When I got married on 12th May 2003 in Mumbai, I had already planned for a long honeymoon trip in North India. Without missing anytime after wedding and we started our trip on a very next day of our marriage. We left from our home in Navi Mumbai to Mumbai Airport on 13th May 2003 at 11.30 PM. My brother had come to drop us in his car. On the way to airport we met my in-laws in Chembur as my wife is from Chembur, Mumbai. That were the great feelings as this was the time everybody dreams to have it once and we were dreaming the same for a long time. Our Air India flight was scheduled at 2.30 AM on 14th May for Delhi. For Mumbai – Delhi sector instead of choosing some domestic airline I had booked Air India flight, which actually goes to London via Delhi as there I had got a nice deal in fare prices. We got close to window seats and after boarding I asked my wife to seat at window seat but she chose to seat on the next seat and I sat on the window seat. After many days of Punjabi marriage functions we both were very tired and not had a proper sleep from last two-three nights, therefore my wife was not feeling well and we couldn’t enjoy much the flight journey. As I had already booked a hotel accommodation for one day in Delhi our plan was to take rest in Delhi before continuing our journey for Manali. A taxi sent by hotel was waiting for us at Delhi Airport, once we reached Delhi Airport we didn’t find any body initially but after few minutes we could spot our tax boy waiting for us and we reached our hotel in Pahadganj, Delhi in few minutes time. As my wife was not feeling so well and we were very tired, we wanted to reach this hotel asap, so that we first have a nice sleep for few hours and get ready for journey ahead. That was a normal three star hotel and I had not looked much option here because our stay here was for few hours only and we were supposed to departure from Delhi to Manali on very same day in the evening. Even after having few hours rest I realized my wife is not fit to travel ahead and then we decided to wait another day in Delhi only and at the same time we consulted with Doctor and took some Medications. In the evening we went to some near by Market area and enjoyed Delhi Chat and North Indian food there. In the Month of May climate in Delhi was very hot especially in day time, so we decided stay back in the hotel rest of the time before departing for Manali in next day evening. Therefore next day breakfast and lunch we had inside room only and spent nice and relaxing time with each other.
2nd Day in the evening we did checkout from the hotel and reached the Bus stop by taxi. We boarded in the bus for Manali. The bus was mostly crowded by hippies and they were looking like some band group as they were carrying many musical instruments and large speakers etc. We could see a two three newly married couples there, which gave us some confidence. Bus was not in very good condition and we had realized that we have taken wrong decision to travel by bus from Delhi to Manali and it is going to be a long and tiring journey. And in actual journey went too long and it took approximately 20 hrs due to many problems with bus on the way. As we reached Manali we were very tired and straightway reached to our pre-booked Hotel Devlok by auto rickshaw. The hotel was at walking distance from bus stand but rickshaw charged us Rs. 50. Which I think is a fixed charge to go to any hotel from bus stand. Hotel staff had already kept our room ready and it was a super deluxe room. Which was actually very big and it had quite large double bed in the center, must be 7x7. One side of wall was just having a giant glass, which had garden and Mountain View. If I uncover curtain completely from this glass, I was having a large view of Mountains covered with ice from any corner of the room.
It was somewhere around 4.30 PM when we entered in our room, first we observed all parts of the room, out side view etc and told each other it looks nice. We were planning to stay in this hotel and room at least 7-8 days. We had bath and had some tea & snacks first and didn’t go out in the evening just had some rest and even had dinner inside room only. That’s my opinion that when you go for holidays it should be relaxing instead of hectic and tiring. We got up quite late in the morning and ordered some tea first as I have a habit of bed tea. Later we got fresh and came out of the room to take breakfast in the hotel’s restaurant and after having breakfast we spent some time around the hotel only and just discussed about visiting places in Manali with hotel staff and we decided to visit Manali’s main market after lunch so we came back to hotel and waited till lunch. After lunch in the hotel we moved out of the hotel just to walk in surrounding area in the Manali instead of going for some site tour. The hotel was not much away from the Manali’s main market on the mall road. The Market was not such big like we have in cities but it been having all types of shop and some showrooms also. We didn’t spend much time in the Market as we were not in mood to do some shopping and we went to some near by garden by auto rickshaw, which was having boating facility. We spent sometime in the garden and did some boating. As Manali is famous for honeymoon trip, we could see many of the newly married couples only everywhere. That garden was quite neat & maintained and was not much crowded. Later in evening we came back to Market and enjoyed some North Indian chat like golgappe and papdi chat etc. After that we had some cone ice cream and bought some packed snacks like biscuit and namkeen.
We came back to hotel at 8.30 PM and spent some time in the room watching television. For some reason it was having lot of disturbance due to bad signal and only few channels were watchable. We had dinner in the hotel’s restaurant later around 9.30 pm and came back to sleep. The place used to be very quite outside after 7.30 pm. We were just trying to observe some movements outside from one of the window of the room, which has view of some pathway. My wife has hobby of reading so she spent some time reading some novel, while I was changing channels on TV. I had actually complained hotel’s staff for this disturbance on TV but they said you will be getting that much clarity only as this area is surrounded by hills and signals are not proper. We just spent three four days like that only, so that we could spent more and more time with each other and can do maximum relax. In these days we used to play badminton sometime and some time used to have tea and coffee in the garden only. Majority of time we used to talk and discuss lots of thing, as we are from Mumbai and both are working we knew we wont get such time again for each other.
After 3-4 days we planned to go for some site seeing tour, we had contact hotel staff to arrange taxi for next 2-3 days for site seeing at different places near by Manali. For next day we got the taxi on sharing basis with other couple of the same hotel only to visit Manikaran Gurudwara he asked us to be ready in the morning to start at 9.00 am. We got up early and after having breakfast were ready to departure and at the same time we met other couple and introduced our selves with each other.
That couple was also on honeymoon trip and was from Delhi. We liked that company and been quite friendly in sometime. The Taxi driver Ashok was also very friendly and cooperative. The taxi was his owned Maruti omini van. He should to put on nice old time music and had nice collections of songs of Mohd Rafi, Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar etc. The all over the way of Manikaran was very zigzag through hilly area but the view outside was very beautiful, even sometime we got down to enjoy the view and clicked few snaps. Later he stopped at some Vaishno devi temple on the way. That is not the same Vaishno devi temple, which is in Jammu. This temple was close to some river and you had climb a number of staircase to reach to actual temple after visiting temple when we came down we saw there was Langer (Free food) going on, we also joined and had some food there. After that we spent sometime on the river, while water was freezing in that my wife still kept her legs in for sometime, while I just tried once. We clicked few snaps and continued our journey for manikaran. Manikaran gurudwara is approx 2-3 hours away from Manali and is one of the famous Gurudwara. As we entered in the range of Gurudwara could observe so many Sikh around and many tourist. This gurudwara does have few temples also. This gurudwara has langer all the times. There are some natural hot water chashma(tank) and food for langer is cooked in that only. They pack rice, dal etc in some utensil and cover it with some cloth and put the same in hot water tank, even you can buy some rice and tide them in some cloth and hang it in hot water for sometime and this cooked rice people carry as Prasad, we did the same and also had langer in gurudwara. It was nice and peaceful experience. On the way back from Gurudwara it was evening and the climate was very nice, we stopped by a nice open restaurant on the way, which was surrounded by hills and greenery and was beautifully maintained. We grabbed some snacks and tea there and sat sometime there to enjoy surrounding.
Next day our plan was to visit Rohtang Pass. Rohtang pass is normally high hill side area near Manali, where you can find ice even in season of May.
Our driver told us as the way is bit narrow and traffic is much its better to leave quite early in the morning. This time we were alone and not having the company of other couple. We left around 5.30 AM next day morning and on the way we stopped at some shop to hire suite and shoes to be worn on the ice hill as driver mentioned us the weather will be very cold there and our normal winter cloths will not be much useful and if they get wet, it will be difficult to stay there. We better followed him as we were visiting such place very first time, we reached few kilometers before Rohtang pass and found traffic was jammed and way for Rohtang pass had been closed. But people were getting down there it self as ice mountain had already started, even our driver suggested us to get down there it self and reach ice mountain by walk. From this point we had two options either we walk around 1-2 kilometers and reach Ice Mountain or we climb from up directly which was shorter way. The way to climb was short but was very rough and inclined. As we were wearing heavy suite and shoes, we didn’t find our self comfortable for climbing. I was scarred if any one of us slips and get hurt, we will spoil our whole honey moon trip. So we better decided not to climb and sat down there only watching people climbing and even some people were going up by riding on horse but that was looking more risky. A sikh family (husband, wife and their 15 yr old son) came that time and they started climbing the it seems that this man had visited this place quite many times and was climbing from this way very confidently even he was encouraging her wife & son to climb easily and they saw us sitting and asked why you are not going up. We sad we don’t want to take risk. The sikh man then pushed us to go on, he said if we old people can go up, why you not. If you don’t go up, you might miss actual fun of this trip. We then got some confidence and we started with company of sikh family as my wife speaks nice Punjabi we got easily mixed up with them and made friends in such short time. In few minutes time we actually reached on the ice mountain, where we could see ice all around us. We had realized that wearing this hired suite and shoes is not a nice decision as normally people were wearing normal winter cloths and jacket and normal shoes. There were so many excursions in this area, like you can get your snaps clicked as sitting on the Yak, by wearing local traditional dress. Also you can sit on a big air filled tube and slide down, which was really very nice. As it does slide with a quite high speed and shake too much. We really had fun time there and realized if we have gone back from down only. We might have missed the real fun of this place. After spending few hours there we returned and on the way back we went to solon valley, This area is known for gliding, as we were very late gliding was not there. There is a Shiv temple and it is said a shivling is main by ice in winter season there. We had to take help horse to reach to this shiv temple. As this was already in the evening and due to water fall the ground was wet and freezing, as we were bare foot it was difficult to walk in temple premises. We sat near to water fall where water was almost freezing. As we were very tired we decided to go back to hotel after it.
Next day we just had excursion around and with in Manali area by using the same taxi, he had taken us few local temples garden etc. Here temples have very different kind of architecture and they are related with some story of ramayan or mahabharat. Even we visited one of the Buddha temples there, where you can get altogether different peaceful feelings.
We have already spent a week in Manali and we decided to take one day rest and move to Jammu to visit vaishnodevi temple. Next day we booked bus for Katra in Jammu. My wife didn’t want travel in bus after having bad experience during Delhi-Manali journey by bus, but here we had that option only. This was an over night journey but our bus actually started late and we reached some where in after noon. We actually had to change our bus in Jammu, while this was single booked but the bus from Manali was till Jammu only and we shifted in other bus from there. Jammu to Katra it hardly took one hour. In Katra we booked a room in hotel, which was close to bus stand only. While my wife had some rest I came out to figure out procedure to proceed for Vaishnodevi temple. I had get some registration done before climbing, the registration office was near bus stand only. I had to wait sometime in Q but in an hour time I got our registration done by paying some 5-10 Rs, they gave us some kind of ticket and token number. After that I approached a travel agent to book our train ticket from Jammu to Delhi for next night, I easily got the reservation by paying some 100 Rs extra. I cam back to hotel and told my wife to sleep in day time as we were planning to climb for temple in the evening. Normally to reach actual vaishno devi temple you have climb around 13 k.m. by walk and it takes around 6-7 hours to reach temple. Normally people keep climbing day and night and prefer in night time. The way is open all 24 hrs and crowd is there. The benefit of climbing during night is that you reach temple early in the morning and have Darshan bit easily. We both planned to climb bare foot and it was very difficult to climb all together 13 K.M., we took few breaks and good thing is that all over the way there were shops and drink and food was available. You didn’t have much option for food as this was pure vegetarian food without onion, garlic and ginger etc and cooked in very simple way. At some places the food was being given free of cost, but such places were normally crowded. We normally had some drinks, water and snacks only on the way as we new if we had stomach full food, it will difficult to walk ahead. On the mid way there is a temple known as Ardhkuwari. Normally people stopped there to have darshan, while there was waiting to have complete Darshan. We just had open darshan and went ahead. We reached temple around 4 AM. We took our number for Darshan and went to take bath. After having bath we took blanket and Bed sheet and found some floor area to take some rest. Mostly people were sleeping and taking rest on the floor, as you have to wait a quite long time to take darshan. At the same time my wife could manage to get VIP pass for entry and we could have darshan in sometime, we completed darshan by 11 AM and then we had a food there. We decided to take horse to come down as we were very tired. By horse we came down in 2 hours time and my wife bought some food like Jalebi, sweets etc in Katra and distributed to young girls. As this is the normal tradition, you find many young children to take food there. After that we came back to hotel to take few hours rest and later in evening around 7 PM we caught bus for Jammu, we spent some time in Jammu and took train from Jammu to Delhi, which reached Delhi in the afternoon. We came back to our old hotel and had some rest there. Our train from Delhi to Mumbai was already booked, which was next day at 5 A.M, We checked out from hotel very early in the morning and reached railway station to catch train for Mumbai. This was Punjab mail, which takes around 24 hrs to reach Mumbai, but this was 2nd AC journey and we enjoyed it. While we have other shorter route to reach Mumbai from Delhi but I took this train as this come via my native place Gwalior, I had called few of my old friends to railway station to meet. Train halt at Gwalior station is 10 minute but it normally stops for 15-20 minutes.
That way we completed our very long honey moon trip, which is a memorable journey for us.
