I’m posting this a bit late, supposed to have been done within dec-2008. Was tired and exhausted to sit down and type it. Wish you a very very happy new year, hope you had blast on the new years eve!
Day 1: Starting on the wrong foot
I rushed early from work, since I didnt even have a proper bag to carry things. Luckily wildcraft had opened a showroom near my home and though it was costly, went and picked an orange one. Thermals were also in the list to buy, jockey came to rescue. Most of things I need were obtainable around here, only issue was the cost. I was sure that it would have cost me half the price had I gone to commercial street for bargain hunting. Nevertheless, it was all done.
Rajdhani was supposed to start at 820pm, given it was thursday, I thought an hour and half early would be good enough to reach the station. Dang, the city traffic showed its true colors, there was too much of traffic and the rick in which I was travelling always picked the wrong lane. I mean, the lane which my rick took stood still, all other lanes kept moving. This went on for nearly 40minutes, the driver tried switching lanes, but whichever lane he took it soon stopped, and others kept moving 
I gave up insiting the driver to drive faster, deep inside I got the feeling that I’m going to miss the train. Finally reached the station exactly at 820pm. Some coolie helped me get the luggage and we went in search of platform 8 from where it was supposed to start. There was no sign of Rajdhani, the train had left exactly on time. So much for leaving early from work !
As we came of the station, some one suggested that the train should stop at yelahanka and he would drop me if I paid 600bucks. That was a tempting offer even though it was over priced, so got on to that rick. He was driving pretty fast! He offered me drive back to the city incase I was not able to get the train no extra charges.
Suddenly I got slightly uncomfortable, I didnt know if the train stopped in yelahanka, what if this guy stopped the auto somewhere and mugged me? What if he took all my valuables and left me high and dry. I called up my friend and asked him to check the schedule for Rajdhani, he made it clear that it doesnt stop there. It was bad, but aleast I was not in trouble. We had crossed mekri circle and had almost reached ganganagar.
I asked the driver to turn back and drop me at home since I had no idea if the train stopped in yelahanka, and didnt want to try that option. He gave me excuses saying that I can ask the TT to stop the train, as if TT was my fathers friend. The idea of loosing 600bucks didnt go well with him. He kept on murmuring and arguing. Finally we had enough of arguing, he dropped me off somewhere and took 200 bucks
I took another rick back home. Meanwhile I called up my colleagues/friends who where to get on to the train at hyderabad and told them that I had missed the train. I came back home and booked a flight ticket for Delhi. My expenses just shot up the roof, since it was a last minute ticket.
Day 2
The next day I went to commercial street and finished off whatever was left in the shopping list.
Day 3
Saturday morning, I set 3 alarms to catch the early morning flight, just in case 
Only one went off, but the cab wala also called in at the same time. This time I was well in time to take the flight to Delhi
My friends had reached Delhi and they were shopping around Karol Bagh. I took a prepaid taxi and joined them for shopping and rest of the journey.
That evening we took our train to Pathankot, in Punjab
Day 4
According to the clock it was well past 8am, but the outside looked like it was 6am in the morning. There was fog everywhere and we realized our 
train was late by several hours. We had nothing better to do except chat up and take photographs in the fog. Some intelligent villager started making hot rotis, baggi and started selling them to the passengers. Everybody was hungry and they lapped it up. I guess he should made a cool thousand rupees on that day.
Finally we arrived in Pathankot, Punjab. One of our fellow trekker and colleague, Vinay had arranged for a taxi from Pathonkot to Dalhousie, our base camp in Himachal pradesh, through his friend.
Yahi Base camp
The Youth hostel in Dalhousie looked pretty good from the outside. There was small ground in front of it where they had setup several tents. One of the tents had the registration department. We went there and registered ourselves. I was personally disappointed that there was no snow this time of the year. It had snowed there in feb 2008 and they had photos of the same, and they said it could snow again in feb 2009. Well, I wanted to built a snow man, now looks like I need to plan another trip to create one
The accommodation was a dormitory type, with double decker beds. We were issued sleeping bags and blankets. Rug sacks were also provided for those who need it. We refreshed ourselves and settled down. Evening dinner was poha, but it was too dry and I didnt feel like eating. We were required to carry our own tiffin boxes for packed lunch. Some of us reused the same box for served food, some used disposable plates. Washing the tiffin boxes gave us the indication of the real intensity of cold. If you burn your hand, the burning sensation that you get is exactly same as the feeling you get when you put the hand into water.
In the evening after dinner, we were assembled along side the earlier batch which was about to start treking the next day for cultural activities. Some songs were sung, some jokes were shared. I cant recollect any of them now.
Subash - Standing tall
Day 5
We were to get up early at 5am and prepare for morning exercise. Military time, they woke us all by 5am and we were almost running to reach Subash chowk. Subash chowk would have been called Subash circle if it were Bangalore. There was a huge statue of Netaji Subash Chandrabose on one corner and 4 roads met in front of him. We formed a big circle there and like school kids did some exercises. I suspected if the camp leader was some PT master in a school around there, because the way he reacted, kind of indicated so.
After an hour of exercise we were asked to return back to the hostel. He allowed us to explore the area for 10minutes. There was an old church, St Francis church I think, built by the british, I forgot the exact year, may be 1890s. Someone was showing our fellow trekkers around the church, he pointed out that there was a mini bird zoo in the church with some 60 varieties of birds. I was thinking of coming back to that place when the birds were out and take some photographs, but because of our busy schedule I could not take any pictures.
The snow clad peaks were visible in the early morning sun and the reddish golden rays of the sun reflected beautifully on the peaks. So close yet so far.
We went back to the hostel, had breakfast and got packed lunch before setting out for what they called as acclimatization walk. It was a trek to some spot about 5 kms from the base camp. They said that there was Ajit singh’s memorial there. Ajith singh, it seems was Bhagat singh’s uncle and he died of heart attack when the decision to split India and create pakistan was announced. Hmm, patriotism!!
After the walk we had some time to rest, before the orientation programme. It basically talked about the history of Dalhousie, which was created during the British raj, as a summer time resort for the british troops. I guess a quick lookup of Dalhousie, himachal pradesh in google would throw up plenty of information, so I didnt bother to remember them. The trek was supposed to be passing through kajjiar-kalatop wild life sanctuary and finally end in Chamba.
Dalhousie, it seems, was around 6000ft above sea level, kalatop our first camp was at 9000 odd feets. That the highest point, then we decend down to kajjiar at 6500 feet and chamba at 3200 feet.
Our camp leader was quite furious with our batch, he said that we were wasting too much water. He calculated that even if every person took 2 buckets of water, assuming 50 liters per person, with a batch of 50 members, it was not even close to the 30000 liters they had to pump. Someone suggested that there must be a faulty flush. Whatever may be the reason, I could not believe that our group was wasting so much of water. With that intense cold, I was sure nobody was touching cold water and only half the geysers were working. What the camp leader felt was, that some folks are just letting the water go down hoping that hot water will follow cold water without realizing that the geyser hasnt even warmed up the water!!! It was not a pleasant feeling.
With all the info inside our head we went to sleep.
Day 6
Next day we started early, gave our luggage’s for safe keeping and started on our trek to kalatop. A couple of home gaurds were assigned to us, one to lead from the front and one to tail with the last group. We entered the forest full of deodar trees and pine trees, pretty soon. It was little bit tiring as we were ascending the hill. Finally after a few hours of trek we reached the roads. There was a tea shop around that corner, and we had a very nice tea. A lot of us had omlette and bread too. The view from this point was stunning, smaller peaks of the himalays. Later I learnt that these were the Dhauladhars ranges of the himalayas. We walked along the road to reach the entrance for kalatop wildlife santuary. We had lunch here and then started the remaining 3km trek to the forest guest house which was our first level camp.
This was a sanctuary for the black bear and deers. But all along the trek we never even saw one bear, lucky or unlucky not sure 
Forest Rest house
The forest guest house looked pretty neat. We rested outside for a while, in the green meadows. People were trying out local himachal dresses and outfits. Cameras were clicking all around and a few were snoring too.
Our group had around 47 members. The guest house was left for the ladies and the oldies of our group. They had smaller accommodations a little bit down, we had to trek down to reach that. Very primitive, with wooden barricades We had nothing better to do so our gang trekked further down to see whats out there, of course we had formed a gang by this time!!
Most of them were telugites, including my friends, may be I was the only odd man out, knowing only a few words of telugu and asking for translation if the topic seemed interesting. But there were plenty of them eager to help me understand. Plenty of fun as we teased each other and soon started feeling like family.
After the sun set we returned back to our small houses and prepared for dinner. The lights were pretty dull, could be 10watt or 20watt. After finishing dinner we started to play cards. I learnt a new game at this trek, 7s. It a very simple game, derived from the solitare (PC game). 7 spade opens the game, after which you have to start releasing all our cards in order attempting to finish off all that was dealt to you. 7s and 6s open subsequent stacks for each symbol. Cards are placed in decending order over 6 and ascending order over 7. Very simple, no mind games involved. If you want to be really smart, you could hold on to some card and make sure that all others who have cards following you are waiting for you blessings, a little bit of evil there
The sleeping bags were our heaven, the cold was so intense that even with thermals it was feeling damn cold. Dry cold basically, eating up whatever moisture.
Day 7
Next day morning after breakfast and packed lunch we headed straight to kajjiar. Kajjiar was supposed to be a tourist spot. It has been identified as the switzerland of himachal pradesh by the swedish government.
There is a huge cup shaped region where only grass grows, it is surrounded on the outside by huge pine and deodar trees. It is said that this was created by a meteorite that hit the earth centuries ago. Green is always soothing to the eye, a huge mass of green velvette is definitely pleasing. Pony rides, mini gliders and roller balls were being employed to amuse the visitors.
By the time we reached there, it was evening and all of us were exhausted. A local roadside singer came up and offered to sing. He let out good old hindi numbers with accompanying music using his “guitar” type string instrument and some kind of mini dolak. All our tiredness vanished as we listened to him, we gave him money generously and thanked him for his music. From there our camp was a couple of kilometers away. People who were exhausted to walk, took ponies to reach the camp.
The camp was basically someone’s house, I particularly didnt like this camp at all. There werent enough toilets and I felt that this part could be improved very much. Our gang was indigenous enough to make smart arrangements for our comfort
Day 8
The last lap of the trek, we were to reach the chamba district. A bus has been arranged to pick us up from chamba to bring us back to the base camp. Every time we start for the trek, the whole group leaves together, but it turns out that they reach in small small groups. My group was usually the last as we stopped everywhere to take photographs. A few of the trekkers decided to try a short cut and skipping the long trail and getting down to the bottom, where there was a river bed and then walking up the river bed to reach the others quickly. Not sure if it was the river Ravi or one of its tributaries, that used to flow in that river bed. It was mostly dry now.
I was enthused by that idea and joined them, soon realized that I need to hop slide and jump, which was next to impossible with me carry costly cameras. I decided to back off, and coming back to trail was a mini trek in itself. My shoes were good that they held on to even thin grass without sliding, otherwise I would have definitely broken a few bones, cracked my head and lost my camera too. As soon as I reached the trail, I thanked God
This adventure cost us about 40mins delay. Finally we all got back on the trail and started again. Soon we reached the roads. We were to walk down the road and reach our camp. Unfortunately we had lost track of the rest of the group and asked the locals to lead us to Chamba. A couple of youngsters, who were going to Chamba for tuition (10th class) offered to help us. We were walking along with them chit chatting. These guys walk down 5/6kms every day for schooling, I felt that Himachal pradesh was not that developed as I had hoped. May be the regions around Shimla, kullu manali are all improved. This entire state was dependent on tourism I think.
They offered to show us some short cuts and while we were descending down one short cut, we were identified by our tail gate home gaurd who said that we are heading in the wrong direction !! It was our mistake as we didnt know that the camp was at a place called obri and not proper chamba. We had mentioned chamba and the youngsters were taking us there
So thanking our stars for not letting us get lost, we managed to come back and reach the final campsite. This camp looked like some kind of lodging facility. The rooms had attached toilets, the happiness soon vanished as we realized that there was no water available on the taps. I felt that our camp leader had alerted these folks saying that our batch wasted a lot of water 
They claimed that its hard to get water on the hills, but all long the trek I found number of taps without stoppers washing the earth. Anyways I appreciate their feeling that they should conserve water.
We were allowed to go visit Chamba and shop. Most of us opted to eat out and we started to Chamba. Even though I was reluctant to buy anything ( I was hoping that we will shop in jammu, where I thought I might be able to get better woollen wear), finally ended up buying most of the woollen things that I had in mind for my sisters kids. The reason being nobody was sure if we’ll get time to shop in Jammu
We returned back to the campsite by 830pm. It was Christmas day and someone had got some cakes. We went to sleep quite early that night.
Day 9
Our last day of the trek. We got ready by 830am and after a brief note of self congratulations for having completed the trek we headed to bus which will take us back to our base camp. Two to three hours of bus journey and we are back to the base camp. We were not allowed inside the hostel building as some other batch had already occupied it. We collected our luggages, returned the blankets and rug sacks, got the “trek completed” certificate and prepared ourselves to go separate ways. Groups photos, exchange of contact info, smiles, good byes… all around.
We decided to take the bus to Pathankot and hire a taxi to our next destination, Katra in Jammu. Katra is the base camp for Vaishodevi temple. Vinay again got help from his friends to get some taxi arranged. We rode down till the jammu-punjab border. There was a dhaba where we had food, we had missed lunch while traveling. The evening sun was setting behind trees and its golden aura spread over the river Ravi flowing nearby. The sound of water flowing as it crashed into the rocks and the bridge added to the effect.
We took a few snaps enjoyed the wonderful site and gulped down the dabha food. I’m not a great fan of north indian food, I feel they are hard and the dishes are oily. But the dhaba rotis were soft and I wished I could eat more
In the meanwhile our taxi drivers found a cunning way to save cost, they exchanged us with a couple of taxis bearing JK registration. They were saving on inter-state tax since they didnt have the tourist permit. So we finally head towards katra in a different set of taxis.
We reached Katra quite late, journey time should have been around 4-5 hours. We got ourselves a hotel accommodation, dumped the luggage, refreshed ourselves, and headed straight for the temple. We were to reach the temple by 5am, the time our gang was allotted for darshan. The temple is on top of a hill, just like Tirupathi, its active 24hrs and people are found walking up and down. There are multiple options to go up, you could walk along the well laid out pathways, or use the steps which are quite steep, use ponies to climb up, or opt for palki mode transport where 4 men carry you all the way up. There is one more costly option, the helicopter service.
Day 10
It was well past midnight, but we had to reach the temple by 5am for our darshan. We started walking enthusiastically, but soon realized that it was getting tedious. The reason was we were damn tired, and should have been sleeping at that time But we kept moving and finally reached the Bhavan. There was a short cut which could have saved us a km, and we would have to travel through some new tunnel that they had built. Our gang decided to go the long way since there was another temple, ardhakumari temple that we were to visit.
14kms up hill was quite painful for me since I had developed a pain in my knees during the himachal trek. There are lockers provided where you can dump all your things, you are not allowed to carry cameras, mobile phones, wallets, belts, shoes besides others. After we took off the warm woollen socks, the cold literally bit into the flesh. On top of it, most of the carpets were wet, that made it even worse. We just hoped that our legs will get used to it soon.
We entered the cave in a single row and got to see the divine pindies that symbolizes the mother. Next we visited the bairon temple which we were told “must be visited otherwise the pilgrimage to vaishnodevi is never completed”. By this time all of us were completely exhausted and we opted to get the chopper drive down.
It cost us 1400bucks per head for a 5 minute ride to the foothills, the helipad was located outside of Katra and we had to take a rick to reach our hotel.
After packing up, we hired a tempo traveller and headed straight to jammu without wasting much time. In jammu we got a very good accommodation. Vodka and mountain dew quenched the thirst of some members, and the rest of us just sat around, ate the snacks and had fun. We were quite exhausted and slept well.
Day 11
We had some plans of roaming around Jammu, but it didnt materialize. All of us wanted to bathe in hot water and the geyser was a little bit slow for us. The hotel folks refused to provide alternate hot water options
The night before, when I went for a walk, saw some south indian hotel nearby, so our breakfast was south indian It wasnt that good, but after so many days of rotis and subji, anything looking like idly, dosa, sambhar and chutney was a welcome treat.
By the time we all got ready it was well past 1pm. The Jammu election results were announced and BJP had grabbed a number of seats. There was a lot of celebration around. We decided to do some shopping and get ready for our evening train to Delhi.
We visited the Ragunath Temple and shopped around the temple bazaar. The temple was different, it seemed to have the influences of muslim architecture. It wasnt anything close to the temples in south india which are known for the numerous art works.
The priests in the temple were completely money minded Even as they said whatever mantras, they keep pointing to the dakshina plate, you can see only hundred rupee notes on that. If anybody deposited lesser amount, they were quick to hide it away I felt it was funny and cheap at the same time.
Our shopping all done, we return back to the hotel and took ricks to the Jammu Tawi station. The station is equiped with xray machines and they scan all the luggages. Jammu rajdhani was our next train to reach New delhi. From New delhi I will have to take the flight to bangalore and the rest of them head back to hyderabad.
Day 12
Jammu rajdhani was expected to reach New delhi at 5am. At 7am, there was no sign of the train reaching. Our flights were scheduled for 10am and we wanted to be ontime. There was heavy fog and the train was literally crawling. One of us had a blackberry and that proved very helpful. We got to know that the flights were delayed and were scheduled for 1130am.
We reached Delhi and quickly got a taxi to the airport. Terminal 1B, we had to go separate ways since the gate for jet airways and kingfisher were different. We hugged goodbyes and I quickly reached the kingfisher side of the terminal, only to be said that your flight leaves from terminal 1A sir!!
I was waiting for the inter-terminal shuttle when an auto wala stopped by and offered to drop. I hopped in and arrived at the terminal 1A. Directly went in and got my boarding pass, the flight had been rescheduled for 1240pm. After waiting patiently for the boarding call and not seeing any, I went to inquire. They sweetly said, sorry sir, your flight had been combined with the afternoon flight, now it will leave at 315pm. Nonsense!
My mobile was out of charge and I couldnt call to ask the others whether they had taken off or not. Later I learn that their flight was also rescheduled and they reached hyderabad at 730pm.
The Airtel charging points within the terminal were useless as none of the motorola chargers were working. Luckily there was mcD inside the terminal and I could fill my stomach. After getting delayed and rescheduled again and again, the afternoon flight finally started at 530pm and reached bangalore at 8pm. Kingfisher has arranged for stewards on the airports to help people with heavy luggages, one of them came to help me and managed my luggage till I got into the BIAL bus to Koramangala.
By the time I reached home it was 950pm, completely exhausted but thoroughly amused. I’m sure the trek is gona have its toll on me, its gona be hard task to regain all the weight lost, but the wonderful sights, and the refreshing feeling I got cannot be substituted. And the cherry pick is the number of friends I made.
Ah, I had never gone beyond the Delhi american embassy, with this trek, I had visited 3 northern states The next one would be jolly trip and not a exhausting one like this
Update:
Specific things at vaishodevi:
The trek is tedious, the crowd, the horses, their dung everything makes it even more tedious. After reaching the bhavan, if its even an hour ahead of dharshan, just get into the queue to the cave. I later learnt that the original cave is opened only sometimes and that its quite narrow. There are tunnels lead to the cave directly. There are a number of boards that explain what to expect inside the cave. Not very helpful for the first timers like us Once inside the tunnel, completely covered with tiles, its better to watch out, otherwise you can even miss the ‘darshan’, forget about making any offerings. I still dont know where the chunni is offered.
There was a priest putting tilak, the pindies were to his other side. The handlers were not that friendly, were even pushing people to move foward. If you have been to Tirupathi, you’ll know what I mean, but this is a little bit worse. They see so many people day in and day out, and their intention is move the crowd as fast as possible through the cave.
Overall environment is not go and have a peaceful darshan types, but then I think its Mata’s way of showing and growing ones ability to remain at peace inside.
