Next morning without wasting a single minute, we left for Baaltal. After covering a distance of around 40 km in mountanins, we reached there at around 9 am. The journey was awesome, full of mind blowing sceneries of landscapes, rivers etc. We parted our ways from NH leading to Leh to reach Baaltal checkpost. We parked our car in parking and asked driver to stay in Baaltal only till we return from the holy cave. we three left for the pilgrimage. we had already decided that we would hire a helicopter so we headed towards heli booking center. as they have their own criteria of weight limits in a helicopter in during one round, so we had to adjust in three different flights to reach Panchtarni. though we retaliated but in vain. till now we have been together throughout the journey but to save time , we agreed to board three different helipcopters as all three of them were devoid of only one passenger.
Among my group, i had the least weight (a bit surprising) , so i got an opportunity to be the co-pilot. we were strictly instructed not to talk inside the helicopter. it was my first experience to fly in the sky. though i got my passport ready 5 years ago when i joined a MNC company in wake of getting a chance to be on a plane. but 5 years passed, i never got a chance to be on a plane, neither international nor domestic even. The experience was out of the world. the moment it took off, i could feel my hearing senses getting blocked. for a moment, i did got frightened when the pilot took a sharp turn to enter in middle of two adjacent hills. Total duration of the ride was 7-8 minutes but the memories related to it are numerous.
From panchtarni, the holy cave was 5 km away. the track was sloppy, undulant and not easy to walk upon. we reached the holy cave around 2pm and took bath in chilled Ganga. after a small photo session, we took Parsad and went on to stairs leading to cave. We had heard that due to heat, this time the ShivLing had already disappeared but the information could not stop us to go there. There was no ShivLing but the Parvati mata was present in her true colors. we also got to see the two pigeons who are believed to have supernatural powers. The Mahant who was present, enlightened us with the history of the cave. after paying prayers and seeking blessings, we collected Ganga water in cans and left the holy cave.
i could not believe myself that i had successfully accomplished the Yatra. i was thinking of coming here for many years, 2013 proved to be the lucky one for me. we chose to get down the hill to reach our base at baaltal by walk. Total track distance was 18 km and was not at all easy. Through many halts, chit chat and sheer determination, we reached our base camp at 9 pm. we took refuge in a camp organized by Jaipur administration. Next morning we left for Srinagar. We visited Mughal gardens, Nishat Gardens, Chashm-e-Shahi, Botanical Garden, Dal Lake, old Shiv Mandir in Srinagar. Then we left for Gulmarg where already we had booked the room in army guest house. We did sightseeing in Gulmarg, visited Gondola trolley and stayed in army guest house for night. During our stay we met an old army officer and had a nice conversation with him and discussed over various issues starting from security forces of India to the future plans.
Next morning, we headed back to our origin, Punjab. It was Eid, that day. All markets were closed to shop. Still we bought some bats and dry fruits, specialty of J&K. The stretch was too long and our car was not upto the mark. So we got it serviced from a authorized service station in Srinagar before we could resume our journey. As it was getting dark and we had heard some news of violence in J&K, we decided to stay at patnitop in the night. Next morning we captured the beauty and had a horse ride around the hill station, the coolest place in the vicinity of Punjab. As soon as we planned to get back to our way, the road was blocked by some extremists who were not allowing anyone to escape. After waiting for few hours in queue, we took another route through some village to Jammu. Even Jammu-Pathankot Highways were also blocked. We had to wait for many hours before they let us go. In between, we took some wrong turns which lead us to reach Amritsar by 10pm. We had our dinner in Amritsar. It was 3'o clock in the 11th morning of the 8th month of the year two thousand and thirteen i came back to my room at Bathinda. Rest is history as they say....
Regards
Parul Goyal
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