No Second Thought

It was 10 am. We finished our breakfast. Chandan came to hotel with car. We left for helipad. It took us about 15 minutes to reach there. After going through the security we entered helipad. Chandan said he will wait for our message.  Helipad staff was very cooperative. We were told that, tickets can be canceled 15 minutes after scheduled departure. As there were heavy rains and almost nil visibility in the hills, there was no chance of a takeoff. We informed this development to Chandan. He was in the parking area. I will wait till you cancel tickets and come out, he assured. Past 11.15 am, that is 15 minutes past our departure time our tickets were cancelled. We came out of helipad, Chandan was waiting there for us.

Back in the car we started discussing next plan. What has happened was never thought of while planning.  We had to deal with it on the spot. We had two options, one was to trek the hills and other was to wait for improvement in weather till next day. We had details of trek, we reconfirmed it from Chandan. He said we can climb from Banganga. Horses, palanquins are available at Banganga. Katra is about 850 meters i.e. 3000 feet from mean sea level. Sajichat where we booked our stay was 7200 feet. So we had a climb of about 4500 feet to be done over a distance of 12-13 kilometers. Of course it was clear that, we will have to cover the distance in heavy rains. Neha was very enthusiastic about trek. It was very appreciable. By the time Chandan brought us to a shop owned by his brother. This shop was selling offerings to the deity. We took out backpack from the bags and packed it with necessary food, medicines and clothes sufficient for our trek. Though shrine board has made numerous free arrangements to keep baggage at Katra, we decided to keep our bags at the shop. I was not worried once even while leaving our baggage there. Shopkeeper gave us a written acknowledgement of the same.

We realized our umbrellas we were useless in this weather. The shops in Katra offer raincoats for hire. We hired raincoats from the same shop Chandan took us to. We paid Rs. 200/- per raincoat deposit.  The hiring charges were Rs. 100/- per Raincoat. Long sticks are available at every shop and on the road free of cost.  We took two sticks. They are useful as a support on a long climbing road. Chandan assured us to meet when we come down the next day. He was to take us to Katra market next day. Frankly staying market of Katra is incorrect. Katra means market. This place is called as Katra as it is a marketplace of Vaishnodevi Shrine. Now we were clear that will climb to the shrine.  If one does registration after reaching Katra and take "Yatra Parchi" then it is mustn't clear first check post at Banganga within four hours. We had a registration done on Internet. There was no such restriction on us. It was over 6 hours since we reached Katra. The first entry gate called as "Darshan Darwaja", was about 300 meters from this shop. We left the shop and started our walk saying good bye to Chandan.

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