History of the kedarnath:
", I don't know when I first heard the name of this ancient temple. All I can say is that some of the thousand year old temples in India, which I still have a strong desire to visit, Kedarnath's name was at the beginning of all.
However, I do not think that all my dreams will come true in the home life of this Attapur Bengali. And because of that, as a Virtual Traveler, I used to go around the hills of Kedarnath using YouTube, Instagram and Google, I used to visit Baba Bholanath with my eyes closed. The car of my imagination used to take me to Kedarnath for so long on the dangerous narrow and winding road passing through the high hills of the Garowal Himalayas of Uttarakhand on one side and the wild Mandakini river thousands of feet below on the other side !!
Finally, the journey of that dream of Kedarpuri came true, it can be said in a hurry !! Going to a job in Delhi, I finalized the plan before the job was done; I will go to Kedarnath. "Either this time, or not at all" .... With such a determined mentality, we left the country with only four days' notice, without any prior preparation, and we decided to go to Kedarnath in the rainy off-season of Shravan.
The Best Tourist Place in the world: Kedarnath
But it won't happen if we want it !! The old people said, in these journeys or Baba Bholanath also has a wish !? Maybe knowing our plan, he smiled and said, "Aho nephew, aho" !! Otherwise, 300 tickets of the "12017-Dehradhun Shatabdi Express" train departing from Delhi at dawn disappeared overnight ?? If we want to go to Kedarnath, we have to come to Guptakashi anyway. But if we catch that bus at night, we will have to go to Haridwar by government bus from Uttarakhand as we will have to spend only one extra day in Delhi, and from there we will catch the Guptakashi bus to Hrishikesh.
On the other hand, Baba Bholanath's wish, he will feed us Nakani-Chubani again, will not come easily !!
How I Went To Visit Kedernath:
Leaving the ISBT bus terminal in Delhi at 4.30 am and reaching Haridwar at 2 pm, I heard that the road from Haridwar to Hrishikesh was closed for a religious pilgrimage called "Kavad Jatra" !! Wow, well, if there is no suffering on the Kedarnath journey, then that journey does not freeze properly. And it took us about three hours to make the Kedarnath journey from Haridwar to Hrishikesh by turning it into Dehradhun. Later, of course, all the fatigue of a full day bus journey, we "poured" to see the famous Ganga Arti of Hrishikesh's Tribeni Ghat and went to bed early, because the next day at four in the morning will have to catch the Guptakashi bus again !!!
All buses from Hrishikesh to Kedarnath leave between 3 am and 6 am. If you miss any of these buses, you will have to sit in Rishikesh and die. On the other hand, free bio-metric registration of Kedarnath has to be done from Hrishikesh. If you have so much tension in your head, you won't be able to sleep at night, and that's exactly what happened !! At four in the morning I went to the bus stand of Hrishikesh and saw that the whole Ramarama Bazaar was there. And in the midst of the hustle and bustle, we also finished all the formalities including bio-metric registration and got on a bus heading to Kedarnath towards Guptakashi.
On the other hand, maybe Baba was in a good mood in Bholanath too, so he didn't bother us anymore. The road was closed for miners sometimes due to landslides. And there was no problem to go to Sonprayag from there. I also got a shared jeep from Sonprayag to Gaurikund, from where the trek to Kedarnath started.
But he is Baba Bholanath, he has a forgetfulness in everything. Bholamnei may not have broken with us on the journey from Rishikesh to Gaurikunda. After traveling so far, I heard that Kedarnath has come so close and the road to Kedarnath has been closed for the last two days due to landslides !! Many of them are leaving home without visiting Kedar's father.
No, but not for long, maybe Bholanath's mind became kind after seeing our ugly face. The trekking route was opened just two hours after we reached Gaurikund, but only for pedestrians. Uttarakhand police have not yet cleared the road for horses, ponies or palanquin carriers.
And finally the last step of the dream journey began !!
Trekking to Kedarnath !! As a seabed man, it was not easy for us to climb the 18-kilometer steep hill at an altitude of 11,000 feet. On top of that we also have to get accustomed to very cold temperatures with shortness of breath due to low levels of oxygen in the air, feet soaking wet in ice cold water, light snow-fruits at night and very little sleep.
Trekking on the way to Kedarnath from Gaurimukh to Bhimbara was accompanied by the wild form of the steep mandakini, and from Vimbara to Rambara was accompanied by the wild appearance of the Himalayas. Going to Rambarta, I had to go to Mandakini river bank once again. And from Rambara to the small Lincolli Bazaar, when you climb a steep hill, you are accompanied by shortness of breath, swelling of the legs, and all the barracks with skin on the ankles. In the end, it is the small Lincolli market We spend the night in a tent with 140 rupees per night. On the second day, before dawn, he left for Kedarnath at 4 am. I don't really have the language to describe the beauty of what I see after climbing the long, tiring four-hour steep hill on the second day.
Finally We are in kedernath:
We reached Kedarnath Dham at 8 am on August 4, 2019. Kedarnath Dham of the dream was in front of my eyes! In the background, white snow-capped peaks of Kedarkantha are strewn with white clouds and scattering of blue in the background sky, with the Mandakini River flowing through the jungle of pine trees in the hills; All in all, Kedarnath seemed to be waiting for us with the best of his beauty. We will see such a beautiful form of Kedarnath in the rain of that horse of Shravan, but we did not even imagine it.
After the next hour of puja, he took numerous pictures with Kedarnath and came back to Gaurikund with a different kind of love. We have to spend the next few days in the middle of a different horse, it is like a journey from heaven to hell !!
The history of this Kedarnath dates back to the Mahabharata era. According to the mythology of the Mahabharata, the Panchpandabera worshiped Shiva at this Kedarnath Dham to atone for the sin of killing relatives in the battle of Kurukshetra. The most horrific tragedy in the thousand-year history of this temple associated with the story of Mahabharata was the death of nearly six thousand people in the Flash Flood of June 2013. But miraculously nothing happened to Kedarnath Dham for a huge boulder that came down with that Flash Flood. Kedarnath is now in a combination of thousands of years of history and ancient mythology with such a supernatural event, the dazzling appearance of the Garhwal Himalayas, and the recent release of the recently released Bollywood movie "Kedarnath" with Mr. Modi frequently meditating there. Uttarakhand has been a High Profile Travel Destination for many years. And just as there were fewer people planning to go to such a place in the off-season, so everything cost less.
All Cost in Kedernath in Details:
Cost is a big fact here. If you go to the off-season, it will take a maximum of two weeks for two people, and it will be 35 thousand rupees from Chittagong, if you do not have any luxury. And if you rent a horse, palanquin or dandibahak, you will get up and down Rs 4,000 per person. On the other hand, if you take a private car, share jeep, then the cost will increase even more, then you have to make an extra budget of 20/25 thousand rupees for two people !! And if you go to Pixison, the cost will increase a lot more.
But this offseason is very risky again. Roads in these places are completely closed for winter for six months of the year. The doors of the Kedarnath temple are closed on Diwali after Kali Pujo, and reopened on the day of Uttarayan. And in those six months of winter, cars don't go that way, people don't even have anything there. And the rest of the six months are full of tourists, except for the off-season. Now that the road to Kedarnath is open for six months, the rainy season again means the two months of Ashar-Shravan are the off-season.
Additional Information about kedernath:
When you go there in the off-season, the BRO (Border Road Organization) closes the road for many reasons such as hilly hurricane, road disappearance due to landslide, road block due to falling stones. We ourselves were stuck in a place called Badrinath Extra one day due to the death of 6 people when the hill collapsed and the road was broken. We spent a whole night very anxious then. After we left Kedarnath, the government of Uttarakhand closed all the roads there for a month just because of heavy rains !!
For all these reasons, it is risky to go off-season. No matter where you are stuck, you will be able to reach the destination at all or you will have to be back in the middle, there is no guarantee that there will be some time and money and time will be spent by the mother. You have to rely on luck to set foot on that path in the offseason !!
If you want to give a route map of Kedarnath, it can be like this, => Chitang / Dhaka-> Kolkata -> Delhi -> Haridwar -> Hrishikesh -> Guptakashi -> Sonprayag -> Gaurikund.
The route of the trek from Gaurikund is as follows: Gaurikund -> Bhimbara -> Rambara -> Small Lincolli Bazar -> Lincolli Bazar -> Kedarnath Helipad -> Kedarnath Base Camp -> Kedarnath.
This world is our for living:
If you go to a place like Kedarnath, the environment is ruined, something must not be done. I hope no one will ruin the beauty of the place by throwing plastic packets and garbage. Also keep in mind that this is a temple as well as a heavyweight tourist spot, and it is the responsibility of all travelers to maintain the sanctity of that temple. So if you go there, you should keep your use such that the sanctity of the temple and the religious seriousness remain intact. At the same time, the conversation should be forgiving, so that the religious beliefs of the local people are not neglected by your words and behavior.
Credit: SK Jishan