as the date approached and I asked for the tickets, the person from invincible said that they could not book tickets!!!!!!!!

    Not their fault as there were no tickets available since a month. My destiny was determined to cancel my plan. But, again I was also determined to go at the planned date. I did some research about the routes and decided to reach New Delhi via flight to begin with. So, here I was:
1. Completely Solo
2. No prior bookings
3. Limited cut to cut funds
4. Only one destination in mind: KEDARNATH 

    Before I continue my story let me first share a brief information about the Kedarnath Dham. I am writing this because when I was researching about the routes and stuff, I could not find a strong informative which didn't create any confusion. I will write keeping in mind that people from all over India might read this and would be searching how to reach Kedarnath. 

HOW TO REACH KEDARNATH

as the readers may be anywhere I will share the best route and information about the places which you will come across the journey. follow the steps to reach Kedarnath:

1. Your City to New Delhi (Via Flight, Train or Bus)
    There is no direct route to reach Kedarnath from other states. In order to ease the journey reach New Delhi via flight or train from whichever city you hail from. 

2. New Delhi to Rishikesh (Via Train, Bus or a private Cab)
    The best way to reach Rishikesh is via Train from New Delhi. Passengers often get confused with the railway stations in Rishikesh. 
    There are two railway stations in Rishikesh at a distance of approximately 3-4kms from each other.
            i.   Yog Nagari Rishikesh Railway Station
            ii.   Rishikesh Railway Station. 

    You can reach any of the two stations from New Delhi and spend the night at Rishikesh or as per your convenience. You can also first reach Haridwar from New Delhi and then come to Rishikesh which is approximately 30kms away from Haridwar. The time taken to reach Rishikesh from Haridwar is 1 hour and you will get a lot of buses to reach Rishikesh.

3. Rishikesh to Sonprayag (Via Bus)
     This journey takes at least 8-9 hours of time. You should book your ticket in advance so that you can travel properly. The private bus starts at 6:30 am as per their time table from Nataraj Chowk in Rishikesh. You can also take the Government bus from Rishikesh Bus Stand. As per my experience the buses are okay in nature. Sometimes the seats do not move or tilt. 

PRO NOTE: if you have motion sickness please eat a tablet before you start the journey as the elevation is high and you will definitely get sick. 

Sonprayag is the base village to Kedarnath. All other villages are too far from here. So you should plan your stay either at Sonprayag or Gaurikund which is 5 kms from Sonprayag. 

Once you reach Sonprayag you can either stay there for the night and start the trek in the morning or you can take a jeep to Gaurikund which takes 50/- per person. Some people start their trek from Sonprayag itself and walk upto the mountain top. 

Now let us go back to where we left the story of my journey.

I boarded the flight to New Delhi and reached around 2:00 AM. I called up a hostel named Sprinklers which is based out of Paharganj and they said that I can come in for the stay as my train to Rishikesh was around 2:00PM the same day. The hostel was neat and tidy and costed me 350/- for the night's stay. The next day after roaming around the streets of Delhi I reached the Nizamuddin Railway station and found out that my train was running 3 hours late. But it was too hot to go out so I decided to rest for a while and watch a movie at the station. I boarded the train around 5:00 and reached Rishikesh at around 9:45 PM. My bus to Sonprayag was at 6:30 AM the next morning. Well here I made my first mistake of travel. NEVER TRAVEL EMPTY STOMACH IN A BUS OR CAR. I just had a tea and embarked on my journey. I did not take any medicine for motion sickness and within few minutes I was feeling dizzy as the elevation of the ghats was more and I hadn't done any breakfast. 

    What a sad beginning it was. I vomited like 2 times and then kept my head down the entire journey. Our bus had a breakdown and we were stuck in Rudraprayag for 2-3 hours. Finally the gears were repaired and we resumed our travel. Our driver was a fantastic. He was aged but was completely in fast and furious mode. We reached Sitapur which is the bus stand at Sonprayag and got down, took out bags and started walking towards Sonprayag. 

MADE A NEW FRIEND 

    I was standing at the Nataraj Chowk for my bus when I met this guy whose name was Sagar. He is from Karnataka. Well a modest person who also has the same enthusiasm about travelling the way I have, or let me accept that more than me. We shared our trip, the expenses, our tent and everything. It was great to make a new friend from my neighbor state.

Well let me give this a new turn. I had decided to complete this trek anyhow, and knew that was going to have a lot of obstacles. When you are so determined you always get help from the almighty. I learnt in my trip that if he is going to send obstacles he will send an acquaintance too. When I reached back home I realized that had it not been for Sagar then my trip would have been more difficult. We bonded very well and laughed out so much that nobody would believe that we met just a day ago. 

    Continuing the journey we reached Sonprayag and decided to stay there itself and begin our trek at 2:00 AM the next day. God, the hotels were so costly. People were absolutely looking towards the sky and asking for rates like 4k, 6k, 8k. Some were not ready to give rooms as they wanted to have a group to stay. So after a lot of searching we got a bed in a hotel at 500/- per bed for the night and 100/- extra for the hot water in the morning. So, we decided to adjust to the situation, had dinner and slept. The dinner was not good as the chole were maybe of the previous day. All the rates double at Sonprayag. Whatever is the MRP you have to pay double the money as it is an elevated area and people say getting things here from the low lying areas is too costly for them. 

We wanted to start our trek at 2:00 and both of us didn't get up till 6:30 AM😂😂😂. We got up, took a bath and started to walk towards the taxi stand. Looking at the big queue we said that by the time we reach the taxi, we will already reach Gaurikund by foot. So we decided to start our trek from Sonprayag itself. now the distance increased from 18kms to 24kms. 

    We went during the yatra season so the rush was huge. The route is same for ascending, descending, mules, trekkers and everyone. It was a Tuesday and I keep a fast on every Tuesday. I decided that lets not break it. We will trek eating fruits only. 

    Soon the elevation begun to increase substantially and our speeds reduced. We were walking fast as we wanted to reach soon. I spotted a very meek view of a glacier top and told Sagar about it. He was tired and said bro you are being too optimistic. There is no view of the glacier and laughed. We kept trekking. He was very dizzy as even he did not have any breakfast. So, I stopped and asked him to have Maggi at least and told him that I would have 3 bananas. After our breakfast we resumed our trek and kept walking. after 3 kms the elevation increased more. Our thighs and calf were burning. We were taking breaks of 5 minutes whenever we felt like. 
    People say that the trek is just 24 kms but it is not. When we completed like 12 kilometers we were happy but the further that point was more tough and slow. Even though we were walking fast the distance being covered was very less. After 18 kms were done Sagar said that lets stay the night over here and resume in the morning again. He was too tired to walk further. I did not want to stop. I thought for a while and said, "look Sagar, we are on a journey to take Darshan of Mahadev. It is never easy and we should not break our journey. We should complete the climb in one go. Lets take big break of 20 minutes, have lunch and reach the base camp which is just 1.5 kms from the main temple." He too agreed to this and we resumed our trek after the lunch. I too ate a paratha even though it was my fast as I had drained all of my energy. Finally we reached the base camp around 7PM in the evening. During the journey when we could see the glacier head I just punched Sagar and said, "look at that Glacier, I was talking about this and hope you can see it." He started laughing and keeping the Glacier as our point of motivation we walked the entire journey. 

    It took us 12 hours to reach the base camp. We were so hungry that we wanted to eat everything which we could see. We walked around the base camp and then decided to stay at a tent. The person who owned the hotel was charging 500/- per person. We paid and went inside. We were so tired that we slept within a minute of going inside. Sagar woke me up the next day and had brought me a cup of tea. I was too sleepy to get up but then I saw this morning view of the glacier and felt great. We had tea in the view of the mountain. We got fresh and went ahead to join the queue for the Darshan. 
    We planned that one person will stand in the queue and other will find a place to stay near the temple. I went in search of stay options but all were too costly. After asking at every single hotel for about two hours I returned to the queue and to my surprise the line had moved forward by just 10-15 steps in the meantime. I was not feeling good as I had not taken a bath and was standing for Darshan without a bath. So, I decided to bathe in the Mandakini River flowing right beside us. I went, took a dip, whew the water was so cold. Of course it was originating from the glacier so it had to be cold. I was freezing in that water but it felt good and fresh too. I bathed and came back to queue. Looking at me few more people went to take a bath. Sagar went and I stood in line. After about 3.5 hours we got to the entrance of the temple and then took the Darshan. We came out, took the blessings of the priest and clicked a few photos before going to the next part of the journey. 

ALWAYS GO TO THE BHAIRAVNATH MANDIR AFTER KEDARNATH
    The Bhairavnath Temple is 20 minutes climb from Kedarnath temple. Your journey is incomplete if you do not offer your prayers at the Bhairavnath Temple. We went up, sat outside the temple to catch our breath and then took the darshan. From their we further climbed the mountain where we could see the Indian Flag. We went till that spot, took a lot of pictures. We sat for a while enjoying the view and the peace which it brought along with it. We drank the water from the river which was more pure rather than a Bisleri Bottle. This was because the water comes from the glacier and is in the purest form.

                          

As we did not get any place for stay we went back to the tent owner and paid him for another night's stay. 

DARSHAN AT 4AM IS A BLESSING IN ITSELF

    Even though I had taken the Darshan in the morning I could not feel good. I did not see anything inside the temple. I was feeling sad and it felt like if something major was missing. I wanted to figure out what was missing. I was getting the vibes that I missed out something and all my efforts in the journey might go to trash. Then when I was having a conversation with a local person he said that you can take the Darshan in the morning too! in the morning time between 4AM and 6AM devotees are allowed to go till the Shivling of the temple. 

I got what I was missing. I hadn't got the Darshan at all. So I told Sagar that we have to get up at 2AM and join the queue and take the Darshan again. I could see that he was tired and showed no sign of getting up. I set my alarm for 2AM and slept. I got up around 2:15 AM, tried to wake Sagar but he didn't move. So I decided to go alone. 
    I got fresh and started walking. I could hardly see any human at that time. I could not even see the mountains, though I could figure out the scary structure of them. Then after a while I saw 5-10 people walking towards the temple. It was damn cold and also the wind was blowing with speed. I reached the temple and could see people were already waiting since 11:30PM. I stood in the Queue. after a wait of 1.5 hours the doors of the temple opened and the people started moving forward. Still it was 4:00 AM. I got near the entrance of the temple around 5:30 AM. I got worried as I really wanted to go inside till the Linga and was afraid if the queue did not move forward my chance would be lost. The only thing I chanted the whole time in my mind was "OM NAMAH SHIVAY" Finally I got inside. went further inside and took whole 5 minutes when I saw the Shivling. It was so energetic and gave all the positivity it could. All I was chanting was "OM NAMAH SHIVAY" until I came out. I felt great this time as this was the thing I was missing the entire time. 

    The view of the Temple was mesmerizing in the morning time. The entire time was a blessing of whole life. Then Sagar joined around 7AM and we clicked more photographs and finally the moment of departure came. 😞😞😞😞

We looked around the temple, prayed for one last time and started to walk. We stopped again after some distance and looked back at the temple when I said, "UNTIL NEXT TIME" which was quite a sad moment for both of us. 

I will be writing more about Kedarnath and also about the other places I have visited. Do write your comments and give me a feedback about how you felt after reading my very first blog.

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