Valley Of Flowers

VALLEY OF FLOWERS........

Here I am …sorry guys for the long brk …. A lot has happened since my last blog…I should have posted everything here but ……. Anyways I m back n m back wth a bang…. Here it goes … in our “ close to nature” series presenting our trip to “Valley of flowers”…..in true sense mother of all adventurous trips I’ve done…. Which was at times scary…..here’s the route map we followed. Gurgaon-Delhi-Haridwar-Joshimath-Govind Ghat-Ghangaria-valley of flowers…

Planning the trip was the most difficult part…. Yes no yes no….at one point there were suppose to be 9 ppl in the trip…but finally 3 managed…. And a few I’d to say no….my sincere apologies to u guys…. But u know, I’d no choice…. So finally the lucky three were (from right to left) Tanzeem (Tanzy) , Pankaj (punkuss) n me….

The Journey began…

We started our trip on 10 Aug..frm Gurgaon… we reached ISBT n came cme to knw tht due to kawariya’s agitation buses to Rishikesh r nt that frequent and are taking 9-10 hrs to reach thre… we took a bus to Haridwar at 10:30 pm and reached thre at 5 in the morning….

Day 1

It was raining heavily wen v reached haridwar…thn v took the most expensive auto ride of our lives…..50rs for 300mts…bus stand to taxi stand… thre someone tld us tht thre has been a landslide on the way to Joshimath n the shared sumo’s r nt running …so we booked a sumo and strtd our journey….


We took a halt at a small restaurant on the way n had parathas….

Here’s Rudraprayag….we crossed other Prayag’s also but clicked at only this one….

Tanzeem wnted to jump n get rid of all his sins..punkuss smehw convincd hm tht all he did ws rite…and needs no sacrifice...

On the way this ws the moment of “I rule this place”. standing on the rock like a king…my dynasty was upto the periphery of that stone…hihi…

There was this beautiful fall on the way…

the place which ws blocked bcoz of landslides for 5 days ..it ws opend the sme day we strted our journey…good amen…

as close as u cn gt…clicked from the moving vehlcl..

now thre ws smethign whch v ddnt knew…at Joshimath thre is a gate which opens only at fixed times for journey ahead to Govind Ghat…once in every 2-2.5 hrs…n we missed the gate by 10 mins ..so had to wait thre for 2 hrs….so we didn’t wasted the time and made some friends…

it strted raing again wen v stred our journey again…the roads were bumpy n narrow..

after a long n not very tiring journey we reached Govind Ghat at 6 in the evening…we took a room thre for the nite…the room was just next to the thundering Alaknanda river….

Day 2…The 14 KM trek….

nxt morning we strtd our 14 km trek to Ghangaria at 7 45 am. … here let me tel u …. thre are 4 ways of doin this trek…1) leave all ur luggage in the locker at gurudwara at Goving Ghat and trek with only “must haves” . 2) take a mule, load ur luggage n walk 3) take a mule n gt urself loaded onto it. 4) Trek with your entire luggage with you. n u guessed it rite…. The three warriors took the fourth option…. And let me tell u if u r nt a regular trekker don’t try trekking this route with 15-16 kg on your back…

the view right throughout the trek is awesome….. after a few KM wen the legs start to pain, don’t just start thinking bout covering the distance which happens most of the time..n one strts looking only on the path ahead..just take a few second off and look around…the view and the frsh air will refresh u, in and out…

it started raining on the way so I’d to keep my camera in the bag…Pankuss clicked at that time wth his mob….we put on the raincoats…here I must tell u that the most rewarding investments for this trip were two extremes … 1st was booking the sumo from Haridwar to Govind ghat (Rs 4100) n the other one was the raincoats (Rs10 n 15)… they looked funny but wre really helpful…

After covering 9 km….

Still long way to go…..

We had magi on our way …and lot of nimbupaani to keep the body fluid balanced….

Last three km…….

Looks like we r almost thre…but hey hang on the last 3 km are the most challenging route…where the trek mite become as steep as this one…

One thing I noticed during this trek….when everyone was exhausted and having muscle pains…I was climbing …climbing and climbing…… guess my “Pahari“ gene were working for me here…..

And after 6 hrs of lovely trek…we reached Ghangaria at around 3pm… Ghangaria was a small village under the shadow of a massive mountain…

u just won’t blve hw close it was…

We took a room thre and had a nice sleep…..for the dinner I’d authentic Garhwali “aalo thichwanini “ with “bhaat” …..

Day 3…Phoolo ki ghati

Nxt mrning we gt up early and were lucky to have a clr weather…we strtd for valley of flowers …

oh sorry batana bhool gaya..we met a firang thre …sabina…she n a Japanese girl (I don’t know her name, she was shit scared …dnt know y…) were are with us for this trek to VOF….

At the entrance …we were welcomed by Jerry…

Map of VOF…

And here we go….

Once v startd the trek…. I was spell bound… hw cn it b so pure n beautiful…. All the sceneries that u see in the movies were in front of me.. … just breath-taking….

with every turn I was gtng mre n mre hypnotised by the artistry of nature….

Oh ..n did I told u that we hav still nt entered the Valley of flowers…. This ws the entrance…

Ppl told us tht due to rains the valley was nt fully covered wth flowers but still it was astounding. We made it babyyyy….

N thn I left a msg for some one….

the most refreshing drink was the water from the fountains…

punkuss was gtng crazy…

those mountains were massive..

n the paths were narrow…

but we were enjoying every second of it…

But it strtd raining again and we strtd wlking bk…

tanzy clicked very nice pics of the flowers in the macro mode….they r all a part of his blog now… http://www.tazzo-valleyofflowers.blogspot.com/

n my expertise was panoramic views…

and so the trek to VOF ended…but journey is nt over yet …. how cn everything go so normal …u see this bridge….This could have been my last pic…I slipped on the bridge and my leg went between the crosses on the bridge…hurt my leg …and my camera too…

We reached back to our room in ghangaria at 1 30 ..had our lunch n we decided to go down to Govind ghat today itself… we took a mule for our luggage…and started the 14km trek….

Alaknanada river was flowing in a rage…

I envy these ppl who stay here…. Away frm the artificiality …. The natural way…

And then I saw this…. The scent of education ….. reaching such extremes…

But the faith in supernatural being remains undeterred……….

And with many such lovely experiences we reached bk Govind ghat…we slpt like nvr before…n v desrvd it yaar…we’v covered 42 km in two days ….

Day 4….the trail of terrible events

Journey bk was nt that exciting …was little scary…first of all v took a wrng decision of taking a shared sumo…over it we took the back seats…n to add to tat we decided to directly go to Rishikesh…11 hr journey …..we cud have managed all that ..but the real torture were co passengers…the maximum verbal stamina I’ve ever seen in my life….those three were blabbered continuously till the time we reached Rishikesh….

On the way there were landslides……

A bus had fallen down…

One tyre of our sumo gt punctured …it strted raining heavily…and the windshield were not working…so the driver was managing……looking out n driving….

But in the end we made it to Rishikesh…. We took a bus from thre to delhi which again gt struct becoz of heavy rain n a tree fall near Raiwala …

Quite an eventful journey …isn’t it….but it was really worth it…the peace n serenity of the place made it all worth it….

So this is it.........i know i am a little late in posting..but this was my first blog with pics and i really had to understand how to do it...the sequencnig stuff...thanks to tanzy......

One more thing...u must have noticed i have not posted much pics of VOF...actually Tanzy has covered all those in his blog..... u can check out his blog too....

shall be posting blogs of my other outings too....

oh ya...one thing that we were looking for when we were planning and i feel would be beneficial for anyone who wants to go for such treks is the budget..so from i will make sure that i gve an idea of that in my blogs from now on...

here’s the economics worked out for u for VOF…


Delhi ISBT – Haridwar
Rs 200 per head (I’d suggest u better take a bus to Rishikesh directly. Cost of forward journey would be cheaper n there r less chances of u gtng cheated on taxi fares.)

Day 1

Haridwar – Govindghat
1) Shared taxi – Rs.300 per head
2) Book a taxi – Rs 3500 – 4100 (I wud recommend this option. Reason being the journey in shared taxi can be very tiring. Wth a pvt. Taxi u can take halts wherever u want. And the journey is also not that tiring. So u r fresh n all charged up for the trek wen u reach Govind ghat.)
3) you can do brk journeys if u want to… Haridwar- Joshimath-Govindghat.

Food expenses - Rs. 300

Stay at Govind Ghat - Rs. 300. u cn get a three bed room in Rs. 300 here. Quite comfortable and close to thundering river Alaknanada.

Day 2

Item for trek
Keep lots of chocolates for instant energy during the trek, buy that temp raincoat (Rs10/15), buy a stick if u want to.
Mule (optional) -Rs. 250-300

Food expenses- Rs. 600

Stay at Ghangaria -Rs. 300 for three bed room.

Day 3

Trek to valley of flowers

Entry fee for VOF -Rs. 50/head for Indians & Rs. 350 for foreigners. If u r carrying a digital SLR, another Rs. 150.
Food expenses -Rs 700
Room at Govind Ghat -Rs. 300

Day 4

Return Journey
U can do direct journey bk to Rishikesh

RS. 320 per head in shared sumo
Rs 3000 for booking the full taxi.
Food expenses -Rs. 700.
Rishikesh – Delhi bus-Rs. 200

Note: food, hotel room and other expense mentioned above are for three people.

and for any detailed information ..... mai hu na...

Cheers........