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Travelogue

Hi...my name is M.Sekar settled in Chennai, aged 61 years, my long desire was to visit Babaji's cave in the Kumaon Himalayas. Regarding the trip I did a lot of research in Google for about two months. After carefully collecting the details, I set to go immediately.

In January the weather is supposedly very cold, being an experienced Himalayan trekker, I could sense the chill, and so informed my friend to alter the visit to February.

We planned our trip for 10 - 12 days. We booked our flight ticket to New Delhi for Feb 2016, from Delhi we boarded Shatabdi to Kathgodam, and reached at 12.15 noon. As planned we took a tourist taxi to Mukteswar, on our way we had lunch and proceeded to Mukteswar 45 kms from Kathgodam. At about 4.00 pm reached the temple, had very good darshan of Lord Shiva at Mukteswar, one of the oldest temple.



After spending one hour in the temple, we started our journey towards Kausani, took the short cut forest road leading to Almora, the route was a little tough and rugged in some places, somehow we reached Kausani around 8.30 pm. The taxi driver took us to The Himalayan Mountain View in Kausani. The rate was very reasonable and had a comfortable stay. The weather was very pleasant. After having dinner we went to bed.

Next morning we visited the Bajinath Temple, 16 kms from our hotel, road conditions was really good. At around 9.00 am, we reached the beautiful and the oldest temple built during 12th century. I had visited the temple during my trip to Kailash Manasorovar Yatra in 1995.



From Bajinath, we proceeded to Bagnath temple in Bageswar, on the banks of river Saryu and Gomti, one can see the beautiful sangamam. We just reached the temple 5 minutes before closure, hence requested the pandit for darshan, he very much obliged.



After having good darshan of Bagnath, we proceeded to Dwarhat, appx 3 to 4 hours journey. Due to misunderstanding with the taxi driver, he dropped us near Someshwar. From here we took a jeep half the way to Dwarahat, and from there by bus to Dwarahat. Road leading to Dwarahat was very rough, and the journey was a difficult one. Around 3.30 pm we reached Dwarahat and stayed in a moderate hotel, opposite to the bus stand - Hotel Chandralok, very comfortable stay.

The next day we got into a TATA Sumo to go to Kukuchina, the sumo waited till it was full of passengers, finally after an hour it started moving, around 14 kms from Dwarahat.

The drive was via Dunagiri, since we had no time we could not stop at Dunagiri to visit the temple. Around 10.30 reached Kukuchina i.e. near Joshi’s Restaurant, last shop in that region. One has to buy whatever we want from this shop only. They also have good rooms for stay.



From here we had to trek 3 kms on a mud road after that a steady climb leading to the Babaji's cave, sign boards are available in three places. The last climb is little steep near to the cave. After spending 2 hrs in the cave, started trekking towards Kukuchinna. We had our Maggie at Joshi Restaurant. By the time we arrived, there was no transport so we had to trek for 5 kms to reach Dunagiri. We had our tea and then got into the TATA Sumo to reach Dwarahat. After reaching the village we walked down to Yogananda Ashram to have look. So we spent our night in the village. My friend was not well so he left for New Delhi next day early morning. I left around 8.00 am to Raniketh and then to Nanital. I had a comfortable stay at Kumon Vikas Mandal Nigam, but it is not well maintained.







After visiting Raniket and Nainital, I return back to Chennai.

My visit the cave was planned and it was completed within a week. I would like to mention it was a long dream for me to visit the BABAJI CAVE. But the entire trip was successfully completed within 8 days only Chennai, New Delhi, Kathgodam, Kausani, Dwarahat, Raniket, Nanital, New Delhi, Chennai.