J&K Trip Day 1 Part 2:

Now we were walking on Residency road towards Raghunath Mandir.It was like a mini commercial Street there with good stores like Wills Lifestyle and Coffee day and also small stores of sweets and even stores of ARMS AND AMMUNITION!!!(No wonder terrorists find arms so easily here).Then we enter Raghunath mandir after depositing our cameras and mobiles in the cloak room. This temple is nothing less than a cheap exhibition which comes in Palace grounds.Atleast people in the exhibition are selling something but here in the temple they are selling god only and his blessings too. Only if u keep money will the priest give u the blessings and Prasad. This temple is also very beautiful but the greediness of the priest puts u off so much that spiritualism does not come at all. And if u are a person like me who is very superstitious then be ready to spend some money at every doorstep.Anyways I think whatever I make is all god’s blessings so giving something back to him or people who take me to him is not bad at all. I also saw Saligram stones over there. These are basically 1000’s of small black stones which are worshipped.Saligram is Abhi’s native place and he says that there is only one Saligram stone and it’s so holy that no one can touch it. But anyways I was very happy to touch the fake saligram’s and seek real blessings for my family and friends.
After this the next stop was a palace called Amar Mahal Palace which was the last place of residence of Dogra Raja’s. This palace looks awesome and it looks like we were in a completely different country. It was very neatly maintained and it had a lot of paintings. Through this I learnt about Nala and Damayanti.Also there are large life size portraits of all the Raja’s and Rani’s which we did take pictures so that I can get something like this done for my palace J,Outside the greenery was awesome and I knew it was picture time. Lots of snaps with different poses and styles and then it was time for us to leave but not before checking out the Raja’s throne made of 50kg pure gold. It was a delight for the eyes. Once we were done with this it was finally the end of our sight seeing of Jammu and we were on our way to Katra.
Routine security checkups were happening on the way but we were enjoying the drive. Good roads and great scenery somewhat reminded me of Coorg.Before I knew I was fast asleep only to be woken up for a treat of ice cream (Kwality mango duet) and mineral water. Once done with the eating time for my sleep again. However pit stop happened again and this time for tea. The place looked really dingy but the tea was good. Now I feel bad that I don’t know the name of the hotel nor did we click any snaps there.30 mins from that hotel and we finally reached our destination our 5 start hotel named “White Orchid”. It’s a superb hotel with all the 5 star amenities and the best part were the toiletries my fav biotique (hehehe I know Ur also like that naah). Anyways after we freshened up I realized something is wrong with our door.Inspite of having a carpenter they could not fix the problem so we changed our room from 426 to 424 (Yeah sexy number according to numerology).First they get our luggage late and now this. Somehow dint get a good start L.By the time we settled down it was already time for our dinner. Our travel agent Nishant came to collect the cash and explained the itenary of the entire trip. It sounds interesting but u know me Ill always have some negative thoughts atleast sometimes.Anyways since our dinner was MAP plan (That’s modified American plan for people who don’t know what that means) we ordered to the fullest and ate till we burped really hard. Not to forget we also went for quiet walks outside the garden and clicked few pictures in the dark and beautiful lit up hilltop. For now day 1 seems really nice and im waiting for day 2 now!!!!Until I write this is Pallavi saying barla!!!!

J&K Trip Day 1 Part 1

So finally my dream trip of Jammu and Kashmir happened.Early morning at 7 was my flight from Bangalore to Delhi.And this time yet another airline.It was jey lite.After bidding adieu to all the family members and friends it was time for us to leave Bangalore.We reached Delhi @ 9:50 and then boarded the flight to Jammu and finally reached here at 11:30.I thought the weather will be either warm or cool but its just like Bangalore.Its really hot and the temp is 31 degrees.Anyways the journey started off on a bad note coz of the vehicle.We wanted a AC Qualis with good seats but then we landed up with a pretty ok Tavera.Now Dolly is stuck with the bad back seats.Our driver Praveen resembles a hindi movie villain.Somehow this entire place is scaring me.Maybe it’s the influence of all the hindi war movies that I have seen. Anyways we have started our journey with the sight seeing of jammu.We came now to Bahu fort.It has a very nice Kali mandir.This reminds me of a temple in Bali.The fort looks really bad and small.Security is always there and is very strict.So we could not take any mobiles and cameras in.Somehow I could not trust these people will all my stuff so I dint give anything at the cloak room.We sent the couple in first and then Me Anil and Dolly went in.We could not see anything there because everything was prohibited there for entry.But the temple was pretty good.Then we went to see a garden called Bagh-E-Bahu.We first spoke to the ticket guy and asked him if there was anything worthy there to see.He conned us by saying that there was musical fountain.but for our bad luck all that we found there was just hot sun and some shade under the trees.We also saw some localites over there who were enjoying some quiet time for themselves there.Anyways we were already very tired of heat we decided not to see anything else there.Also there was a aquarium shaped like a giant fish which we decided to skip.The view was great with the Tawi river flowing beside the fort.Next when we walked out we saw the local transport.Its the same minivans as in Bangalore.We picked up a bottle of mineral water outside.But thanx to Slumdog Millionaire I was thinking twice before having to pay for the bottle.We just picked one bottle and then headed towards one more temple.
We reached Char Dham.Also in this Chardham temple is Ganga Ghat.The river Tawi was flowing pretty fast here.With just 2 girls who know how to swim in the entire group we just decided to sit around for 5 minutes and then saw the temple.It had 3 giant sculptures.One of Kari Ganesha,One hanuman and the other is Vasudeva carrying Balkrishna on his head in the basket.The temple deities again are very sweet looking.One more interesting thing is that all the deities are smiling.Thats when Ani made a point.Gods here are always ever smiling but people are not and its vice versa down south.Also the deities are very big and nice.There is also Amar Jyothi here.This deepa is always lite and its in front of huge lingam.All different avatars of Krishna was there which made me get back to spiritualism.By the time we finished it was already 2 and our stomachs were making noises for food.I just bought a lonely planet thanx to which I came to know about restaurants.
Then we went to Falak which is a roof top restaurant in a nice hotel called K.C.Residency.I was really happy to have found a really good and neat restaurant.But I was in a bigger surprise.This hotel was on the roof top and it was built kind off like outside the building.When we sat I thought the floor was shaking then I was told that the hotel was revolving.So as we sat for our lunch we could see the entire city of Jammu.WOW!!!What a beautiful place.Good food and an excellent view .Awesome selection!!!We saw the Tawi river banks,Raghunath Mandir and even a parrot sitting on a branch while having lunch.With just 1225 all the 5 of us had food till our throats.Thats how full we were.After that it was time for a walk on a busy street called Residency road.What happens after that ill tell u in the next part!!!!