This time during November, we decided to visit Vaishno Devi Temple near Jammu as we got four days by taking one day leave from the office.



Mata Vaishno Devi resides in a Holy Cave located in the folds of the three peaked mountain named Trikuta (pronounced as Trikoot). The Holy Cave attracts millions of devotees every year.

The Holy Cave is situated at an altitude of 5200 ft. The Yatris have to undertake a trek of nearly 12 km from the base camp at Katra. At the culmination of their pilgrimage, the yatries are blessed with the Darshan of the Mother Goddess inside the Sanctum Sanctorum- the Holy Cave. These Darshans are in the shape of three natural rock formations called the Pindies. There are no statues or idols inside the Cave.

We started our journey on 13.11.13 from Delhi by train and reached Udhampur at around 9.00 am. The second last station was Jammu, most of the passengers got down here so as to proceed to Katra via road.  Katra is the point from where one can start trekking for the Bhawan.  After Jammu, train proceeded towards its destination, Udhampur.  The path from Jammu to Udhampur was very beautiful.  We crossed lots of tunnels during this path. 

River, Tawi was there to welcome us with natural scenic pictures.

   Shri Naresh Sharma, one of the friends of my close friend, Shri P.K. Sharma was there to help us to make arrangements for our stay and darshan at Bhawan.  He greeted us at Udhampur railway station with his broad smile.  After breakfast, we proceeded to Katra which is one and half hour drive.  Shri Naresh did great efforts to finalize our journey by booking our room at Bhawan, arranging for VIP passes for the Darshan and also got our helicopter booked for the one-side journey.  All this took a toll of his entire day on 14.11.2013.

Registration - The most important activity that a pilgrim has to undertake on reaching Katra is getting registered for the Yatra. Yatra Registeration is carried out at the Yatri Registeration centre (YRC) near the Bus Stand, Katra. 

After waiting for almost four hours, we boarded the helicopter and reached Sanjichhat in 6 minutes.  Luckily, both of us got the window seat and enjoyed our journey although for a very short period.  From there one has to climb down approximately 2.5 kms to reach the Bhawan area.  Our room was booked at Kalika Bhawan which was very close to the main Bhawan.

We reached our room at around 5.30 pm and immediately could not visit the main temple as the entry was closed for two hours for evening Aarti.  After taking rest, we went for the Darshan at around 9 pm.  There was a long queue but having VIP passes; we could cut it short.  There were separate queues for ladies and gents and everybody has to get frisked before entering for the Darshan of natural Pindies.  We got separated with each other due to the frisking queues and spent approximately an hour in seeking each other.

Next morning, we started trekking down to reach Katra.  It took us around 3 and a half hour to reach Katra which is approximately 12 kms from Bhawan.  The path is maintained by the Shrine Board and it was well maintained.  We enjoyed the path with tonic doses of natural sceneries for our eyes. 






 After having our lunch at Katra, we did some shopping of walnuts, mango pulp (aam papar), etc and proceeded towards Jammu Tawi Railway Station to catch Rajdhani to reach Delhi next morning.  The train reached around half an hour before time and accordingly we reached home early.  It was a Saturday morning and therefore we had two days to recover before getting lost in daily routine.