Monday, March 29, 2010

Mighty Gangotri

This is was a biking trip to Gangotri, the birth place of river ganga, in the uttarkhand state, distance 500 kms from delhi, at an altitude of 10300 feet, with 220 kms in plain roads and 280 in the mountains, and our decision to go with the bikes was because of our passion of riding and the curves of the mountains and excellent scenery on the way to gangotri from rishikesh. One of the restriction of our trip was they are of few days bcoz of leave problems to some, and we three friends decided for gangotri all of a sudden.


The route to Gangotri is as follows,

Delhi ,Ghaziabad, Muzaffarnagar, Roorkee, Haridwar,Rishikesh, Chamba, Dharasu,

Uttarkashi, Gangnani, Bhatwari, Harsil, Gangotri.



Day1:- Noida to Rishikesh, 220 kms, 7 hrs.


We started at 2 pm from Noida and left for rishikesh after lunch, and headed towards rishikesh on the national highway, we had two bikes, one honda unicorn, and another hoodibaba, so i was riding the caliber 110, and was doubt full of this bike bcoz of lack of power whether it could make this 1000 km, and the 10000 feet ascent, but finally we reached rishikesh around 9 pm, this leg of our journey was full of highway traffic, with trucks and buses, and dusty which we did not enjoy much, we had our dinner and slept in a hotel in the night to start Early morning next day, as driving in the mountains in night is banned.

Day 2:- Rishikesh to Harsil, 250 kms, 12 hrs.

We started early the next day morning at around 6 am, we had already left the hotel and took a snap at rishikesh and headed to gangotri, through one of the most beautiful valleys, and a memorable bike ride, from rishikesh we started our ascent towards the mountains and reached chamba 50 kms from rishikesh, as soon as we left rishikesh we started getting a good panoramic view of the city and landscape below us, after chamba we were moving along with the sides of tehri dam, on of the biggest, and also the clear, unpolluted and green ganga was flowing by the sides, and a great view in fact, believe me by the time the river reaches Banaras this beautiful clear green ganga is turned to brown, and becomes polluted. The picture shown is taken near the ganga river, and also the valleys are very big, with deep gorges, we enjoyed the ride till we came across a landslide, where we had to halt for a few hours, landslides are common phenomenon in the Himalayan regions, we used this time to take rest and spend some time by the river side, and sandeep took this opportunity to make some meditation.

As soon as the BRO cleared the landslide, we again started our travel towards Gangotri, as it had become late it was almost dark, and also the deep gorges below, we were just travelling in some of the most dangerous roads in the world, on single mistake on ur bike will be ur last, sandeep was going in a taxi jeep with out luggage, and we were travelling behind the jeep with its light, and it helped us move easily without the luggage, finally at around 8 pm we reached Harsil, gangotri was around 30 kms from here but we decided to stay here as it was not good to travel in night in the mountains, we were about to go still higher and colder, we hired a room and stayed there for the night, and it was damn cold there, with the scorching heat of delhi to chilling cold of harsil in one day, such diversity in temperature u can find, i india, we spend the night with discussions , chatting, verbal conflicts and some funny topics, and finally slept at around 11.pm. It was a hard journey of 250 kms, the scenic beauty made it joyful.

Day 3:- Harsil to Gangotri - Bhajbusa - Gangotri.

We started at around 7.00 am towards Gangotri, today we came across some wonderful scenery found only in the Himalayas, and we realized what we had missed yesterday while travelling in the dark, u just find might mountains, and deep gorges below, the mountains are majestic u can think it inspired to do meditation, u can think about the reason why great rishis's mediated here, as we approached we came across some huge glaciers in road, and sky touching mountains, masked with snow on them a wonderful view. and reached gangotri finally.

We took Dharshan of the bhagirath temple and headed towards our destination Gaumukh, we started our trek of 20 km with the help of a local guide, along the shores of the river ganga, and it would have inspired many a people to mediate here as sandeep again started mediating here and it was a small trail for walking only there as vehicles cant move ahead, as we were the earliest trekkers and the GMVN had still not cleared the trails, we came across some huge glaciers, and we did manage to cross this glacier and move ahead , and we again came across one more glacier and it was dangerous to cross this glacier without rope or ice axe and we aborted the further progress. we played for some time on a glacier below which water was flowing.

While returning we meet a team of American people on a education tour , they were trying to write something about the place they were seeing, and we had a chat with them for a while and headed back, to Harsil, it was dark by the time we reached Harsil and we planned to leave early morning at the earliest to Delhi, which was supposed to be a marathon drive of 18 hrs 500 kms, but in my mind i was cursing our timing bcoz we could not reach Gaumukh after coming so far.


Day 4:- We were ready at 6.00 we meet tapavani matha ji, who did tapasya in tapovan for 10 years, we had lot of spiritual discussions and some doubts w.r.t to god, and by 7.30 am we left Harsil, we were supposed to reach Delhi without going anywhere else and we raced as early as possible, we had our lunch at Uttarkashi at around 11.30 am and we took some snaps on the way, with some beautiful man made water falls, and had a break for a few minutes and headed to rishikesh, i was wearing thermacoat inner wear to beat the Harsil cold and as we descended to rishikesh the temperature increased and it my body was being baked in this heat along with thermacoat, and we very much tired after 250 kms of mountain ride, and it was difficult to carry the bag and cover another 220 kms to delhi, so we decided that sandeep will carry our bags and go to delhi by bus and we would pick him up in delhi, and it was becoming very hot for me, i found a place and changed my dress, and was much comfortable now, and at around 10 we halted at a dhaba for dinner had it and moved forward, my ass was in fire after sitting for around 12 hours in bike and we were too tired, and finally at around 1.00 am in the night, we were so tired to took a two or three nights sound sleep to get back to normal.

We took back in memories the wonderful scenery of the Uttaranchal along the mountains, and Tehri dam, and our beautiful riding experience which enjoyed to the fullest along the beautiful mountains.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Paradise on Earth Gulmarg

A Few places have inspired me as much as Gulmarg, as soon as i saw gulmarg i felt, god as created such beautiful places on this earth, and i am lucky enough to see it, and felt one has to see it in life to experience its beauty, otherwise is life will be useless. The land of eternal beauty, its much more than a swizterland.

After a failed solo attempt to Gulmarg on the newyear's eve, finally i got only one company, who had enough courage to come with me to Gulmarg, bcoz of the militancy in kashmir many of our friends were relectunant to come to kashmir.

Day1:- We headed out to jammu on bus, left delhi around 9.00 pm and reached jammu at around 11.00 am, and found that the traffic was one way that day from srinagar to jammu, tommorow was our turn from jammu to srinagar, and we spent the time in seeing jammu that day and finally boarded the bus from jammu, while we at in the bus, people around us were talking in unfamiliar lanugage, which only brought the thought in my mind that all of them might be terrorists, and i dont know my plight by morning, soon they started asking us in hindi, from where we were going and why,

Day2:- It was morning still we had not crossed the Jawahar tunnel, it was mid Feb and it was a sunny day, i was not optimistic about finding the snow in Gulmarg as it was sunny here, and finally we entered the jawhar tunnel heavily gaurded by the army personal, the tunnel itself is a great delight to see, bcoz it is one of the longest tunnelt at 2.5 km, the only route to enter kashmir valley, as soon as we crossed the Jawahar tunnel, the whole atmosphere, weather changed, there was no trace of sun, it was some snow on the outskirts of tunnel, and it totally cold over there with mist, this big mountain seperates the kashmir valley from rest of the india this is the reason why it is so cold over there, all along the way we some wonderful scenery, as i was winter with the trees shedding there leaves, it was again the start of the planes, and reached srinigar at 1.00 pm and as our destination target was Gulmarg not srinigar we went directly to Gulmarg instead of seeing Srinagar, we were already lagging behind by one day bcoz of the route problem in jammu, and the bus got delayed even more, and while on the way to gulmarg, it was just a plain road from srinagar, unlike manali where we travel fro almost 250 kms in the mountains after chandigarh, here while travelling i saw a huge fog on the road, and it was just totaly a hughe mountain of fog with nothing visible but just fog, slowly we starte climbing gradually and it was snowing midway, after going still above out sumo got a complete 270 degree turn while taking one of the cureves and everyone was frightned if it had slipped downward evryone would have been down, but i was totally exicted by the snowfall and beauty around and was taking pictures and then everyone was scolded that u were about to die and ur taking pictures there. we reached gulmarg by 4.00 pm finally, and i was spell bound by seeing the beauty there, where ever u see there snow snow and snow in all four directions, it was covered by white blanket and its not possible to open ur eyes without a sunglass, with vehicales stranded there bcoz of heavy snow, hotel doors locked up due to heavy snow, and just took a while to enjoy the beauty of Gulmarg and was thinking so many things in mind after seeing this place, we booked a hotel room and went out for skying.

The temperature was the coldest i have ever seen, colder than manli, and it goes till -15 to -20 during night and all water streams and nallahs are freezed in night.

Day3:- Next morning we had our brekfast and headed to the Gondola cable car,we get to see some wonderful scenery, Gulmarg has the highest Gondola cable car in the world and longest in asia it takes to a height of more than 4390 mts to apharvat peak, to see the beauty from this place either u have to take a helicopter or an exterme mountaineer to go to that height in this winter, and temperature is chilling cold over there. we took some snaps there and headed downwards to base.

Today again we started doing skying till the evening and enjoyed the skying in the wonderfull slopes of gulmarg, i was almost learning to run from uphill to downhill without falling and it was a joy to be remembered for a year. once u learn skying u will become addicted to it. we headed towards srinigar that evening, and finally landed at srinigar in the night to find out that there are no buses to jammu for next 36 hrs and were forced to stay in a hotel, instead we choosed a houseboat which was a wonderful experience. house boats are a novelty of Kashmir, it is floating boat with rooms, made famous lately the famous serial "Gul,Gulshan,Gulfam" in DD.

Day4:- we had a local sight seeing of srinigar in the Dal Lake had a shikara ride, and did water skying, in Dal lake, and went to some gargens, and headed back to Jammu, while returning we also saw some of the spectcaular views of the kashmir valley and some memories to remember for a life time, the answer for the question is there a paradise on Earth, Yes it is Kashmir.

Best time to visit:-
Jan to Feb for skiing to see winter season, Remember it is chilling cold in this time, u need to be equiped with the best equipment.

May to july :- To see the lush green meadows and flowers in Kashmir, in full bloom.

Srinigar distance from delhi :- around 900 kms, by road it takes a minimum of 24 hrs.

Note:- Get information about the Current Situation in Kashmir before going there.