In front of the Rishikesh Railway Station
I was planning to tour to India for long time, specifically before the pandemic. I got my new passport accordingly. But, due to the sudden pandemic all travelling were postponed in every country. Finally, on last April, my time came to go abroad when India lifted ban on tourists. I started my journey on 29th April and returned on 10th May. I am planning to write several posts on my tour to India to share my experience with you.
If you have not read the first part of this series, please get the link at the bottom of this post. In this post I tell you the story of our journey from Kolkata-Rishikesh-Sankri that was a 2 days and 3 nights journey. Sankri was the starting point of our trekking to the Mt. Kedarkantha.
Sleeping seats of Dhoon Express. They provide pillow and bed sheet.
Before we got in the train it started raining heavily in the Howrah area. Our tickets were for the Dhoon Express that will carry us from Kolkata to Rishikesh in 1 day and 2 nights. We went to the platform and got almost wet due to the heavy rain. We took enough food and water with us for a long train journey of 35 hours (1531 km.). At 8.20 PM our train started to move towards Rishikesh.
Some stations where I got down from the train to take photos.
Dhoon Express is a very big train. I think it will be half a kilometer or more long. It took us some time to get our compartment. We bought tickets for AC, 2 tier sleeping seats. Seats were spacious enough to sleep for one person very comfortably. We kept our luggage under the seat and changed our wet cloths. We ordered for our dinner from the IRCTC app. This app is really a good one for all Indian rail passengers. We also used another handy app Where is my train, from this app we came know about the detail of the next rail station including the waiting time of Dhoon Express. This helped us to decide where to get down to buy our necessary things e.g., food, water, and other stuffs. As we were tired, after the dinner we went for sleep.
My tour mates are buying fruits at Deendayal Station.
Foods that we ate during this journey by train and Jeep. The First one was the breakfast at ISBT Rishikesh. Top right one was the dinner inside the train that we bought from IRCTC. Top middle one the Kulfi that I tested from a street vendor at Rishikesh, the taste was amazing. Bottom right was the lunch that we took on our way to Sankri from Rishikesh. Bottom left was the dinner. Bottom middle one is kind of sweet that I ate at Rishikesh.
I woke up early morning. I got fresh and stood to the door of our compartment to see the natural beauties of India outside. Gradually, my other tour mates woke up. By checking the App, we decided to get down at Deendayal Upadhyaya Railway Station. From this station we bought our breakfast along with fruits and water. Later, we got down at the historical and holy Kashi and Varanasi station for a short break just to take some photos there. I have heard these two names for so many times in my life that I had to get down and took photos for my future remembrance.
Holy Kashi
We experienced huge temperature during this journey. All railway stations have pure drinking water facilities for passengers. Several times we refilled our water bottles from some stations.
Inside the train we made friendship with the other Indian passengers who were going to different places by this train. They were surprised and happy to know that we have come from Bangladesh to India for trekking. We exchanged some foods with them as well as a token. We took some guidelines from some of the experienced Indian passengers and those advices helped us a lot later. Before reaching Lucknow, Dhoon Express stopped in some other stations for 2-3 minutes, among them only Faizabad Jn. Is mostly remarkable to me. This station is also known as Ayodhya Cantt. I think. By this time, we took our light lunch from the canteen inside the train. I was eagerly waiting for the Lucknow station. When we reached to Lucknow it was night that time. Unfortunately, this train had to stopped in many stations, unscheduled, for the crossing of another train, which made it late by hours to reach any station timely. But we were not in a hurry at all. At, Lucknow, we got down, took photos, ate foods and bought foods, fruits and water for rest of the night. As we did not have enough time, we could not take the photos of this beautiful station by going out of our platform. After leaving Lucknow, we took our dinner and went to sleep for another night inside the train.
Beautiful Lucknow Station. I took this photo from far away at night.
In this journey, we saw many monkeys in various station. I gave foods to some of them.
I did sleep very well and woke up early. After getting fresh and became excited by checking the App. that was indicating close to the Haridwar Rail Station. Slowly, we were getting close to our final station at Rishikesh. We started to take preparation to get down. We took all our luggage very carefully and checked twice before getting down from the train.
Outside of the beautiful Rishikesh Railway Station.
Around half an hour later we reached Rishikesh and got down. It is a very nice station with very nice natural beauties outside. To me, the whole state of Uttarakhand is full and blessed with endless natural beauties. God has given everything to this nice state. We took many photos inside and outside of the Rishikesh Rail Station.
I saw this beautiful "Gurdwara Sri Hemkunt Sahib" at Rishikesh, Thanks to @NareshDarji for getting me the name.
We hired this Jeep for 7 days
Me with the Jeep driver, Yogi, at Rishikesh Bus Terminal
We left the railway station and came to the ISBT RISHIKESH (Bus Terminal) by a autorickshaw. While coming to the bus terminal we enjoyed the natural beauties of Rishikesh. After reaching the bus terminal we took our breakfast in a restaurant and decided about our next agenda of hiring a jeep to Sankri, our trekking point. 3 of my tour mates left me behind with the luggage. They went to hire a jeep. After several hours of searching, we found a jeep for 28000 Rupees for 7 days. We put everything inside the jeep, bought some necessary things including medicines and started our journey for Sankri, 230 Km away from Rishikesh.
Railway stations are kept clean very nicely.
Very tidy platform of Rishikesh Railway Station.
After 2-3 hours, we stopped in front of a Dhaba and took our lunch though it was late afternoon then. Through the zigzag and regular upward/downward mountainous road, it was not possible to go faster for our driver at night. He was driving cautiously. At 11 PM we stopped in a Dhaba for our dinner. After the dinner we started again slowly. But at 1 AM the driver said that he cannot drive anymore, he needs to sleep for at least 2 hours. We agreed and all of us started sleeping inside inside the jeep beside the road. At 4 AM, the driver started again and drove for 30 minutes through a wrong road. We checked the google maps and move backward for another 30 minutes and got the right way. Due to the mobile network problem over the hill, we were unable to check the google maps all the time.
We saw many small but very beautiful town/village on lap of the hill on our way to Sankri.
The is going down under the mountain
Finally at 6.50 AM we reached Sankri. As we rented a dormitory in a homestay over the phone, we found it out and got fresh. This homestay took 20000 rupee for 5 persons, the package included staying here, foods, guide, basecamp accommodation and food etc. After that we took our breakfast and got ready to start our journey for the Kedarkantha trekking.
Finally at Sankri, tired and exhausted.
This post and the first post of this series are the parts of #StateChallenge meet-up that will be held virtually on June 11.
The #StateChallenge is currently being run by @jayasimha78 and @Denise_Barlock.
- It was originally organized by @Kwiksatik and @Denise_Barlock. If you want to find out more, check out this post.
- You can also find other submissions by searching the #StateChallenge hashtag
Links of POI that I have visited during this tour:
- Howrah Railway Station
- Yog Nagari Rishikesh
- Sankri
- Mt. Kedarkantha
- Deendayal Upadhyaya Rail Statin
- Kashi
- Varanasi
- Ayodhya Cantt
- Lucknow
- Haridwar Rail Station
- Gurdwara Sri Hemkunt Sahib
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