Katra, Amritsar and Delhi (Oct 31 - Nov 6)

I have been meaning to visit the Vaishnodevi shrine and Harmandir Sahib for over a decade I’d say. But the trip never materialised and was always in ‘planning’ stage. I’m sure lot of you reading this blog would have destinations you have been meaning to go to but it takes forever to get real. This year my annual outing to New Delhi was due, it is usually to go hang out with Sreekrishna aka Tyson, eat some amazing food and also run the Delhi Half Marathon and return. This year, on the same date as Delhi Half Marathon, there was the NDA Marathon in Pune which I had registered to run, you can read all about it here as a result I didn’t have my usual ‘race’ or excuse to visit Delhi. Around mid August though, I was talking to Tyson and asked him if he’d be interested in going to Vaishnodevi & Amritsar. We tried to loop in Sriram too, he however couldn’t make these dates due to constraints. I booked flight to and from Delhi, the idea was to commute between the other cities by train. I flew into Delhi on Oct 31 evening for this long awaited trip.

New Delhi - Katra

After a quiet evening at Tyson’s place. We were all set first thing in the morning to hop into the New Delhi - Katra, Vande Bharat train which got us to Katra right after Lunchtime. We went to the Army Camp, Katra and checked-in at the guest house. Courtesy Nidhi (work colleague) who helped with the bookings and arrangements for Darshan through her Army contacts. After freshening up and completing the paperwork at the Army camp we got our passes and began our ascend at 4 pm. We were 5 of us, Tyson’s Siri Fort friends joined us for the Katra leg of the trip. The climb, about ~12 km was hard in some sections, but overall easy-to-moderate on effort and difficulty level. If you are active and exercise regularly you can save yourself the hassle of sitting on a pony and/or the chopper ride. From the beginning the idea was to climb/trek than take it easy. The climb didn’t feel hard as we were 5 of us climbing, we chatted along the away and took breaks to reload. In about 3 hours we were at the Shrine. We went to the Army registration desk to lock our belongings, mobile, etc. An army NCO escorted us to the Shrine short-circuiting the long queues, we were in and out in 20 minutes. We stopped at Domino’s to grab Pizzas, wonder why we chose to eat there. We then began the climb for Bairo Mandir, whilst it’s only 2 km from the Shrine, the climb wasn’t easy, pretty steep all the way. It took us 30 minutes to get to the temple. The view of the Vaishnodevi shrine from the top was absolutely mesmerising, totally worth the hard work. The descend to the Army base camp took another 3 hours with a break to eat some mouth-watering kadi chawal and Rajma chawal. We got back to our room around 2 am a little exhausted with the 28 km up and down journey, but very satisfied with great Darshan after all the effort. We slept about decent, albeit whatever was left of that night. We had a train booked to Jammu at 11 am, we barely made it in time. The train ride was about 90 minutes with some amazing views and long tunnels enroute. In Jammu, we had a couple of hours to kill. Tyson suggested we go to Raghunath Mandir and then eat at a dhaba close by and get back to the station to catch our next train to Amritsar. The Raghunath temple is beautiful and a must-see place in Jammu. The dhaba food was decent, but we both suspect to be the primary cause of an upset stomach the following morning. Tyson and I mostly spent our time sleeping during the train ride to Amritsar.

Amritsar

We arrived at our AirBnb that evening, a quick 15 minutes walk from the station got us there. This place was in a quiet and pretty upscale neighbourhood called Green Avenue, which has pretty huge homes with broad and nice roads. There were a lot of immigration centres all over that area, no wonder half of the people in Punjab have permanently moved and settled in US/UK/Canada.  After some quick research, we went to Bharawan da Dhaba and had their signature dish, Makki di Roti and Sarson da Saag and Amristari Khulche with Chole. The food was out of this world and finger-licking good, period! We spent the night and until the next afternoon recovering from a stomach bug, either caught at the Dhaba in Jammu or perhaps the physical abuse the body took the previous evening/night with the climb and unruly eating accompanying it. That aside, we started to feel well and the next stop was the recently renovated Punjab War Memorial enroute to the Attari-Wagah border with Pakistan. The war memorial is a must-watch to learn more about our forces and the sacrifices they make to keep our country safe. We had VVIP seats courtesy another Army friend of mine, who got passes for us from another BSF friend of his. We were privileged to have watched ‘Lowering of the flags’ ceremony from these vantage seats, another must-watch whilst in Amritsar. We drove to Harmandir Sahib on our way back. The place is so peaceful and tranquil, you’d  never get enough of it. We had great Darshan after a 60 minutes wait in the queue. Stood in the line twice to get the Kadha Prasad. The hot and desi ghee oozing Kadha Prasad made the trip all the way from Bangalore worthwhile. We had dinner at the public langar at the Gurudwara that night. Hundreds of people volunteer and simple food is served round  the clock free of charge to devotees. You got to give it to the Sikh community, the Gurudwara was spotlessly clean and no pushing and pulling whilst waiting in the queue and their langar infrastructure feeds hundreds of people in 10-15 minutes and this keeps going on round the clock, very impressive. A blog doesn’t do justice, you should visit to see what I am trying to describe. Trust me, it would be worth the effort. We ended the day with Lassi. Next morning, we checked out of our Airbnb and headed to Harmandir Sahib, Jallianwala Bagh and the Partition Museum. The latter two depicts the suffering of Punjab people caused by the British, so gory and very depressing. We took the Shatabdi Express back to New Delhi, I spent 80% of the time sleeping during the train ride. Delhi welcomed us with severe pollution with 500+ AQI. As soon as you arrive in Delhi, for folks who don’t live there you can actually feel the pollution, it’s unimaginably bad. I feel for the people who live in Delhi during winter months when it’s especially severe.

Delhi

Sunday, I woke up early, got ready and went to meet a school friend for Lunch and then that evening met some college buddies. I was sleep deprived from the previous night as I was tracking my friend’s NYC Marathon on the NYC Marathon App. I blogged about his race here. Tyson and I went to Siri Fort Mon morning, whilst I always carry my running gear wherever I go, I consciously decided to not run. I walked for 40 minutes, but the pollution was pretty shit. On hindsight, I can’t imagine, why I ran the Delhi Half Marathon between 2015-2019 in this pollution. I flew back that evening to Bangalore and was welcome by thundershower and cleaner air. That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!