Rahul Chilain

21st December, 2019

There are many more beautiful places to visit in Shimla than the Mall Road and Railway Station, few places still remain unexplored. So, 3 of us decided to take up one such less explored place and it is called…..Shimla Water Catchment Wildlife Sanctuary. It is 1.5km ahead of Dhalli towards Kufri and it welcomes all with it’s beautiful gate.

After taking our steps inside we had to get ourselves registered in the office to get permissions to enter the Sanctuary.

Though the road facility is available in the Sanctuary…..but the cars are not allowed inside. One can either hire a bicycle or cover the distance on foot. But the distance was quite long(16km) so we decided to hire a bicycle.

The fare is quite reasonable with a student ID. It’s about 350 rupees per bicycle and provided time to return is 3 hours.

After riding for 1km our eyes caught a beautiful and small hut above us.

We went up and started clicking photos to capture some memories of the day.

The hut was well designed and well maintained from the inside and the view from it was heart stealing.

We decided to leave and were back on track, riding our bicycles. There was another such hut after covering a short distance.

On the way…..there were many bulletin boards that provided us information about the flora and fauna that surrounded us.

The journey is quite lengthy and exhausting so the department has provided benches at short distances to catch some breath.

After covering one sided journey of 8km we finally reached to the water catchment tank.

It was huge, wide and was approximately 100 meter in length. But it remained empty for major part of the year. It was made by Britishers for water storage.

In this Sanctuary there was only one house of some native people.

With the house there was a huge gate of the Wildlife Sanctuary but it’s doors were locked so we guessed that we were not allowed to enter it.

Due to unavailability of any kind of shop…..we bought everything from the market inside our backpacks, consumed it and collected what we had spread to keep the surroundings clean. After spending much time in enjoying nature and cracking jokes we decided to return.

Journey back seemed less while enjoying the natural environment and listening to calm music.

There were different sign boards on the way which helped us to follow the rules of the woods.

After reaching back…..we were attracted by a bulletin board that listed all the species of plants and animals in the Sanctuary.

It was quite useful……..

This was the end of our day after gaining some good experience of the wild.

Thank you for reading.

Hello Everyone

It shares my journey to Kedarnath and Badrinath Dham…..these two temples are located in the Uttarakhand state of India….both the temples carry a great significance in Hindu Religion. Kedarnath is the temple to Lord Shiva and Badrinath is temple of Lord Vishnu. The best time of the year to visit there is in the summers mainly May, June and July. The rainy season is quite risky to visit there because of past experiences and climatic conditions. My journey started on 5th June from Shimla H.P.

5th June, 2019

So, we started from Shimla H.P. at around 6 o’clock in the morning. We hired a taxi for the entire trip which picked us up from Shimla and dropped us in shimla at the end of the trip. Until Haridwar it’s quite a simple journey. We stayed at Haridwar for the night the rooms were quiet reasonable and good. We watched Aarti at Haridwar which was good and crowded.

1st day of the trip ended well. But the days to come were more adventurous and challenging.

6th June, 2019

Second day started with taking a bath in the holy river Ganga at Har ki Paudi(stairs of God). Post breakfast we decided to leave early because we had much more miles to catch. In between we stopped at places where we found some beautiful views to click some photos. One such place was Devprayag where two rivers Mandakni and Alaknanda met. Both the rivers come from two different directions and met at Devprayag forming the river Ganga.

After covering a distance of about 230km we finally reached Sonprayag from where our journey to Kedarnath had to start the next day. We booked the hotel and packed our bags for the next day as it is advised to leave early in the morning to complete the journey on time.

Tip1- One must take only required things no extra burden on shoulders as it slows down a person and makes him tired.

7th June, 2019

Our day started with a hassle at the booking counter at 6am. People around said that booking was not so compulsory but we however did it as we wanted to avoid every possibility of any kind of hindrance in our journey. But the real struggle started from boarding the taxi to Gauri kund for which we had to wait at least 4 hours in the row to go only 5km by Taxi.

At 10:30am we finally reached Gauri Kund where we had our breakfast and after having a bath in Gauri Kund(which is a natural hot water spring) we finally started our journey to Shri Kedarnath. Excitement increased with every step as it took us closer to Kedarnath. You can also board a helicopter to Kedarnath from Sonprayag as every 15 minutes a Helicopter flew from above us.

The way is good and facilitated with kinds of shops to eat and buy things to eat and drink. The main bazar at the middle of the journey is Rambada where we had our lunch and came back on the track.

After traveling about 21km of 35° slope we finally had started to see our destination. Temple is surrounded with hotels and accommodations for the people to stay for the night. The first thing we did after reaching was to book a room to stay for the night. Standing in front of the temple feels awesome and refreshing. Our exhaustion went away only by seeing the temple.

The weather was foggy so the view of the mountains was not clear at that point.

For Aarti the temple is decorated with lights which adds up to the beauty of the temple.

After attending the Aarti we went to sleep as we were tired and next day we had to wake up early to visit the temple from the inside.

Tip2- Before seeing the temple…. See the hotel to stay( if it is crowded).

Tip3- Always carry 3-4 layers of clothing as the temperature can reach 1°C or low.

Tip4- Carry limited things…. Leave the rest in the Taxi.

8th June,2019

Woke up at 1am bought a bucket of hot water for 100 rupees to take a bath. Reason behind waking up at 1am was, as the temple opened at 4am and everyone formed a row starting from the doors of the temple. We were right in the front until 4am the line of people reached 1km long from the doors of the temple.

After the fog was cleared and the weather was clear…we saw the true beauty of Kedarnath.

The tall standing mountains added 5 stars to the beauty of the Kedarnath Temple.

The eye stuck view of Kedarnath just attracted us and didn’t allow us leave.

We started our journey back to Gauri kund as we needed to reach our next destination. The journey of Kedarnath is filled with many eye catching views.

We reached Son prayag at around 12:30pm from where our next destination became Badrinath. Distance between two temples is about 200km. We covered half of the distance on the same day and stayed at the hotel for the night at Pipalkoti.

Tip5- Always carry cash…. ATM may not work.

Tip6- Cellular network is only available in BSNL.

9th June,2019

Our target for the day was to visit Badrinath and start the journey back to Shimla. But our car was short on fuel and the fuel stations were quite distant from each other, we had to wait at a pump for 2hours to get our ride filled. Our journey started at around 10 in the morning. We had to cover 100km to reach Badrinath. Finally around 2pm we reached Badrinath.

Badrinath is just on the roadside one do not need to walk for 5-6 hours to reach there. Walking distance from the road is 10 minutes, only need to cross a bridge.

Badrinath is also shadowed by huge mountains above it.

The thing common between Badrinath and Kedarnath is the queue of people to visit the temple from the inside.

After 1 hour of waiting to visit inside the temple we were finally done with our excitement to visit the two temples.

We further visited to Mana Gaon(village) which is only 3km ahead of Badrinath. It is considered the India’s last village.

It is a good place to visit one can find all types of winter stuff over there like hats, Cardigans and woolen stuff….which is made by people themselves. People of Mana only live there in summers and in winters they migrate to lower altitude areas of Uttarakhand due to heavy snowfall in at Mana in winters.

River Saraswati and Alaknanda originate from Mana which further become the distributory of the River Ganga.

The view of rocky mountain from Mana is quite amazing and a bit fearing too.

We finally left Badrinath and started our journey back to Haridwar. But it was impossible to cover such distance in half day so we had to take a halt for the night.

Tip7- Always carry extra fuel tank in your car to avoid wandering for it everwhere.

10th June, 11th June, 2019

We started from hotel at around 9am as reaching Haridwar was not a big task for the day. We reached there in time and on the next day i.e. 11th June was the final day of our journey and we had to reach back to our small town Shimla from where we started few days ago we were finally back at the same place.

This was a great journey of my life and I will not be able to forget it throughout my life. The beauty of both the temples is just on the top…and cannot be compared with anything.

This was one……much more to come.

Thank you.