Finally in Amarnath - a continuation of Aug 11 post

Now it is real. Within a few minutes, we landed and as soon as we walked a few yards, we were surrounded by the Doley carriers. They were a team of four. Noor warned us that depending upon the demand, they may ask up to 10,000 rupees for the return trip. Rao and Bhuvana decided to trek the 5 to 6 kilometers. The rest of us decided to go on a doley (pallaki). The first one asked for 3500 rupees. I felt it was quite reasonable - four of them have to share that money. Bhuvana was ready with her bargaining skills. I suggested that she can discuss other things, but not money reduction with them. So, she strictly told them that they will be paid only after our safe return, not a paisa before. They happily agreed. I don't know about the other two, but my carriers started praising me, calling me 'mother' immediately. I knew that they were mentally preparing me to give them a big tip at the end of the journey. That was another thing I noticed in India. The ride was good. The traffic was diversified - pallakis, trekkers, horse back riders. The military soldiers were controlling the traffic very efficiently. There were continuously crying children, fighting and arguing families and some happy faces throughout the journey. The carriers asked for some hard candy to suck on. I did not have any. They wanted tea and biscuits on the way. Tea was 30 rupees per cup. Tea and biscuits at another point was 120 rupees. Mind you, no restrooms anywhere. But, feel free to discharge anywhere you like. Absolutely no sanitation awareness.

I was able to see Rao and Bhuvana here and there for a while. Then, we were separated. Nirmala's pallaki was close to mine. But no sign of Umamaheswaran's.

We reached the last few steps to the Holy Lingam. One of them helped me all the way to the front of the lingam by holding my arm and shoulder. Some took off the shoes - I did not. The lingam was about 10 feet in height. We were able to stand and have good darsan for a few minutes, in spite of the pushing crowd. The priests gave me two coins as prasadam. Another blessed me by applying sindhoor on my forehead. By the way, as soon as we arrived there, I saw the flying dove. I wonder what the significance of that is!!!
Both Nirmala and myself were quite satisfied with our darsan and our helpers, who kept reminding me that they are like my children. Now, we came down the few steps and got onto the pallaki for the downward journey.
I took atlest 10 photos of the Ice Lingam from the place where we parked the doley. Surprisingly, not a single photo showed up in the Camera. All the other photos are there. Any explanation? The battery is intact!!!

About acclimatization and visit to the Kheer Bahavani Temple

My posts are going hither and thither,  not in sequence!!!

To get used to the changing altitudes, the trip to Amarnath was arranged in such a way that each night we are at a higher altitude. July 5th Srinagar, 6th to Sonamarg and 7th at Amarnath. We did not use any medicines to get adjusted to.

We arrived Srinagar on July 5th night. We stayed that night in the boathouse. The next morning, after breakfast, we decided to go to the Kheer Bhavani Temple. It was the second time for Rao, myself and Nirmala. For Bhuvana and Uma M the first time. We all enjoyed the darsan. Please go back to my post dated to see the details and picture of the temple. I just copied and pasted that post below, but no pictures.

We sponsored Aarathi this time, the water was white like milk this time in the sacred spring attached to the Temple. We had kheer as prasad, washed the container with soap and water and returned it to them.

The rest rooms are extrmely clean here, no money is charged. The medical volunteers come, set up a booth and the service is free, irrespective of who you are. Of course, it is only minimal check up and minimal medicine that is provided.

When I was coming out of the Temple, I met a gleaming Andhra lady who told me that they have just returned from Amarnath darsan and the Lingam was huge and beautiful. I told myself that we just have to wait another day to gleam about our darsan.

The following is a copy and paste from my post of 2010.

The Kheer Bhavani temple is situated at Tullamula in the Srinagar district. The Kheer Bhavani temple is devoted to Ragnya Devi, a Hindu Goddess. Representing the goddess is a sacred hexagonal spring at Tullamula village, which houses a small marble temple. The legend goes that Lord Rama worshipped Ragnya Devi during his exile. After the exile period got over, Rama asked Lord Hanuman to shift the seat of the goddess.
It was the wish of Mother Ragnya that her seat be place at Kheer Bhavani Mandir in Kashmir. And this wish was conveyed in a dream to a pandit, Raghunath Gadroo. The temple of Ragnya Devi is called "Kheer Bhawani" because numerous devotees offer milk and kheer to the sacred spring. It is believed that milk and kheer turn to black color to warn of any impending disaster. We were told that the spring water changes color frequently. Maharaja Pratap Singh got the temple constructed in 1912. Later, Maharaja Hari Singh undertook  restoration work on the temple.

The eighth day of the full moon in May( Jeshta ashtami - wow,  my birthday) holds great significance for the devotees of Ragnya Devi. They fast on this day and gather at the temple in huge numbers. It is believed that on this day, the goddess changes the color of the spring's waters. The Kheer Bhavani temple serves as the venue for an annual festival held in May-June, on the occasion of Jeshta Ashtami. During this festival, a large number of Hindus visit the temple to seek blessings of the goddess. Another occasion on which the Kheer Bhavani temple gains special importance is Shukla Paksha Ashtami. On this day, havans/yagnas are performed to please the goddess.


We did not go to Shankara Temple which is a long drive locally and on top of a hill. Last year we three climbed all the steps and made to the blissful darsan. Again, please go back to that post to read it.

Sonamarg to Baltal and on to the Helicopter

Sonamarg is about 90 km NE of Srinagar and is a very popular place. They used to 'shoot' many Hindi movies here. I don't know whether it is still a practice!!!

 The drive is a spectacular sight in Kashmir, in Sindh Valley. The Sindh Valley is upwards and is of sixty miles long and deep rock-girt gorge to open grassy meadow land. You have to see it to believe it.

Sonamarg ' meadow of gold ' has its backdrop snowy mountains against a cerulean sky. the Sindh river flows along here. Ponies can be hired for the trip up to Thajiwas glacier a major attraction during the summer months. I think this is what Rao, Uma and Bhuvana tried to see and since Uma was not up to it after a Km walk, they returned. I have some photos of them in one of the previous posts.

A breathtaking view of Himalayas from Sonamarg valley

The climate of Sonamarg is very pleasant, but the rainfall is frequent though not heavy. Shangloo arranged our night stay in Snowland Hotel. As usual, the arrangement should have been two beds in each room with extra mattress for the third. But due to over booking by the management, we got one double bed and one mattress on the floor (which Rao obliged to occupy). 

About the bathroom here - any water that we put in the wash basin came out on to the floor. After one person used, the hot water was not available (they said once opened the hot water tap, it should run continuously, otherwise it will stop). To add to this, due to the power cut, we had to wait till the power came back for the other two to shower. The management was extremely polite. They follow the rule of "'you don't have to oblige, just speak obligingly" !!!  

They had food available in their own cafe. The hotel charges included breakfast and dinner. So, we had one meal there and the other in a neighborhood vegetarian restaurant. They promised to pack our breakfast. A sandwich and a piece of chocolate cake. Because of the egg in the cake, we requested two sandwiches for each one of us (but later on, when we opened our bags, there was one very tasty chutney and vegetables sandwich and the cake).

We woke up at 3 a.m. and were ready by 4 a.m. Baltal was only 15 Kms., but we weren't sure how the traffic would be and our Helicopter boarding time was 7 a.m. The breakfast was well packed and even though we paid for the hotel till noon, we had to vacate it. They offered to hold our luggage in the hallway, but we decided to keep it under Suresh's guard in the car. Suresh parked the car at a distance in a lot and walked us to the Pad. We reached the Helipad by 6:30 a.m. 

Here, there are many military, security men and women who appeared very busy. But no one was able to give correct information regarding where to form a line when we hold the boarding pass etc. Finally our turn came to go through the gates to the Helicopter parked area. I decided to stand in the front in the waiting line. at that gate. By then, I learned how to manipulate the 'push and shove' of Indian queues. Just before they called our numbers, they weighed each person in order to distribute the weight in each Helicopter. Rao went in a different copter. With 5 in each, one lady was added to us four. Additional person was in the front seat next to the driver. I thought that I would be afraid of heights. It wasn't so - I enjoyed the ride. The peaks were beautiful (yet at that point, it was nothing like the Rocky mountains of Colorado of my Karma Bhoomi.
Caution: They gave us boarding pass only to Amarnath, for the return, we would get at Amarnath helipad. Sounded very easy - but wait till another post for that story.

Srinagar to Sonamarg to Baltal to Helipad and to Amarnath

Our Train (Uttar S Kranti) from Delhi arrived in Jammu around 6:30 a.m. As we waited to contact the driver over the phone, Rao went around exploring the station and by the time he returned, it was 7:15 a.m. We easily identified Suresh, the driver outside the station. He helped us load the luggage also in the car. It was like a small SUV. I forget the names of Indian cars. It was quite spacious and comfortable. Like I wrote before, due to the traffic and road conditions, we reached our destination around 8:30 p.m. Very tiring and not much to eat, we were exhausted. We were thankful that Bhuvana's aunts packed us some fresh food and so we survived on the train.


Our room # was 32. Two double beds. Bhuvana and her brother got two bed room also. After showering etc. met with Noorji and the cook prepared roti and dahl, salad etc.


We slept well thinking about our next day drive to Sonamarg on the way to Baltal.

Haridwar - Ganga, Chandi and Maansa Devi Temples

We bathed at Lakshman Jhoola in Haridwar. The evening Aarathi (offering of the lights) was beautiful. I will write details in the future post.

https://picasaweb.google.com/pyadavalli/Haridwar?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Temples around Jammu

More photos of Jammu Temple, Jammu Railway station, Raghunath Temple, Mahamaya Temple.

With a photographer like Bhuvana, we were blessed with wonderful photos.





Also, the link again:

https://picasaweb.google.com/pyadavalli/JammuTemples?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Before the yatra - Chennai beach and Delhi

Now that I have mastered the loading of photos, I am providing a slide show as well as a link.

We went to Marina beach in Chennai before our Yatra. You can see Priya, Gayatri's mother-in-law and Sridhar, the great brother-in-law. The other set of pictures are from our Delhi tour - Qutb minar and India gate etc.

Again, copy and paste and 'taste' the link if you want.

https://picasaweb.google.com/pyadavalli/ChennaiBeachAndDelhi?authuser=0&feat=directlink

About Shangloo Travels and arrival from Jammu

A friend of mine in Philadelphia area gave me a contact name of her friend Mohammed Deen in Leh, Kashmir. Last year we could not contact him during our failed darsan to Amarnath. This year we decided to go through a local travel agency in Srinagar itself. I researched a lot and communicated with other bloggers on line. Finally,  The same person recommended this Shangloo travels. The next thing we know is that Mr. Noor M Shangloo, who is the director of operations is communicating with us. We paid the money as soon as we decided who are all going with us. The usual three of us, Bhuvana and her older brother, Umamaheswaran.
Shangloo delivered more than we expected. House boat rooms were beautiful and comfortable - meals were so so.

Our package included picking us up at Jammu on the 5th at the train station, taxi at our disposal during our stay of three days, Helicopter return fare, accommodation for 2 nights at boat house or hotel (our choice) and drop off at Jammu station on the 9th. We agreed to pay 17000 rupees each. Our Taxi contact was Lalit. His mobile # was e-mailed to us. When we contacted him from the train, he gave us the driver's name and number. We promptly located each other and met with him around 7:30 a.m. on July 5th. The driver Suresh is seen in one of the photos. Very satvic wonderful guy. It took us 12 hours to reach Srinagar due to heavy traffic, slopes and wet weather. Actually, there was a scare of the roads being closed from Jammu to Srinagar when we were about to leave Delhi. By God's grace, the roads were opened for our arrival.

The distance between Srinagar and 

• Amarnath: 143-km
• Jammu Tawi: 293-km
• Delhi: 900-km
• Sonamarg: 87-km
• Pahalgam: 86-km
• Leh: 434-km
• Yushmarg: 47-km
• Aharbal: 51-km
• Gulmarg: 56-km
• Katra: 285-km

By the way, in case you go to these regions, make sure you have a postpaid mobile phone and that too only BSNL seem to work. The prepaid ones don't work there. Umamaheswaran got one and all of us used it when needed, especially to communicate with our agency and families.

This and that - venting

See my post dated June 4, 2011. I included a link to the Indian Railway system and coding.
Most of our reservations were made by Bhuvana's family. Very efficiently done - but they were all either WL (wait listed) or RAC (Reservation Against Cancelation). Some how with some extra fees for changing, canceling and multiple bookings etc., we managed to travel comfortably. Indecision bothered me the most. Not knowing what is going to happen next was the key to my frustration. When we had extra time between trains in Delhi, we decided to take a city tour in a taxi. We saw very little (Kutub Minar, my last preference) and he charged 3000 rupees for picking up and drop off at the station and giving a car tour of a small portion of Delhi roads. We boarded the train to Jammu by night fall.

I would like to dedicate a special post for my Travel agency, who made excellent arrangements for us.

Moghul gardens, Srinagar

I would like to start off with these photos. See another 4 posts with photos or links to photos.

Dal lake and Moghul gardens.

Link to photos

https://picasaweb.google.com/pyadavalli/KashmirAndMore?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Please copy and paste the above link into your browser.

More photos of Kashmir and Amarnath

I just learned to do this today. My previous post is the fist attempt. Any advice is welcome to improve the look of the post. Most of the photos are from Bhuvana's camera. My camera 'swallowed the actual Ice Lingam photos. No idea how it happened. I took so many - booohooo.

Do you need to sign in to see this slide show??? I created a link in another post.

Some photos of the yatra - not in any date order

Darsan continued....................

Once we entered the Temple, Nirmala managed to bypass a portion of the crowd for us. She greeted someone she knew and he arranged for us to stand in front of the beautiful Venkateswara form for quite a few minutes. Usually, it is a few seconds and if you are lucky, you are allowed to stay for 2 minutes before the volunteer security pushes you out. I was lost in time and enjoyed the bliss!!! The shrine was charged with energy. Rao and I slowly came out and waited for Nirmala. We reached the Hundi (where we make our material offeringsI and offered money. Another friend from Chennai gave us some money to be deposited on behalf of his grand daughter five year old Akshara who lives in Cleveland area.

On Wednesday I went to my native town Nellore to visit my sister. She lived on the 4th floor and the elevator was out of order as usual. I had to carry my two small pieces of luggage by myself. Surprisingly, I had no difficulty, no gasping for breath. I spent a night there and returned to Tirupati on Thursday. It is a 3 hour trip each way by a fast bus.

The same evening, we went to Tiruchanur to have the darsan of Padmavathy. While we were standing in line holding the ticket for the kumkum pooja sponsorship, there was another couple in front of us who had sponsored a bigger pooja and while the priest was paying a lot of attention to them, he thought that we were in their group and mistakenly made us sit in the front along with them. We had wonderful time and did not realize that it was an error until suddenly he ignored us, did not give us kumkum or prasadam and was profusely thanking the other couple. What ever the mistake, we had wonderful time and we left with happiness.

Now that Nirmala showed up with mild infections, we went to visit the doctors etc. on Friday and with whatever time was left, finished our packing. The next day w left to Chennai railway station. Waited for about two hours for Bhuvana and her brother Uma to arrive )they are local Chennai). They made all the train reservations for us and held the e-tickets. We had to wait for the railway official to show up and allocate our seats/beds etc. This happened only after 6 p.m. Bhuvana brought plenty of delicious home made food for all of us to eat on the train. We also took some and the food was abundance. The company was good and we sang bhajans, recited Hanuman Chaleesa and had blissful time. By the time we reached Delhi, we could not finish all perishable food and had through it away. I felt very sad for that. The taxi arranged by Bhuvana's uncle was waiting for us at the station, the train was amazingly on time and we spent the day at her Uncles' place. They are twin uncles with wonderful wives. We decided to hire a taxi and go around part od Delhi before our night train time.

Darsan of Balaji.

Nirmala advised that Tuesdays are usually less crowded and we could join the senior citizen line for darsan. I was happy because we don't have to bypass the crowd and everything is legal. Looking at me, they did not even check the p-roof of our age. Rao and I sincerely carried our Passport/Visa books. Nirmala had her usual Devasthanam badge!!

We took an Auto-rickshaw to the bus stand. Nirmala went to the counter and bought the return tickets.
Got comfortable seats and a beautiful ride. It was hot, but, did not matter. The vegetation is enormous. Reached the senior citizen line by 9:30 a.m. In spite of security and volunteer scouts supervising the crowd, many young men and women climbed over the fence and joined the line in a very disorderly manner. They appeared to be educated young men and women - just the Indian way of life, I guess.

At and from Chennai airport - a preface

The flight from Brussels arrived on time. Customs and Immigration was a 'breeze'. The employees were extremely polite (unlike at Bombay airport). When asked, the security at the exit door directed us to the Taxi counters. There were three booths. the first one said it costs 450 rupees. Just checked the second one - they wanted 350 rupees for the same size and type of taxi and same destination. Naturally, we picked the second. One man helped load the trunk with our suitcases. Did not wait for a tip - but we paid him anyway.

Reached Nandanam (Gayatri's in-law's location) very early in the morning. Were greeted by happy faces of the family.

We enjoyed our stay with them for more than three days. Visited three Temples that I mentioned in my previous post. Spent a lot of time at the Marina beach. Will post those photos soon.
Informed Nirmala about our arrival. Mohan had our tickets ready for Tirupati by the train named Saptagiri. It was a Sunday and the Tirupati platform was literally packed with people. All were standing shoulder to shoulder - I never saw such a crowd on a train platform, even in India!!!

Reached Nirmala's abode, had dinner and rested well. This was Sunday. Planned to visit Tirumalai on Tuesday. More next.

Astronomy, Astrology and just to keep the blog alive

The following link is very interesting and informative for those that like to explore The many calendars.

I love it, even though it is a lot of reading.
I still haven't gotten the mood to write about my 2011 yatra. Will do it soon. In the meantime, this link should keep you all busy!!!

http://www.greatdreams.com/2012.htm