Trip to Badrinath Kedarnath

Thanks Kanti for the reply.

Returned from the trip day before yesterday.
I had a mixed experience. The following was my itinary.
29th june took bus from Anand Vihar (Booked through makemytrip worst bus experience, they did not provide allotted seat. provided the last row, AC was not effective, the staff was very rude).
Reached Rishikesh on 30th june, hired an auto who after lot of struggle arranged a room again the room rent was 1000 plus auto fair 100. Later Hotel employee told me the room rent was around 500 only and the auto driver took the remaining 500 as commission. Also hired a private indica on 1700 per day from om sai travel.
1st july started for kedarnath, reached Gauri kund by 4 PM. I had a reservation at GMVN guest house, the hotel location was awesome, also it was raining.
2nd July started at 8 AM for Kedarnath, hired a kandi at 700 one way plus lunch. The weather was awsome it was foggy and clouds everywhere but the road was very slippery. Reached kedarnath at 4 PM. I had a reservation there too at GMVN again very good location. Attended Aarti in the evening.
3rd July Did abhishek at the temple took some snaps although the weather was cloudy and could take very few snaps of the Glaciers started for Gauri kund at 10:15 reached there by 3:30. Started for chopta at 4 reached there by 6:30. The road was good although my wife was getting scared due to fog, jungle and the sharp turns on the road.I did not have booking there, got a room at 400 per day. The couples staying at next room told they got it at 300 per day. Had awesome dinner from bugiyal restaurant.
4th July : Woke up at 6, it was heavy raining and fog was everywhere no visibility beyond 50 meters. We dropped the idea of Tungnath and started for Badrinath. Passed through Mandal and next to that at police barrier the policeman told us that the road is blocked one km before Gopeshwar. We halted at a lodge on the way and waited till the evening, Then eventually took a room at 350 there. Stayed overnight.
5th July: In the morning we got the news the road block has been removed at 10:30. We started the onward journey reached Chamoli at 1: PM. There again the road was blocked due to heavy rain fall.
Till now we were tired of bad weather and road block, SO we decided to go back to rishikesh. Its around 200 km from Chamoli to Rishikesh. But driver wanted to pass the day just to fetch extra one day rent so he drove very slowly and stopping here and there for some vague reasons. We were getting irritate, finally we reached Dev pryag at 8 PM in the evening. took a room at 500.
6th July: started at 8 Am, reached Haridwar at 11:00 AM. I complained about the driver to the travels owner. Well he took in total 9500 for 6 days cab rent. I took roadways bus at 12 and reached Delhi by 5:30 PM in the evening.
I had a very bad experience in the UK with the local hotel owners, the drivers, the shopkeepers. They all were very greedy and wanted to fetch as much money as they can.

One incident i would like to mention, at mandal the lodge owner initially gave full glass of milk for 15 rs in the morning , but in the evening he asked for 30 rs for the same, i was so frustated, i took a walk of 2km to the local market, I could find only milk powder, bu while returning i saw some cows at a road side house. I asked for the milk there, the guy provided half liter of milk and did not charge me any thing.

Thanks
Ankit

Hahahahaha...........at least you got pure unadulterated milk straight from the cow's udders lol. You are a really lucky guy. Jokes apart, let me put it straight why and where you messed your trip, probably partly due to lack of experience, partly due to wrong advise and partly on account of your attempts to save a few bucks which you could have parted with otherwise.

1. You should not have undertaken the tour now. The correct time for the dham-tour is May-June (avoid last week of June always), or else in September-October(avoid first fortnight of September).
2. Never travel by buses or volvos on Delhi-Haridwar stretch. There are excellent options curtsy Indian Railways.So why not make use of them, at lesser price and much more comfort.
3. Make-my-trip,trip-adviser etc. are travel agencies who do their business and earn their livelihood from your pocket.If you are wise and patient, you would realize how these travel agencies "rob" their customers. Indiamike is an excellent site for sharing views and experiences, and the wise will make use of the information thus gotten and plan out their trips the way they like, and save both money and time, as well as add to the comfort of the travel. Always remember that if you book your hotel yourself, you pay half the price than what you pay to these travel agencies/agents who are in this business for their own livelihood, just as you and I do a job for our livelihood.
4.Observe and sit-up on this forum and make note of the "great guys" who give you the correct and the relevant information. Make use of the information you have thus collected. Remember, even the "great guys" won't spoon-feed you......you must do your own homework always.
5. GMVN accommodation in Rishikesh was freely available that time. Private hotels wouldn't have charged you Rs.1000 per night, unless you were a real novice. And never book hotel-rooms using the services of an agent/taxi-driver/auto-driver. You pay more and get less otherwise.
6. Rs. 1700 per day cab looks fair to me. You could have tried to share the cab with a couple of others to reduce costs here, and saved some 800-900 bucks. Anyway, full-taxi was also ok, no bad choice by any means.
7. Rest is laughable, coz you undertook the trip during peak monsoons. I wonder why others didn't advise you against doing this trip now. Probably they too wanted to learn about your experiences lol.
8. You should have halted at some other place other than Devprayag, perhaps Khirsu,and enjoyed the weather there at least.

Anyway, re-try the trip next May-June and let us know how it goes then. Your wife deserves better than this I guess lol. As an alternate for her and for compensating her for the disappointment, try out a 4-5 day tour of Kausani-Nainital-Mukhteshwar during the 15th August whereabouts holidays, else during the Deepawali-break. Well, all learn from their mistakes.

Thanks Shamik
for the inputs.
I am feeling as a bevakoof here
You have some point there, But as you can see my previous posts i had asked for the help from the forum, also no one can control the weather.but my issue is with the behavior of that lodge wala or that driver.
Also man learn from his mistakes, so i think its very little cost i payed for the same it could have been more. But yeah you can laugh on others mistakes but you should have been there to avoid these. Anyways we are too happy to complete our fourth jyotirlinga. And we enjoyed a lot the trip.
Perhaps after 20-30 years we will try for badrinath again .

Hope the other will get a message from this post too

Thanks
Ankit

After 20-30 years, you'll be doing the Badrinath trip again. Huh, you still joking. Plan your trip well in advance. Get your itinerary vetted by the knowledgeable guys of this forum. When your family is along, halt at places where you otherwise could have skipped had you been solo. Your family doesn't deserve a 200 km/day journey, unless there are no alternates. It only adds a few thousands to the budget, but makes the trip enjoyable and memorable. Remember, dham yatra is always tough, and only for the mentally and the physically fit. But once you have visited the dhams, you would have visited the best of the Himalayas, outside of Kashmir of course. We visited Gangotri-Gaumukh, and then Kedarnath. Those were memorable trips for us, even though we made some elementary mistakes......easily one of the best days of our lives, especially the Gaumukh trek.We left out the Badrinath dham for some other day which hasn't come as yet........but soon it shall, and Badrinath is a very long trip, so we didn't combine it with Kedarnath. We plan to do Badrinath-Mana-Joshimath-Auli-Ghangharia-Valley of Flowers-Hemkund Saheb in one long 15 day trip. Lets see if we can rope in a few more enthusiasts from this site to make the trip economical (from transport-sharing point of view).

Dear mr dubey,
You said your driver drove really slow & cheated you. But our driver did his best to make us reach haridwar so that we did not miss our train !
Your lodge wala robbed you through glass of milk but our lodgewala lend us 5000/- rs when we were run out of money due to a small accident in kedarnath !
Bad guys or good guys, they are everywhere. Dont take it to heart. Next time when yot visit badriji, stay at haridwar, lot of nice Ashrams - charge you bare minimum & give a nice family accommodation ! & yes....
Give my regards to Badriji !

@ dubeyankit

somehow overlooked your post on return...........and feeling sorry for your bad experiences...........apart from driver and hoteliers, I must express my fault that I couldnt predict about unexpected heavy rainfall at that time of year

you are really an unlucky one who didnt receive advice from Shamik Nag while posting your plan here

@ WeareTourists

fully agree........and have lots of great help & other good experiences from the people of Uttarakhand apart from few minor events

I second your opinion, PKanti. And to add, I'd like to mention that its not really possible to fool wise men (not for a moment though do I hint that Ankit isn't wise).

Well well, touring Kedar-Badri during last week of June/first week of July was sheer foolishness. Wiser counsel should have prevailed

It wasn't his fault though that he decided to proceed in late-June itself..........it was God's desire

Anyway, nice post Ankit.

Well thanks for your comments guys .
Kanti Thanks for your advises, weather was another factor otherwise my trip was very good.See I do not have any concern with UK people as i told you one incident where a native people helped me a lot.

I did some mistakes but i am not sure any so called wise man could have done things differently in such a situation.
Well I still feel i was well advised, as i had seen thousands of people doing the same yatra at that point of time, its just God does not wants me to go to Badrinath.

Ankit

hope the fog of misunderstanding between you two over within short future and plan to be in Garhwal very soon........ not "after 20-30 years"

yeah