Mesmerizing Valley of Flowers: JOURNEY TO MESMERIZING VALLEY AND BACK... DAY 2:

Day 2(2nd July 2015): Haridwar

We took bath in the Holy river Ganga near Vyas Ashram. It was the first time for some of us and definitely exciting for all of us. The river was running full, with good currents and quite cold. But quite muddy water. Looked like it had rained heavily in the mountains (and we were told too that the mountains experiencing heavy rains). After a holy dip in the Ganga we did prayers (japa as they call it in India). Its really a very nice experience. Some of the experience cannot be put in words as many say. Do experience yourselves a dip in Ganga.
A good breakfast was done by people in the Kitchen. The head cook talked our language, Kannada. So it was easy for us to get information about various places in and around Haridwar.
We parked the car in Vyas Mutt and we decided to take an auto and visit some of the tourist spots of Haridwar. We told the auto guy to take us around in Haridwar. He said that he would charge us ₹650/- to take us to 6 different places. We felt it quite reasonable for 5 people in one auto. The auto was fun to go in. All should do it once. I wonder if these autos have any shock absorbers or not. It was just like a body has been fixed to a generator. The driver was a nice guy.
First he took us to Bharath Maata Mandir. A nice tribute to our mighty nation. It has seven floors, each based on a theme representing our nation. Like saints of India, kings of India, mothers of India, freedom fighters of India, states of India, avatars of Lord Vishnu and Lord Shiva.

Then we visited Vaishno devi mandir. A miniature model of the vaishno devi trip to Kashmir. It has a path which leads to top of the building and back down to main hall which has Mata vaishno devi idol. Going through the path, we need to cross some artificially created cave experience, water streams, miniature temples of Lord Shiva, Himalaya peak etc.

Later we visited a temple called bhooma niketan. It has many cement models of historical events of our country like mahabharatha, ramayana, bhagavatha etc. Quite well done. It will surely help people understand the essence of the history (many people call it mythology but I would like to call it our history) of this world.

This was followed by Tulsi Das' Ramcharita manasa mandir. A large prayer hall with entire Ramcharita manasa carved in white marble stones covering the hall. A very blissful place.

Then we went to Pavan Dham. A temple built of pieces of glass and glass paintings. A remarkable work by the artists there.

We got ourselves dropped near Har Ki Paudi, an area where the Ganga arti happens every evening and a its a big market place It was quite hot and felt like having Lassi. We were so full that we skipped lunch again. We thought of visiting Mansa devi temple and later have lunch. Haridwar has a nice shopping street connecting Mansa devi temple entrance and Har Ki Paudi. We had to cut short some shopping because of heat. We decided to take the ropeway to the temple. To our shock, the waiting time of 2.30 hours was being displayed on the ticket counter. But, the people there told us that it may not take that long, which eventually took 45 minutes to board the ropeway. We visited the temple in next 15 minutes. Then the hell began. The heat was scorching and the line to board ropeway was very long. We had to wait for almost 3 hours to get into the ropeway. We were tired and dehydrated. We took another auto rickshaw back to Vyas Ashram. Late again, so we did not get lunch there. Somehow we found a small eatery had some parathas. Though not great, but it was satisfying.

It was already 6pm. So we rushed back to Har Ki Paudi for the evening Gangarati. It is a centuries old tradition of worshiping River Ganga for everything it had to offer for the mankind. People gather there in thousands and take oath to keep Ganga clean and pollution free. An awesome atmosphere it was.

We had some roast corn and thought of going back to Vyas Ashram, have dinner (Good dinner was served at Vyas Ashram.) and retire for the day. But the fate had other plans..

After dinner, Babuji told us not to to go further towards joshimath as the place is receiving lot of rain and landslides. We also got frantic calls from our houses to abandon trip. So we decided not to go further, called some friends and made alternate plans to go to Gangotri, Yamunotri, Mussourie etc. and retired for the day.