Beauty of Uttrakhand - Badrinath

One of the reasons why we started Travelling Rants is that we wanted to describe our own trips throughout India so that everyone who plans their trips could use our experience as help for their journeys.

Each trip will include a series of posts as it is impossible to cover all the useful information in one post.

And we start our journey today with Uttarakhand.

Uttrakhand became 27^th state
of the Republic of India
on 9 November 2000.
The word Uttrakhand is made up
of two words Uttar and Khand,
if we refer to old literature,
this word is derived from two Sanskrit words
uttara meaning north, and khaṇḍa - part.
Uttrakhand - a part of north India has its capital at Dehradun.

The state is divided into 13 districts which are grouped into 2 divisions - Kumaon division and Garhwal division having a total geographical area of 51,125 km² out of which 93% are mountains and 64% are covered by forests.

State is full of natural beauties and has a lot of tourist places:

Jim Corbett National Park at Ramnagar in Nanital
is India's oldest national Park,
Valley of Flowers, Nanda Devi National Park
are both a UNESCO World Heritage Site

Two of India's most worshipped rivers - Ganga and Yamuna both have there origin point (Gangotri and Yamnotri) in the state of Uttrakhand.

Another gem of the state is Haridwar, counted as one of the seven holiest places for Hindus.

Two others most spiritually auspicious pilgrimage places of Hindu's are Badrinath (Lord Vishnu) and Kedarnath (Lord Shiva) and also situated in this state.

And a prime pilgrimage for Sikhs Hemkund Sahib is also a part of Uttrakhand.

But mind it if you think this place is only about spiritual and religious places. Uttrakhand is place of great culture, a natural beauty and a must destination for all those who have passion to explore nature, those who want to be inspired by nature, those who need a getaway place from all the problems and troubles of day-to-day life.

We started this blog because at some point we realized that in this crazy run of time, fast life rhythm many of us fail to see the beauty around, fail to contemplate nature, fail to find their place in this world. Maybe it is a good way to find yourself again when you connect to the nature. What we try to do with this blog, is trying to help you bridge yourself with the nature.

And what can be better way to do this as to start our journey with some of the most beautiful places in Uttrakhand which though have their significance in Hindu piligrimage, but beside this they are really wonderful places where you can enjoy a great time one-on-one with the nature and its magic..

We will start our journey with one of such places - Badrinath.

Badrinath

a Hindu holy town,
a place devoted to Lord Vishnu
and one of the Chaar Dham.

After that we will explore the Great Himalayan Range by visiting two not less beautiful places situated at the leap of mountains - Valley of Flowers National Park and Hemkund Sahib.

Let's start our journey as we recall it.

Time and Central Figures

Today is September 27^th and we are in KaranParyag. Yes, KaranParyag, Uttrakhand, India. And when we say we, we mean Umesh, Manjeet and myself. Initially Sanjeev planned to be a part of our trip but due to fever he was to return home from Rishikesh.

Road

Actually we are on the trip to Great Badrinath. Yesterday me and Umesh started journey from Vasundhra, Gzb. And Manjeet from Chandigarh. We went by bikes, Karizmas. Having started from Vasundhra right at 2 PM we reached Rishikesh at 8 - 8:30 PM. The road condition in Uttar Pradesh was not good.

Accomodation

Mannu arrived early in Rishikesh and booked rooms in Guesthouse. Accomodation is in Rishikesh was not costly we got 2 AC rooms with a total of rs 900. In addition we packed the dinner from a local restaurant/dhabha.

Next Day

We decided for KaranParyag as our night stay point. We started from Rishikesh around 9 AM in the morning. For around 10-15 km from Rishikesh the road was in bad condition with lots of patchy and bumpy sections but after the first 10-15 km a good road was waiting for us. Big thanks to BRO (Border Road Organisation) for doing wonderful work, we must say that the road was really a charm, wide and smooth as opposite to the National Highway Road we faced from Delhi to Rishikesh.

Aireal View of River Ganga Near Rishikesh

Scenery

We took breakfast at Devparyag the holy Hindu place where river Alaknanda meets with the most worshiped river of Hindu's religion - river Ganga, one must stop here to enjoy the beautiful place of where two of the 2 rivers meet.

Devparyag, Alaknanda meeting with Ganga

Tip

If you are going by your own vehicles
then make sure you should have full tanks
from Rishikesh as there is only one pump
at Devparyag but when we reached there
was no fuel in the Pump.
One more Pump we found before Srinagar
but again it was not working and finally we
were able to get 2 petrol pumps at Srinagar
and could continue our journey.

Srinagar

Srinagar is a beautiful valley and one of the most developed towns that we had found on the way, after the Rishikesh we found ATMs there (Thanks to State Bank of India for wonderful network).

KaranParyag

After filling the tank we continued our journey and reached Ruder Prayag and then Karanprayag. Karanprayag was our night halt station so we took a room there and it again was not a costly place. We managed to get a room for only 200 rs.

Karanpaaryag  - Our First Stop on the Way to Badrinath

To be continued