May | 2020 | Amateur Traveler

Religious places have always fascinated me, primarily due to the mythological stories behind each divine destination.
Growing up, I have always heard stories of Lord Krishna and his life incidents. Mahabharat has intrigued me to the core. Thus, this made me visit a place where Lord Krishna had once built his golden empire (sone ki nagari) – Dwarka.

Dwarka is situated on the western end of an Indian state – Gujarat. It is very well connected with road and rail. The nearest airport is located at Jamnagar which is approximately 45 kms from the temple.

Dwarka is also one of the dham from the famous ‘Chardham’ – the other three being Badrinath, Puri, and Rameshwaram. In Hindu mythology, it is believed that one should visit Chardham once in a lifetime to attain Moksha – peace. ( p.s. I am halfway through).

Dwarka, like any other pilgrimage site, has a large number of tourists/pilgrims round the year. The main Dwarka temple proudly stands tall in the heart of the town flanked by mesmerizing views of the Arabian sea.

The Dwarkadhish temple is believed to be around 2500 years old and is one of the heritage sites of India. After leaving Mathura, Lord Krishna had built an entire kingdom of Dwarka where he once lived with his queens and an unsullied army known as ‘Narayani Sena’. It is said that Lord Krishna originally resided in ‘Bet Dwarka’ which is around 3 kms, off the coast of Dwarka.

The Dwarkadhish temple is open for darshan on all 7 days between 6.30 am to 1 pm in the morning and 5 pm to 9.30 pm in the evening. The main temple is made from sandstone with beautiful carvings and designs. Camera and mobile phones are strictly prohibited inside the temple premises.

Queues are generally long throughout the day but when you reach inside the main temple, even a small glimpse of Lord Dwarkadhish (Lord Krishna) will leave you spellbound. His presence inside this historical temple is absolutely magical and pure.

After seeking Lord Krishna’s blessings, one can spend some time at Gomti Ghar nearby and savor some delicious street food around the temple premises.

Apart from the beautiful temple, what caught my attention was the breathtaking Dwarka beach near the temple. The water of the sea was visibly clear and turquoise in color. It reminded me of the beaches in a foreign location. There is also a lighthouse near the coast offering panoramic views of the temple and Arabian sea.

According to mythology, after the end of Maharbharat war , Lord Krishna was cursed by Queen Gandhari and the entire golden nagari of Dwarka was submerged under the sea. It marked as an end of an era of Lord Krishna.

A 2 day visit to Dwarka can be a fulfilling experience. One can also combine nearby places like Somnath, Diu and Gir to experience vibrant Gujarat.

Remebering Lord Krishna with a verse from Bhagwad Gita

yada yada hi dharmasya
glanir bhavati bharata
abhyutthanam adharmasya
tadatmanam srjamy aham

paritranaya sadhunam
vinasaya ca duskrtam
dharma-samsthapanarthaya
sambhavami yuge yuge

India is truly blessed to be gifted with beauty of the mighty Himalayas. With it’s magnificent presence over 10 states, Himalayas offer varied views across all the places. One such unique and astonishing place is the ‘Valley of Flowers’ located in the state of Uttarakhand. In this blog, I will quickly share my experience and day wise itinerary on ‘Trek to the Valley of Flowers’.

So, are you ready for this mesmerizing photo journey?

To begin with, I am not at all an experienced trekker, in fact, frankly this trip was my first full fledged trek. I would say for a beginner like me, the difficulty level of the trek was kind of a ‘Medium’ level.

Let’s start with some quick facts on how to reach the place:

Nearest Airport: Dehradun Airport
Nearest Railway Station: Haridwar
Nearest Populous Town: Joshimath
Best time to visit: Between July to September

Day 01: Reaching Joshimath via Haridwar

We started our journey with a flight from Mumbai to New Delhi, followed by an overnight train journey from New Delhi to Haridwar.

It is 5 AM and here we are standing at the Haridwar station sipping hot tea and waiting for our cab driver to take us to Joshimath. Distance is approximately 275 kms but the overall journey duration goes up to 10 hours, provided roads are smooth and landslide-free. By the way, landslides are very common in such hilly area specially during monsoon season.

We reached Joshimath at around 6 PM after a long and tiring journey, though a scenic one. We chose an home-stay to spend the night. It was situated at the outskirts of Joshimath amidst lush green mountains.

Day 02: Joshimath to Ghangharia via Govind ghat

We started early from Joshimath to reach Govind ghat which is the closest place you can get by road. From Govind ghat, it is a 13 kms trek along a steep, narrow, but well defined mountain trail to reach at the base camp in Ghangaria.

Helicopter facilities are also available to reach Ghangaria as it also serves as a base camp to reach the very popular and holy place of the Sikhs, the ‘Hemkund Sahib’.

The 13 kms trek was like a prep for our main expedition to the valley on the next day.

Day 03: Ghangaria to the ‘Valley of Flowers’

Finally, the big day has arrived and we were eagerly waiting to witness the amazing creation of nature. Ghangaria to Valley of Flowers is approx. 6 kms one way trek mostly through stone covered and sloppy roads. The only option to reach there is by foot or by ‘doli’.

After walking for about an hour atleast, we reached the check post/gate to the valley of flowers to get a permit entry. There were multiple informative boards explaining the route map and names of the different flowers that grows in the valley.

From here, we officially entered the ‘Valley of flowers’ national park. The path ahead was narrow, rough and entirely stone covered. Even though it was a 6 kms trek, we took almost 4 hours to reach the main valley. However, the views throughout were extremely surreal, pure and mesmerizing.

The valley of flowers has many different colourful flowers changing their shades in every month from June to October. It is also home to endangered species like Snow Leopard, Asiatic Black Bear, Musk Deer and Red Fox. The sightings of these animals are very very rare.

We reached at the main valley around noon and it was pretty cloudy and rainy. It is highly recommended not to stay at the top beyond afternoon as the weather starts to change drastically.

After capturing each moment with eyes and camera, of course, we headed down back to Ghangaria. We spent rest of the evening interacting with a local photographer who willingly showed us his amazing work on capturing the valley and wildlife across seasons.

Day 04: Leisure/Visit to Hemkund Sahib

The day was spent at leisure in Ghangaria. One can also visit Hemkund Sahib which is also a similar trek from Ghangaria.

Day 05: Ghangaria to Joshimath via Govind ghat

We started early again to reach Govind Ghat and then back to Joshimath. After reaching Joshimath, it started raining very heavily throughout the night.

Day 06: Joshimath to Haridwar

In the morning, we got the news that the roads to Haridwar via Chamoli were blocked both ways due to multiple landslides. Today, we had a long journey from Joshimath to Haridwar. But little did we know that it was going to turn out to be an adventurous one. With courage, we started from Joshimath, after an hour, we somehow managed to reach at the landslide spot area near Chamoli district to decide next steps.

Tourists and locals were stranded for about 12 hours. We had 2 options, either to wait for the road to get repaired or walk across the damaged road anyhow to reach Haridwar railway station for our train to New Delhi. We chose the latter one and decided to take a pedestrian route (by climbing a mountain and trek for 2 kms with luggage bags) and reach the Chamoli Bus station/taxi stand. We jokingly called it as our ‘out of syllabus trek’. After, reaching the bus stand, we saw too many people like us trying to get a taxi or a bus for Haridwar and we somehow managed to get a sharing taxi for Haridwar.

After a chaotic day, we spent the evening peacefully at the Ganga Ghat listening to the sounds of Holy river.