Joshimath, Badrinath, GovindGhat and Ghangaria

We stayed at a hotel run by a Buddhist man who made us dinner, gave us buckets of hot bath water, and woke us up with chai at 5am. Ji and Tha were squeezed into a Dehradun-Badrinath bus at 6, while the rest of us slept at little more/ washed and bathed/ packed some of our bags into a single room. Vc, appa and me managed to get a jeep (with 10 other people and 2 children!) which wound its way up steep and barely existing roads, past the Vishuprayag hydro-electric power project, to Badrinath. A crowded and shop-lined street leads to the bright and colourful temple, and you can get anything from Persian coloured-glass lamps, to plastic Ganesha keychains. Ji and Tha have more stories about Badrinath from the Malayalee priest there!
We just about managed to get a bus back from Badrinath, and got off at Govindghat. A small town long the banks of the river, Govindghat comprises of a large gurudwara, a line of shops selling pilgrim paraphernalia, more hotels and taxi stands and an army of flies! We stayed at the gurudwara with many Sikh pilgrims who were on their way to Hemkund Sahib. With nothing much to do in Govindghat, and an early start ahead, we hit the sack by 8pm!

Next morning, we were all up at 4am, packed, tea-ed and ready for the 13km trek to Ghngaria. We bravely did the first 5kms with all our luggage and tents, and then hired 2 Nepali porters! The going was slow along the steep winding paths and we stopped at Pulna and Bhyundar villages, and started appa and Tha on acetozolomide as we were rapidly going higher and higher into the beautiful mountains. The Eco-Development Committee has fantastic programme that has cleaned up the path and maintains it as well. We walked up with the ponies, pilgrims and porters, amazed at the beauty of the mountains and the rushing river. We stayed at Krishna Place lodge in Gangharia, where we had hot baths, dinner, tea and milk before collapsing into bed.