Travel to India: Travel to kedarnath

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What to see

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kedarnath

A marvel to visit for those with religious sentiments and scenic beauty for those looking for some adventure trekking and mountain gazing.Kedarnath is famous for pandavs who spotted shiva here when they searched for him after the war,they travelled wide spaces to find Shiva.The place is quite cold and the temple is sourrounded by snow capped mountain.The enthusiast can either take a horse to the temple or can walk the entire 14 km route on foot.It is very nice and warm when we start our journey from gauri kund but as we head towards the temple chill starts going stronger.

Tapt kund

There is a spring just as we start our expedition which is known as tapt kund.A bath in the kund gives moksha to anyone taking a dip ...as i was told there.A i took a bath there but a lot of sulpur odour was too much for me.We started late for our mountain climbing task as it was already ten o clock in the morning.Many a people had already left at 6 in the morning.We were told that the journey to kedarnath would take us only 6 hrs but to our surprise it took 10 hrs for us on foot.

The way ahead

Shaky path to kedarnath

As we started our race towards the mountains,people with horses kept pestering us to mount on the equine and lighten our pockets.But we were adamant on going by our own,just 10 minutes had passed that we started panting and sweating.It looked liked that it was a impossible task for us mortals,how could we do it.But sense prevailed on us and we decided to walk for 10 minutes and rest for 5 minutes.The strategy worked for us but instead of resting for 5 minutes we were enjoying for 15 minutes.It took a lot of time and energy to come up to the temple .When we arrived at the temple it was 8 pm and pitch dark we had not booked any hotel there so we had to search for it in the dark.It was scary to travel around the place as no one was outside their home.No lights no sound how we managed to get the hotel is another story altogether.We did get to the hotel after a lot of effort but when we finally reached our room it was sigh of relief.

a devotee of Shiva

We all wake up in the morning with stuffy nose.The room in which we stayed was make up of asbestos sheets.I could feel the cold air blowing outside.I decided to go out and buy a warm cap and a pair of gloves.It was icy cold outside sunlight was making the snow shine more brightly on the mountains.We went to the bazaar to buy things and the kedarnath temple was just near the market.In the night we could not see the amazing temple but today it was glowing like a new building.It was a perfect view.

a view in the morning

Me and my sister came back to hotel and ordered everybody to get ready early lest the devotee fill the temple premises.It was ice cold temp in the room how we all could bathe was a ordeal in itself.
All of us got down in our attires and headed towards the bazaar to get prasad.All of us had money to be used as prasad and to donate to the temple ....courtesy our colleague and parents.Any body who heard we were going to kedarnath gave us money to be offered to the temple.

The sacred shrine

Our entry to the temple was announced with a bang on the bells.Large bells were hanging outside the temple premises which give this place a divine look.The temple had a old look but it felt refreshing to me.It were as though old stones had been washed to welcome us.The outside of temple had idols of god and goddesses in stone.We were made to make a queue to enter the temple.Pundits who performed pujas were coming to people and asking them to pay some money and go inside without a queue.One man said we have come 14000 feet above sea level on feet ,this queue is nothing before that....pundit went away.It was hassle and bustle when we went inside the mandir.It was a little dark inside....idols of yudhister and his brothers were carved inside.The lights inside the mandir were flickering...it took us a lot of time to adjust to the dim lights.The stone inside the temple were slippery and covered with milk and grease like thing.A shiva rock emerged in the centre of the mandir and people were worshipping and doing all kinds of puja in a very closed environment.We too bowed before the God and made our donation to a man who was performing puja.He just took our donation and did not utter a word...no prayer...asked no name ...nothing.It seemed awkward to me .We came out of the temple and soon i started feeling tired.My enthu had been carring me around but as i had achieved my goal (to travel to kedarnath) was over i started feeling pain.We visited a shankracharya temple near the kedarnath temple.All of us were feeling the fatigue.We decided to take a breakfast so that our downhill journey would be comfortable.