Dan: Holy Batman!!! Talk about cold… The alarm went off at 5:00am this morning so we'd have time to get ready, and I swear, you couldn't get me out of my sleeping bag for all the rupees in India!!
Our bucket of hot water arrived at 5:05am, and we had a quick wash, in preparation for our 3 hour drive.
We had bought a pack of cornflakes from the store yesterday, but having no milk, we had to have cold water and cornflakes for breakfast. Oh, the injustice! I'm such a wuss...!


Can you say "happy Daniel"??!

Karin: That morning we realized why we had been given such an early alarm call. As the road to Badrinath is only a single track, traffic coming from each direction is allotted specific times to leave, from a number a checkpoints. In theory, this means that you never meet traffic coming down in the opposite direction. In practice it would seem that road officials will be swayed by offers of baksheesh (bribes) and so it was that on numerous occasions we encountered lorries and buses coming in the opposite direction on the most treacherous bends – a few more heart in mouth moments where we were forced to reverse right up to gravelly sheer edges to allow huge trucks of insouciant Indians past. The road up to Badrinath was astonishingly beautiful. It felt almost as though we were driving along a mountain footpath with the peaks towering above us, and the Ganges cascading down at the bottom of the abyss just a few meters away from where we sat. Our taxi driver, Sundar, soon became accustomed to our numerous requests for photo stops.


View of the Ganga from the road to Badrinath

Dan: I have to make a quick comment about all the "slow down" road signs on these roads - they must hire a poet to write them, because they all rhyme, and they're all hilarious!
Some examples are:

"No whiskey, less risky"
"For safe arriving, less liquor in driving"
and my personal favorite:

"Do not gossip, let him drive"


Typical road sign

Karin: At around 9.00 am we cleared the passes and drove up into the small mountain town of Badrinath or 'Badri' as it is known locally. It is extraordinary to think that these whole communities depend on such an undependable byway. A little food is grown locally but especially in these high and remote places, the vast majority of the food must be brought up from the valleys by truck. One shudders to think about the consequences of an earthquake in such an exposed and vulnerable region. The recent Kashmir earthquake is a timely reminder of just how fragile these communities can be when at the mercy of the phenomenal natural forces that have created these great mountain ranges. The following week, the whole of the town was due to shut down and move down to the lower town of Josimath for the colder winter months, so were there on one of the final days before this annual ritual closure of the shrine.

The Hindus believe that to fulfill the goal of self-realization – the pursuit of 'Moksha' (the eternal peace after death), it is desirable to travel to the 4 shrines of god, which lie at the 4 corners of the country, Puri Jagan Nath, Rameshwaram, Dwarka and finally Badrinath. People have been traveling to this shrine long before the Himalayan mountain passes were built, as Badrinath is mythically known as the place where India was born. It is said in mythology that it is historical Hindu figure of Anshuman who began the task of bringing the Ganges down from heaven to earth. He failed in his task as did his son Dilip, but the grandson, King Bhagirath meditated long and hard at Gangotri, a small village about 80 kms to the left of Badrinath, as the crow flies. After several years of intense meditation, the Ganges (or Ganga as known by the Indian people) descended from heaven and remained in suspense in the coils of Shiva’s hair. The king continued his meditation to Shiva and Shiva, being pleased, released the Ganges as 3 streams.

It is impossible to overstate the reverence the Indian people hold for this sacred river. Its entire length is considered to be a holy site – as important as any temple. And when one takes a ‘holy dip’ in the Ganga, it is believed that all sins are cleansed. This bodes well for me as, with all my mornings swims, I must now be as pure as the driven snow!

The tradition at Badrinath is to receive Darshan (a blessing) at the temple and then bathe in the hot springs just beneath the temple. We had brought a drawing of a mandala made by Rita, the daughter of my good friends - Lee and Melissa and had been dispatched on a  mission to finding a holy man to hold it whilst we took a picture as a memory for Rita. We were finally able to find a willing swami who traded a picture for the purchase of a magnificent garland made from marigolds  to place on the holy shrine.


Swami and mandala

We then proceeded up to the temple where we received Darshan.


Karin in front of the temple at Badrinath

This is a similar ritual to that of the holy communion. You are offered small sweets and lentils and a teaspoon of holy water infused with marigold petals. It really was very special to be there under the deep blue sky of the Himalayas where the air was as clear as a bell and where even the November sun bore down on us with real ferocity. Outside in the galleries around the temple there were a number of holy men offering more in-depth blessings. Several monks approached us, welcoming us warmly and saying that it was very auspicious that we were there. Few westerners seem to make it up to these shrines as they are well off the main tourist track. We were ushered over by another Swami who took us through an elaborate ritual where we had to announce 'Swaha' quite a few times whist throwing lentils into a fire – we were also asked to chase each other around the pillars of his small shrine. After we, our families, our friends and our future children (Dan: what??!) had been thoroughly blessed, we made our way down to the hot springs to bathe. Daniel was fine as he was able to bathe with his shorts, but women in India must bathe fully clothed so I muddled my way as well as I could with a swimming costume and a wide scarf that I used as a sarong. I’m not sure what the Indian women there thought of me!

 
Bathing in the holy spring water at Badrinath

Once our sins were, once again, ritually rinsed away, Dan and I met up again on the stairway leading up to the shrine. It was here that we bumped into the only other westerners in Badrinath – a German tour guide called Ralf and one of his clients. After chatting to them and getting some good advice about trekking, we headed off, back to Josimath, and our next destination – Chopta, a further 7 hours drive away. After being jiggled and shaken for 7 hours more, we arrived by moonlight in Chopta, a tiny little settlement with no mains power. We were ushered into a glacially cold room and our hosts graciously started up their generator so we had a few hours of light. We ate by the light of a tilly lamp (yet another excruciatingly strong curry) before retiring to our ice-cold room and the snug comfort of our sleeping bags.