GETTING THERE....!!

So, it started with a thought of giving relaxing holidays to my mother who made so many sacrifices for her children without even complaining, selected many spiritual places to relish her, with once in a while, she told me about her strong desire of going to Shri Amarnathji in Kashmir. So, from there all my search stucked to one place, i.e., Kashmir, coincidently when I started my vigorous search, the holy cave is going to open in the month of july. So, I quickly booked the tickets for helicopter which I got of 3rd aug, the first monday of Savana which was quite of religious importance for my mother after being tested by the certified doctors that my parents were well enough to ride on this huge yatra.  

As soon as I booked the tickets, my elder sister and a close family friend also showed their willingness to come along. So, from there we became a group of 7 people, my parents, my elder sister, Pooja (my trekking partener), my father's friend or my uncle, my aunt and her daughter Shilpa and last but not least, I, Neha.

The next step is to plan about the number of days we were heading to,i.e., by common virtue planned for eight days and ofcourse, the most important, 'budget' of the trip. Since, we were two different families, so had to think about both that it would not put a hole in their pockets. In the beginning, I followed what everyone else do, asking travel agents to plan for me, but as I've heard their exorbitant plans, I better decided to contribute my time to plan and trust me, I dint regret it for a sec. My view is clear, I wanted to create each day as an adventure for everyone of them so that when they came back I could see huge smile on their faces. It is a dogma that when your intentions are true, the god itself paves a way for you. After talking to so many agents, one morning I got a call from unknown number providing me itinerary for the best deals, assuring me like a family member do, I did not know yet what kind of attachment held two of us, may be that's the god's wish, but I trusted his words and booked my entire stay and travel with him as logically also he provided me best deal in the best hotels and houseboats. The name of that unknown person is Mr. Shahid Bhat from Golden Bird Tours & Travels ( http://www.kashmirgbtravel.com/ ), the man who remained under covers but the most logistic, truthful and sensitive person we have ever met in our life.

View from train in the evening

With the desire of my elder sister, we purchased a digital camera to make our entire trip really memorable and again by the god's grace, we cracked the best deal in it also, got the canon 50x optical zooming camera, learned photography in a short span with the help of Mr. Amit Kumar Dinodia, the photographer by profession.

And, finally the date of departure came, 29 july, our first destination is Katra, Mata Vaishno Devi Darshan, I planned the travel by direct SVDK Express train from New Delhi to Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra  Railway station  and stay tuned with me through my next post "Chalo Bulawa Aya h..!!"