The Spirtual Trip - Chapter 1

On 10th December 2018, my mumma, baba and I caught our train from Bandra Terminus, Mumbai and reached SVD Katra Railway Station, Jammu & Kashmir in the evening of 11th December 2018. Then we took a rickshaw to drop us to our hotel. That night we roamed the mall area, bought a pashmina shawl, 3 winter caps and a muffler; then we enquired about the Vaishno Devi Mata Temple's entry ticket.

Next Morning at about 5 am we left for the temple in a rickshaw till the main Yatra(journey) point from where actual trek of 14 km had to be taken. The holy cave of Goddess Vaishno Devi is situated at an altitude of 5200ft. We started our yatra at 7 in the morning and reached the shrine at 3-3:30 in the afternoon. In between we took halt at lot of places like Ardha Kuwari, etc. The reasons for our delay was that, firstly dad wasn't able to walk because of low oxygen level and secondly it started raining heavily when we had just climbed about 4 kms. But our will power and god's blessing finally took us at her feet.When we reached the holy shrine it started to rain snow and we felt as if we were in heaven.There was an extraordinary charm and spiritual sense of being. We did a great darshan(view of the holy cave) and then we decided to rent horses for our return journey from the temple to our hotel.

While we were returning back, the owner of the horse on which I was riding, left me alone in between but the horse seemed to understand my word and for rest of the journey I commanded and reached the end point all by myself. But the horse owners had fooled us cause the main base camp was still 3 kms away. We then found a rickshaw after about 45 mins of walking. At 11 pm we finally reached our hotel and all three of us were tired as hell and our body was aching badly.

The next day, i.e. ,13th December, we bought kashmiri almonds(with the shell) and a few other nuts. We then had our breakfast( Gobi/Cauliflower Parathas with curd) and then took a cab and left for Jammu station.

The landscape was absolutely enticing and the cool weather had brightened up our mood a lot. On the way, we had some tea and pakoras at a dhaba and also clicked a few pictures.

In the afternoon we reached Jammu Station from where our train for Amritsar, Punjab was to departure.

To be continued...

Thank You!