Some more holiday snaps from Jammu, cataloguing our adventures in Chandigarh, our stay with Nanaji & Naniji in Mooni, and our long trek up to Vaishnodevi, around the start of 2010.
In the last days of 2009 Amarsha, her parents, and I set off in Nanaji’s Maruti Alto for Shimla, up in the Himalayas, 2 days away by road. I drove for the whole trip, which was an experience – my first time driving on the open road in India, we had one or two “exciting” moments, but nothing catastrophic. Enroute we stopped off in Khanna, in Punjab, where we stayed the night with Rahul Bhaiya and his family. It’s a shame we didn’t take any photos with them. We didn’t take any in Shimla either, rather unfortunately, which we reached after dark the next night, having stopped to assist at the scene of an accident on the steep road up. It was very scenic, and clean. Really clean. Amarsha and I had some nice things to eat, danced away New Year’s Eve, and then I fell sick and spent the rest of my time in Shimla looking at the inside of a hotel room. On the bright side though, it was a very nice room.
On our way back to Jammu we stopped for 2 nights in Chandigarh, “the city beautiful”, where Papa managed to get us rooms in the TTTI guest house through his old links as a Principal. That was fun; the mess hall there has great home-cooked tasting food! We went boating on the man-made lake Sukhna the next day, visited a world acclaimed rock garden and Asia’s largest rose garden, and watched a slightly idiotic Amir Khan movie :)
Back in J&K, we were soon off on another trip, this time to stay with Amarsha’s grandparents in Mooni for a week. Situated in the hills overlooking a wide shingle riverbed, Mooni is one of the more scenic villages around… a peaceful, quiet place; I really loved being there. The pictures speak for themselves, I hope. Mummy was happy to show me around the village she grew up in, and a couple of times inquisitive locals stopped me to chat while I was out walking Nanaji’s dog, Kalu.
Our final little excursion around Jammu took us up to Vaishno Devi, a holy site situated inside a cave, on top of a mountain, which is visited by millions of pilgrims every year. We left the car in Katra, the nearest town, and covered the remaining 12km up the mountain on foot. Factoring in a couple of tea breaks it took us the better part of 6 hours, in the rain and the dark, before we reached Bhavan at the top, and found our room. Raincoats excepted, at least we all brought appropriate gear with us. Good shoes, for instance; I was quite impressed to see some devotees doing the entire 12km barefoot! The path isn’t soft.
We tried to dry out our gear in front of a small heater and catch a few hours sleep. It was freezing in the morning and I was the only one to take a stone cold bath (from a bucket), after a mixup with the hot water (and there was actually plenty! doh). When we went for darshan (viewing) we were lucky to get to use the original entrance to the cave, which is usually not open due to crowd volume, but we’d gone in particularly bad weather :) It’s a bit of a squeeze at the start, and you have to put your feet on the right angle to get in, but once you pass that bit the rest is easy. After darshan we had a short rest and some food, then it was straight into the trek back down. By the time we finally got back to Katra we were exhausted!
Jai Mata Di.
~Gareth