Haridwar yatra article and vlog by udhav krishna.

As the name suggests Haridwar or Hardwar means the place of Hari (god). It is situated in the foothills of great Himalayan mountain to be more precise it's shivalik range of Himalaya. 

So now heading towards our incredible, spiritual, amazing and overwhelming  Journey.  A journey to explore the vivid nature and it's solidarity. 

youtube video:- https://youtu.be/fu61nSgXMyU

Our yatra (journey) for Haridwar started from Bihar's capital i.e patna city (east). With a mix group of elders and youngsters we started moving by train. We found the journey amazing exactly from the time we boarded the train, as we were travelling by train's sleeper coach. Sleeper coaches have their own pros, it gives you real exposure to everyone and everything out there as well as it's cheaper for guys like us. If I say It gives you immense pleasure of pure and real India, I can't be  wrong in any way.

You will find many ambiances of different places, people and specially the sellers with different, amazing and really attractive voices selling their stuffs to the co-passengers. And it's not impossible for someone to avoid being a buyer inside the train. Time really passes fast because all we do inside the train is eat, sleep, urinate, talk and then repeat till we reach our desired destinations whether it may be a place or at the top notch of a hot or mild topic from where it seems you can't go further with that. 

So we were steadily moving by performing and repeating all the cycles when our train entered the border area of Uttar pradesh and Uttarakhand the area of great and youngest hills, valleys were now visible to us. By looking at them from the window It seemed they all were welcoming us with their huge and powerful open arms.

After an enjoyable journey of 20 hours or so we finally arrived at Haridwar junction. we deboarded our train with great joy, any travel sickness was not even realised. 

We headed towards the station's foot over the bridge. It was the pathway to exit out from the platform, from there we could see the top of hills filled with greenery, many of those triangular shaped tall valleys were also covered by the dark and light clouds. I remember it was the month of July, probably the last week of the month. It was astonishing but we started feeling cold in the train itself when the train entered into the borders of Uttrakhand. These things were making us crazy and more eager for the upcoming thrill and romance of being there. Because a few of us, including me also in our group, were visiting Uttarakhand for the first time in their lives. We directly headed to shantikunj ashram, we stayed there for almost 7-8 days. In the meantime after performing yagya (yagna) in the 'yagyashala' by chanting great and spiritual mantras of gayatri and mahamrityunjay in the early morning, we visited places like Harki pauri, bhram varchasv,  Nanda devi, Chandi devi, Dev sanskriti vishwavidyalaya, Lakshman jhula, and many more places. We didn't visit Rajaji national park as it was not open for visitors for some reason. However  we clicked a picture with the forest guard standing on the gates. 

It's worth mentioning that accommodation such as fooding and lodging was almost free at shanti kunj, in return we have had to follow the customs and traditions such as wearing dhoti kurta while performing yagya (yagna)  at 5:00 hours in the early morning, sleeping at 21:00 hours at night, waking up at 4:00 hours in the early morning and last but not least not taking snap at the day time. There  were students cum guards who used to prevent or help the visitors in their day to day life. if any of the visitors broke any rules or the traditional values they use to politely make them understand their mistakes. Those guards were seen with a heavy stick in their right hand, they called it Brahammdand obviously it can't be used as a policeman stick as it was too thick and short for that purpose. 

The places where we visited till now were also not at all easy as they were situated at some reasonable altitude such as Nanda devi and Chandi devi. Our guide, who happens to be our guruji, has a keen habit to avoid transportation at short distances like 1- 5 kms. Which really helped all of us to build some strength for the unknown things we would be doing in further upcoming days of that trip. 

                       Har Ki Pauri Ghat, Haridwar 

So one fine morning we came to know from guruji that we are visiting Rishikesh and then  we will track for Neelkanth, it was situated at pauri garhwal district of Uttarakhand at a good height of 1330 meters. 32 kms away from Rishikesh and to reach the temple of Lord Shiva which was at the top, we needed to cover approximately 18 kms of tracking or by walking as preferred. So after taking a bath in the cold and freezing water of Ganges in Rishikesh, we had lunch at an interesting hotel named choti wala (man with a long and dense ponytail). We spotted some alive  choti wala also at some hotel's entrance other than statues and pictures in the banners to attract customers. So after having the breakfast cum lunch of a plate full of puri, sabji rayta and jalebi. We started our journey for neelkanth in full form and high spirit, soon after we realised that this journey is not going to be a piece of cake for us. However we kept tracking, walking and crawling further to shorten the distance. 

To our utmost surprise we found ourselves struggling for walking even on the upward slopes path, as we were wet upto our knees from the water which was running from the upward slope towards the downwards path that we have taken to move up. It was falling at a good rate,  maybe due to the monsoon it was raining "cats and dogs''. Although, we had all the rain friendly equipment like raincoat, plastic bag for keeping our accessories in it. So, we kept moving upwards. It is worth mentioning that It was only guruji who was not at all tired and was ahead of all of us in our group, walking fastly with an umbrella on. Being a senior citizen also Guruji left all of us behind in the real test of stamina and endurance. It was possible because of his yoga practice and good eating habits which he had been doing for quite a long time or decades. After some time we were between the smoggy clouds. Yes it was clouds, for us it was really unbelievable as we never experienced such a type of fog  around us, not even in the months of December or January. The vlog also contains a clip of that special moment of being in the clouds apart from all the places we visited.  

Now finally after getting through the clouds, and taking life-risking paths full of water and sign boards which were threatening us about the different but really dangerous wild creatures and their respective areas. We reached our destination not before mid-day, after many hours and uncounted minutes later. Now after years while i am writing this article i found that our journey to neelkanth was enjoyable, tiring but astonishing. However these verdict could have been different or possibly opposite from now if it would be given at the time we reached there.  

We became part of this journey in the year 2017. After this, such trips continued. I went to Rajgir (Bihar) in 2019 and lately Ayodhya in 2021. Will write about it also sometime,

But the thrill we have had in the journey to the mountains had no match with the travelling to plateaus and plains. However every place has its own pros and cons. I wish to visit those mountains again very soon. 

So, when you are planning for some thrilling and adventurous trip with a group, like we did?

signing off.. 

Udhav krishna 

A journo 💜 👍✌️