A Char Dham Yatra- “The Four Abodes”~Part1

This was one tour I was a bit apprehensive about, my parents especially mom wanted to see the Ganga and witness the arathi at Haridwar, a place where the whole town comes to a standstill and exactly sharp 7pm the daily evening arathi of the river Ganga is performed and has been performed like this for many,many generations now. Mom and Dad wanted to visit the place, at first i thought i would book their tickets and plan it out for them ,and if possible book one of those 10 day Char Dham yatras and that way they can cover the Char Dham (4 sacred places of the Himalays)yatra as well and would be a nice pilgrimage for my parents.

As the days approached, I was checking with allot of travel agents and to my surprise they all seemed so hectic and seemed quite a responsibility just to send them off alone . Later I started thinking it was an opportunity of a life time especially the thought of the Mountains. and the wind ..and the fact of being with ONE with all the 5 elements of nature, I could not resist and agreed my self in taking them to the Char Dham Yatra.

A Little Bit About Char Dham Yatra(“four abodes”) :Char Dham yatra(“four abodes”) is considered very tough and difficult in India. This yatra covers Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri, and Yamunotri in the Himalayan range of Mountains. In spite of this, most of the Indians want to perform this yatra at least once in their life. You need to prepare yourself thoroughly for this yatra in advance as otherwise it will turn out to be very tiresome and tedious yatra and may lead to serious sickness during or after the yatra. Basically I was getting my parents in to a Tough holiday and my self in to a Journey of a life time. Because what i was about to witness was something i would have never even imagined….

To visually prepare them i took my parents to the Movie : MYSTIC INDIA, which had a story of a young Yogi Neelkath who covers the same path and the Char dham and later heads to kailash , mansarovar.. MORE on Mystic India Visit Psycadelic Adventures.

This showed us glimpses of an experience that would be even bigger than any IMAX screen in this world. a experience that was Larger than Life , Way beyond Imagination..Profounded ..and Humbled. we Prepared to start our journey…

Day1 : Arrival at DELHI :We landed at the Delhi airport at about 11AM, Hot and sweaty but still love the energy Delhi has to offer , unlike other Huge metropolitans it truly is the Heart of India. Open to all Embrace them all in its own way . Got off the Flight and took a cab to the station , we had our train to Haridwar, Got in to the train in our own chair cars, my mind was absolutely blank no expectations from the trip what so ever we had no pre bookings. Just one Faith to visit the Char Dhams ..Take a Dip in the Holy ganges and experience the mountains. all i did was plug in my music and Explore the nature of synchronicity and let Shiva dance me through the journey of Cosmos.

At 8pm we had reached hardiwar and it was cold in the air, a little humid, a quite town but lots of people every where, as soon as we got off the train there was this old man who came up to me and said “SaHib Khan jana Hai..?”- Sir , where would you like ot go.. I Smiled and Said ” jana Tho Charon Dham hai, Phil hal hame koie Hotel room lekar chaliye” and then he rattled off that we have come at the rite time as until yesterday there were heavy rains and Monday when we start our Journey it will be good as all the Highways would have been cleared. That sounded nice and he assured us good luck for your journey.

A little about Haridwar :Haridwar, literally means ‘The gateway to the Gods’. It’s the place where the river Ganga descends to the plain. A Gateway to the four pilgrimage of Uttarakhand. A major
Shaktipeeth from time immemorial, the place is believed to have both sanctified by the powerful trinity of Hindu mythology – Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh. This is why the place has been a ever-refreshing mystic venue for the purification of the mind, body and soul.

The Kumbha Mela, happening once every 12 years and the Ardha Kumbha Mela (Coming once every six years) are big draws. So we got to the room close to Har-Ki-Paudi, Har-Ki-Paudi is a famous Ghat on the banks of the Ganges in Haridwar . This revered place is the major landmark of the holy city of Haridwar. Literally, “Har” means “Lord Shiva”, “ki” means “of” and “paudi” means “steps” to gether means “Steps of Lord Shiva” . Lord Shiva and Lord Vishnu are believed to have visited the Brahmakund in Har ki Paudi in the Vedic times.

There is a large footprint said to belong to Lord Vishnu on a stone wall. We got ur selves our Dinner and tucked away in our beds and I Shut my eyes closed awaiting our next day plans of Ganga Snan(Dip in the Ganges).

Woke up at 6am and Got to the Ganga Ghat. It was blue skies and it was my first experience of the Gang Roaring and Gushing down in full spate. It is said the Ganga at haridwar is it its Full of  vigor and flows Down in Full Spate and furry and it was Cold when i took my Dip , Shivering Cold, even after considering that it had already traveled quite a distance through the mountains…

I Could feel the Essence of the Vibrations coming through the Gushing river and the Himalayan Winds. It was such a wonderful site to see people of all ages takes a dip in the cold Freezing river. from infants to age old women. After the Dip we head out ate some lunch , and went around the market took pictures of people , babas..all just so colorful and mystifying. Walked up to the big queue trying to get to the top of the Hill in Haridwar where we have a Shakthi peth(energy Centre)

Mansa Devi  the Goddess Of Energy which churns all this Creative energy in to material existence. Which combines with Shiva to manifest it self into SHIVA SHAKTHI.. We are all energy beings and our material goal of life is to meet our creative energies and create and manifest in Harmony. It was great learning just watching people in the crowd getting to the temple on top of this Big hill. After absorbing the energy we came down and by the time the whole journey of getting to the temple and back was a bit exhausting we walked back to the room and as i was walking back saw a few travel agents who help you book a cab that will take you around the Char Dham and back to Haridwar. We had a bit of a time constraint as we had to do the journey in 9 days rather than 10 days as normally it is all done , however i told the guy we will finish the journey in 9 days as we have our Flights booked.

He agreed and said it will be all taken care. Paid him the advance amount and came back to the room and we packed up for the night and got back to our beds after dinner Little we knew what we were heading towards and underestimated the treks and the walks that were involved in carrying out this Yatra. We close our eyes as we hear the Ganga in a distance vibrating as it flowed down the Ghat.

Next Day Morning we woke up early and the Driver arrived at 7am and picked up our luggage. This was a Short bout Well built man. Who looked like Dharmendar.(Bollywood Actor). I received no vibration good or bad from him. He was a calm man in his mind .We gathered the Blessings of the Land of Haridwar and we set off to our first Destination Yamunotri.

Part 2

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 12:40 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.