Chardham Yatra - Part 9 (Kedarnath to Sitapur)

Day 8 – 26^th May, 2019 saw us waking up early & eagerly. We were served tea in the morning and we left immediately after that. On our way away from our room towards the helipad, we took some pictures to serve as memory. We said our goodbyes to the Lord at Kedarnath and also to our priest who had made all the arrangements. We reached the helipad by 6.30 a.m. and were allotted slots for the return journey.

 The wait for our flight was quite long. While waiting we saw a body of a pilgrim who passed away at Kedarnath being loaded on a helicopter. Many people, especially the older pilgrims, find the lack of oxygen and the cold unbearable. Complaints of nausea and breathlessness is common as are the complaints regarding the cold and the blast of wind from the helicopters while landing or taking off. After a very long time, we got our turns to fly down to Sersi. We came down by 11.30 a.m. It was very warm at Sersi but we were not complaining as it was comforting. Breathing was easy and nose blockage was steadily improving.

 Our TT took a long time to arrive after that as they were caught up in traffic. As mentioned earlier, traffic in this area is bad with people parking on the roads and not allowing eaough space for the movement. This combined with the heavy flow of vehicles on both directions often creates jams which take a long time to clear. We reached back our hotel by 3 p.m. and had lunch. Ranveer had made a special treat of Vettakozhumbu, Kootu, fried papadams and also Semiya milk payasam / kheer to celebrate the darshan of Kedarnath. We were given new rooms on the first floor of the hotel. These rooms were decent and much better than the ones on the ground floor.

In the evening, we drove about 18 kms to a lovely temple called Triyugi Narayan. One has to cross Sonprayag (confluence of Mandakini river with Basuki river) and go up one of the mountains to reach this temple. This temple is famous as the wedding of Shiva & Parvati was conducted here by Lord Narayan in the Satya yug. It is believed that Parvati did penance at Gauri Kund to obtain the love of Lord Shiva. He was won over by Her penance and proposed marriage to Her at GuptKashi and they eventuall got married at TriyugiNarayan village which was the capital of Her father Himavat.

 

Very few tourists were there when we reached the temple by around 6.15 p.m. The village was very quaint and peaceful. The temple looked lovely and we eagerly went to it. There are four kunds here viz. Brahma Kund, Vishnu Kund, Rudra Kund and Saraswati Kund. The village also has a Veda Patasala. This village is inhabited by about 130 Brahmin families which lives here even during the winter months when the village is virtually isolated. During winter, the villagers spend time praying inside the temple which has an eternal fire going.

With the help of a local priest we did a small pooja there at the very spot where the divine marriage was solemnised. We then entered the temple and had a darshan of the Akhand Jyoti (eternal fire) which is believed to be kept alive and burning for the last 3 yugs (Hence the name Triyugi). The temple is also known as Akhanda Dhuni temple due to the eternal fire which is kept ablaze by the wood offered by pilgrims & priests. It is believed that prayers offered at this temple results in getting marriages fixed for eligible bachelors / spinsters and also gives conjugal bliss to couples. We had darshan of the deities in the temple and were specially attracted to the idol of SatyaNarayan. We were also lucky to get darshan of aarti at this temple.

It was dark when we left the temple. We reached our hotel back by 9 p.m. in time for dinner of Puri & Bhaji followed by curd & rice. After that we retired for the night.

Thus ended Day 8 of our Yatra.