A trip to Jammu and shrine of Vaishno Devi

It was my first trip with my cousin & brother. We took bus from Amritsar at 10 PM and reached to Katra at around 4 AM in morning. There we rented a room at Hotel Jagdamba. The room was of Delux category and was really nice with all the facilities. It costs us around 1300 for a day. It included breakfast & cab facility to banganga (The last point where cab & auto rickshaw goes). We started tracking at around 2PM. The weather here is unpredictable it starts raining within a minute & suddenly its clear sky. The rain gave us a little halt while tracking. At around 3 PM we took the pace.

The track is 13KM completely elevated path. For people of age group 16-30 it's not that tough to climb. But for people with health issues, children's & old people they can rent horse, pitthu. At around 5 PM we took our first long break at Himkoti. Food stalls & bhojanalay's are there at small distances. The masala Dosa was speciality here. After a break of 45 min. We started climb again. You will see many wildlife here. Beware of Monkeys here they will steal purse,bags from your hand.

After crossing adhkuwari, the view you will see is mind blowing you can see whole Jammu from the top. The sun dawns at this height late. You can see sun even at 8 PM. At 5200 ft, it's an amazing experience.

Finally at around 7:30 PM we reached the shrine. We did darshan at around 10 PM. After that we started climbing for bhairav bhagwan, which is about 2 KM above from vaishno devi. The path here is even more elevated and difficult. But we did it and around 12 PM we did darshan at bhairav bhagwan & lord Hanuman. Even in night you can feel the presence of cloud's around you at this time.

At around 12:30 PM, We started descending and with small halts and breaks, we reached at room at around 4 AM. The view at night was very beautiful. I just can't describe it in words  you can see whole jammu city from the top. All in all we did the tracking in about 14 hrs.

After reaching room we took a nap and  we woke up at around 11 AM, got ready and decided to visit patnitop. We booked a cab and at around 1 PM, we started travelling. Patnitop was around 60 KM from hotel. The road was single lane to reach there & it's a busy route. Trucks for kashmir also travel from same track and traffic jam is easy to happen & guess what we got stuck in it. It was a long jam and so we decided to change the destination. And did the side scene of jammu. We than visited Amar mahal palace, Raghunath temple, Shiv khori, Balidan stambh, Raghunath bazzar & some other places.

Here in Jammu we rented room for a night and next day on 15 AUG early in morning. This was one of the best trip of my life. If you love tracking, nature , and love adventure than Jammu and Kashmir is place for you to visit.