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Finally this weekend arrived with freezing cold. We (me and Vinod) were planning to travel to Haridwar and Rishikesh since almost a week. Dip in the temprature put us in a dilemma whether to postpone the trip or move ahead according to plans. We decided to move on and travel to Haridwar so we packed our bags on friday and moved out in freezing cold towards Bus Terminal.

Found a Qualis that dropped us at Daula Kuan from where we got a UP Road Transport Bus at around 0045 Hrs. Till this time we were almost froze waiting for bus. Later we came to know that this was the coldest day in Delhi in last 70 years and the temperature was 0.2 degrees Celsius. The bus was mostly empty so we took our favorite seat (near driver) and tried to take a nap but the cold did not let us. At around 0630 Hrs we reached Haridwar.

Just after the bus reached Haridwar, a poor person traveling by the same bus asked for remaining money to bus conductor. The conductor was amazed to hear that as he never took any money from that person. Actually the conductor changed at Merath Bus Depot and the old conductor should actually have returned the money to this person. But he neither returned it nor informed about the money to be returned to the changed conductor. The poor person was on the verge of breaking down.

Apparently the former conductor tried to gull the poor guy. But the new conductor helped him and did all he could. He was angry over the act of his fellow conductor and expressed his concerns over giving bad name to UP Road Transport. These small incidences show humanity and honesty isn’t vanished.

The town was just waking up at 0630 Hrs and people (travelers mostly) were moving towards Ganga River for rituals.

On the ghat it was a very pleasant scene. People paying homage to the rising sun, some taking a dip in cold water of Ganga, some performing Aarti at the bank of river..

After spending about an hour on the bank of Ganga, we moved to see “Mansadevi Mandir” which is on top of the mountains. On the way we took a few snaps of town down the mountains.

At 1000 Hrs we decided to move to Rishikesh. You can take a shared autorick to Bus Stand from any point on the main road. There you can find many Rishikesh bound buses. It is a one hour journey from Haridwar to Rishikesh (35 Km).

In Rishikesh we dumped our bags in a cheap “Dharamshala” (Rs 200 a day) and went on to climb a mountain nearby. From a distance it looked an easy task. Soon we realized that its difficult to climb-on till top before evening. So we found a relatively comfortable place to sit, rested and took a few photos. The Gangetic vally and entire area looked very beautiful from this place. From this point we saw a temple high up the mountain on the other side of Ganga and we decided to find out the name of that place and visit it. The photos taken from this place must be one of those rare images of Rishikesh.

We descended and reached back. It was 1700 Hrs by then, so we decided to take a dip in river. The water was prohibitively cold so I scrapped the plan and sat there watching calm and quiet Ganga. The next morning we had breakfast at one of two Chotiwala’s near Ram Zula and moved towards the temple on the mountain. A little search and inquiry yielded a name “Kunjapuri”. It is a place on one of the highest peaks nearby.

To reach there, you have to take a bus going to “Ananda” (a small town) from Rishikesh bus station. Taxi can take you directly to Kunjapuri from Rishikesh, cost: Rs 800. After traveling for about 2 hours (25 miles) in the Ghats of Uttaranchal you will reach to a diversion from where either you have to take a taxi (which would mean another Rs. 150 for 3 Miles) or climb up the mountain for another hour using those shortcuts.

The first view of Himalaya was exciting. Kunjapuri mountain is the place from where you can get a glimpse of Himalaya and a beautiful Gangetic terrain. Sad part is all along the beautiful road travels a grid of electrical wires and plastic wrappers lying around which comes as a harsh reality, that even the “Land of Gods” is not really so much so anymore.

The descend is always quick from a higher ground as compared to climb. Isn’t it true in life as well? We reached back to Rishikesh in 2 hours. It was already 1630 Hrs of Sunday. So we decided to reach to Haridwar where we could find some vehicle for Delhi. Reached Haridwar at 1800 Hrs. Had food at Sindh Dugdh Bhandar and Restaurant. It is a good place to have food in Haridwar. The food is reasonably priced.

We took bus back to Delhi from Haridwar. The return journey ended faster. Reached Delhi at 0030 Hrs on Monday. From there we got another bus direct to Gurgaon and then to home. We reached back to home at 0130 Hrs Monday. That was the end of journey to the beautiful land of Uttaranchal.

More photos of this trip can be found on my flickr account.