Trip to Vaishnav Devi n Srinagar

Making most of my summers in Delhi. I had short notice to join my engineering college friends to visit Vaishnav devi and srinagar. Started off at IITD at 11pm on friday night. Qualis n 8 of us in total. Headed straight for srinagar as there was lot of rush for vaishnav devi on weekend. Had nice drive thru the heartland of haryana n Punjab before entering J&K. After entering J&K we took a diversion from the main National highway thinking of saving some time ( 50kms shorter) , at the beginning of the route, we were served rooh hafza sharbat by some people. Then we were given the actual news, that this particular road was opened for travel only 3 months ago as it was militant infested. ahhahahhah just got scared.

Contined the journey, I should confess the road it was absolute scary with turns n twists, one of the tyres got punchred in the meanwhile. so spent some time on the road lonely , hardly 3 vehicles in that one hour of halt. Ahead there was one lake Mansar, its in midle of hills, very awesome view, full of boating facilities, looked like entry of heaven. Reached srinagar
by 6 PM. hired a house boat , srinagar was quite cold all thru. I read about srinagar the first time in class 8, "Trip to Srinagar " in telugu text book, author was nayani krishna kumari, she was absolutely on dot when she said its Heaven.

We had a 4 hour drive in shikara, it started raining while we were in teh dal lake, sun on one side, rain n the beautiful rainbow it was just bliss. Wish i would have stayed longer, but what to do short of funds. Went around places in srinagar Shankarcharya temple, Hazrath Bal darga( under renovation after militant attack - imp for having hair of prophet), Chapali Gurudwara, Moghul gardens ( absolute stunner garden must see). moved on to vaishnav devi early in the morning at 5 am, passed thru india's longest tunnl Jawahar tunnel, (3 kms ) hilly terrain, got to see the udhampur- jammu rail line, one marvelous piece of engineering. reacehd katra the base camp at 3 pm, started upward journey finished darshan by 10 pm n got down, started back for delhi n reached home by 8 pm on tuesday, very much for an extended weekend for me. The holy shrine was cold during the night day time it was proper summer heat. You feel
the diety at each step you take as the climb uphill 12 kms it very taxing on the body. Place worth once in life time, the darshan took one and half hour. The three linga's you see in the cace is one site , i had good look at the diety n prayed for alll.

The other side of my trip was the interaction with couple of security personnel posted in J&K. Most of them werent happy with the way things were there, most of all they were furious about the work conditions, 14 hours of duty daily, hardly any time left for themselves. The soldiers really derserve our salute.

Now the interesting part, Now i know why Jammy is so pinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnk boy. all the people here in jammu are pink like an apple no wonder how jammy has got that complexion. Girls very cool types, not the typical orthodox view which we get to read about women in J&K. Thats all signing of for now.