My trip to Valley of Flowers during Aug 2012, with some cool pics, schedule we followed and details of expenses.
Here is the group of my friends with whom i visited the Valley of Flowers. From Left to Right,
Shiva, Farhat, Me, Mayank and Nitin
These are some of the Macro shots I took in Valley of Flowers. I hope you will enjoy these colorful flowers.
Here comes detailed schedule we followed for the trip, of-course it took almost 3 months to plan this trip as we had couple of people coming from Bangalore and Hyderabad, couple of people from Delhi and Noida and I was travelling from Ahmedabad. We all decided to meet at Delhi and then start the adventurous trip which was going to give life time memories.
6th July:
·
5:45 PM: Left from Ahmedabad railway station for
Delhi By Rajdhani Express from Platform No 1
7th July :
·
7:05 AM:Reached Delhi railway station on
platform No 15 and then left towards platform No1 and reached to Metro station
. Took ticket for Vaishali Metro station and was amazed with Delhi Metro
infrastructure. Changed train from Yellow Line to Blue Line from Rajiv Chowk
metro station.
·
8:30 AM: Reached to my friend’s home.
·
Spent day in delhi with friends and visited
Delhi Haat and couple of other places.
·
9:15 PM : we left from my friend’s house towards
Gaziabad Railway station to catch Masuri express going to Haridwar. Train was
late by 20 mins from its expected arrival time of 11:00 PM.
·
11:35 PM: Train arrived on platform No 2 at
Gaziabad railway station and we were shocked as train was fully occupied by
KAVADIYAs going to Haridwar. All of them were travelling with either general
ticket or no ticket and didn’t allow us to board the train. Thanks to police
officers there who forced them to open the doors of our bogie and we were in
the train having nonsense people travelling by sleeper class and that too
without ticket. But finally with one of my friends help we got 3 out of 5 seats
for rest of our journey.
8th July:
·
8:30 AM: We reached to Haridwar and were pretty
much tired as we didn’t have good sleep in train. We came out from Railway
station and got fresh and took breakfast and started looking for Taxi to
Joshimadh. In 30 mins or so finally we finalized taxi at rate of Rs. 4550.
·
11:00 AM: started journey to Joshimadh by TATA
Sumo and on the same day we covered distance of 280 KM and reached Joshimadh at
around 7:00 PM.
·
7:30 PM: Immediately after reaching to Joshimadh
we started looking for hotel and search ended with first hotel near the taxi
stand. We got 5 bed-room at just Rs 700 plus Rs 25 per one bucket hot water. We
had dinner and then had comfortable sleep.
9th July:
·
10 AM: We left for Govindghat which is around 20
Kms from Joshimadh. Here we got shared taxi at Rs 40 Per person. Within just 45
minutes we reached to Govindghat and we have to start towards Ghangaria on the
same day. We had tea and some food at Govindghat.
·
12:30 PM: Started our first trek of 13 KM from
Govindghat.It was tiring but we enjoyed it a lot.
·
7:30 PM : Reached our base camp Ghangaria. Me
and my friend Farhat reached little earlier and started looking for hotel. We
got hotel within 15-20 minutess and I booked two 3-bed rooms at Rs 1100 per
room plus Rs 50 pre one bucket hot water. We are going to stay there for next 3
days. We had dinner and then slept little early as we were tired after 13 km
long trek.
10th July:
·
9:00 AM : We were ready for trek to Valley of
Flowers.
·
9:20:00 AM: Took permission and ticket to enter
the Valley of Flowers. And here our actual trip started. It was trek of around
5 Kms and we enjoyed our trek and beauty of valley of flowers. I think all of
us saw glaciers for the first time and even we crossed one glacier which was on
our way to final destination within valley of Flowers.
·
1:15 PM: Had lunch, of course there are no food
stalls/hotels in Valled of Flowers but we had packed good no of Alu paraths.
·
2:45 PM: Reached to grave of Joan Margaret
Legge.
·
3:00 PM: Started backward journey to ghangariya.
·
5:30 PM: Reached to Ghangari and had some food.
·
9:00 PM: Had dinner and sweet sleep(after tiring
day).
11th July:
·
8:30 AM : We were ready for trek to Hemkund
Sahib- 6KM steep one.
·
8:45 AM: Started trek to Hemkund Sahib
·
9:30 AM: Me and my friend Farhat decided to trek
full 6Km stretch without taking even single break.(And we actually did so
except few stops to take snaps and water).
·
12:15 PM: Reached to Hemkund Sahib and loved
that place. Especially atmosphere in Gurudwara and Lake just behind the
gurudwara.
·
1:45 PM: Started backward journey to ghangariya.
·
4:15 PM: Reached to Ghangari and had some food.
·
9:00 PM: Had dinner and sweet sleep(after tiring
day).
12th July:
·
9:45 AM: Started backward jorney to Govindghat
and this time enjoyed a lot as this was not as difficult as onwards journey.
·
3:00 PM: Reached to Givindghat and had some
food.
·
5:00 PM: Started journey to Badrinath by bus.
·
6:00 PM: Reached Badrinath.
·
6:30 PM: Got rooms at just Rs 100/bed(don’t think
that it won’t be good accommodation, in
fact it was the best accommodation and we got at this rate because it was out
season.)
·
7:30 PM: Took holly bath in hot water pool and
visited Badri Vishal temple.
·
9:00 PM: Had dinner and came back to room and had
comfortable sleep.
13th July:
·
8:00 AM: Started looking for ATMs but none of
the ATMs was working and we were running out of money, we had enough to reach
Joshimadh.
·
10:00 AM: Reached to bus stop to catch taxi to
Mana village.
·
11:00 AM: Got taxi to Mana village at Rs40 per
person for just 3 Km distance.
·
11:15 AM: Reached Mana village
·
11:20 AM: Started 5KM long trek to Vasudhara
falls
·
1:15 PM: Reached Vasudhara falls and to be
honest it was not worth 5Km trek
·
1:20 PM: Started trek back to Mana village
·
2:25 PM: Reached Mana village.
·
4:00 PM: Reached back to Badrinath.
·
4:30 PM: Left for Joshimadh
·
6:00 PM: Reached Joshimadh and booked hotel at
GMVN at Rs 700/room and it was too good acoomodation.
·
9:00 PM: Had dinner and enjoyed sweet dreams
till next day morning.
14th July:
·
8:00 AM: We were ready to leave for Joshimadh
·
9:00 AM: Taxi rates were as high as Rs 7000 but
one of the person at GMVN found some contact who was ready at Rs 5000
·
10:20 AM: Taxi came to GMVN and we were ready
for 280 KM long journey to Hrishikesh
·
2:00 PM: Stopped for food.
·
6:20 PM: Reached Hrishikesh and started looking
for taxi/auto to Haridwar
·
7:30 PM: Reached Haridwar and it was bad news
that we have to leave auto 5 Km far from the railway station so we walked 5Km
to railway staion. On the way to railway station we helped on Bulgerian guy
find his hotel and then we gathered at railway staion at around 9:00
·
9:00 PM: Had
dinner
·
10:00 PM: Reached back to railway station where
scene was not good as there were many KAVADIAs ready to board train and
specially reserved coaches too.
·
10:45 PM: Train arrived on platform No 1 and
found that coaches 7-8-9 will be joined from this station and by by this time
most of the KAVADIAs had boarded other coaches and that was kind of relief for
us.
·
11:15 AM: Train came with our coach no7 and we
managed to get in to the train, again there were people who had occupied our
reserved seats. Still we had 2 seats and my friend managed to vacate remaining
seats. So had comfortable journet to Gaziabad. Farhat did not join us for this
journey and he left for his home town Barailey from here only.
15th July:
·
7:30 AM: Reached Gaziabad railway staion
·
8:00 AM: Reached to my friend’s home and got
fresh. Had breakfast/
·
11:10 AM: I left for CP-Cannaught Place where
two of my friend were going to jon me.
·
12:00 PM: Reached Cannaught Place and met Hitesh
·
1:15 PM:My friend Harsh came and we met almost
after 4.5 years.
·
2:00 PM: Had sizzlers ar Gola’s at Cannaugh
place.
·
3:30 PM: Ate famous rasmalai at Bengali sweets
and I bought Kesar Petha and few other sweets.
·
3:50 PM: Reached to CP metro staion
·
4:15 PM: I boarded train to vaishali saying good
bye to both my friends.
·
5:15 PM : Back to my friend’s home and ready to
leave for Ahmedabad
·
5:30 PM: Left from my friend’s home to catch Rajdhani
express from New Delhi Railway staion
·
6:30 PM : Reached New Delhi Railway station and
walked from platform No15 to Platform No 1
·
7:00 PM: Rajdhani left for Ahmedabad
This is how I was maintaining expenses per person..:)
I prepared the detailed schedule information from this sheet of paper.
Thanks for visiting this blog, I hope it will help you prepare schedule for your trip to valley Of Flowers(I am sure one day you will visit this amazing place).
Nirav
