Shri Vaishnodevi Katra 1

Neha woke me up with excitement, I was fast asleep. I got up; found the entire compartment came to life. All were excited and preparing to alight. We have reached Shri Vaishnodevi Katra railway station.  I wore my socks and shoes. We got our baggage in order and came out on the platform. To my utter surprise this platform was very clean. It was biting cold outside. Display on the station was showing 4 degrees Celsius. It was raining heavily with strong winds adding to the cold. We were wearing sweater, it wasn't sufficient to protect from cold.  Both of us wore a jacket, hand gloves also a hood. Our looks were amusing and ideal for a click. After taking a photograph I started searching for a hot cup of tea. In this whether early morning at 5.00 am what else is asked for, but a tea stall was nowhere in the sight.

We used Internet extensively while planning. It is good medium to gather information as long as one doesn't mislead self in this mega information web. Usually my search begins with Wikipedia. Wikipedia, Wikimedia are good to begin with but I am not sure about authenticity of information. We searched Google Earth,

Google maps also. Saw many videos on YouTube and tried to relate the information acquired. We went to all this places in virtual world so many times. The benefits were seen the moment we reached Katra. We felt that it's not the first time we have stepped here. We felt surrounding was just familiar to us.

Apart from Internet on our desktop we used many mobile applications for information and searching.  AccuWeather was one such application used extensively. The information we got from it was very vital for planning. After getting down from the train we found this weather forecast was absolutely right. It was raining heavily here. Make My Trip, Cleartrip, Yatra, Goibibo l. Trivalgo, Travel Yarri and Tripadviser were some applications we used. I particularly find Tripadviser useful. Many travelers share their experiences on Tripadvisor which I found very informative and in my opinion very useful during a travel. I started traveling across length and breadth of India as a kid. My father (Appa)  was very keen traveler and used to take the family out every year. I had seen more than 70% of India by 1984, I was 17 then. Even then we never went with tour operators.  Our trips were elaborately planned by him and two of his friends. Four, five families used to travel together then. Now with advent in technology and available information it was prudent to plan ourself and travel.

IRCTC has made very good arrangement of AC rooms in Katra station premises; which can be booked in advance on www.irctc.co.in. It wasn't done by us. We went there for spot booking. No rooms were available. We never took care of booking a room or some alternative arrangement for these 4-5 hours in Katra. One lacuna in our planning we realized. We also learned there was no retiring room on the station other than above rooms. Being frpm Mumbai, we are used to very heavy rush on the railway stations. There is a lack of basic amenities including cleanliness on many suburban stations. We still travel happily in Mumbai by trains. But we were pleasantly surprised with the cleanliness and facilities on Katra station. It has beautiful architecture with amenities like escalators.

Me and Neha at Katra Railway Station

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