Blessed at Mata Vaishno Devi

I was quite excited for my first flight experience.  I was the only one who going to travel first flight in group and got window seat.

We had taken a direct flight from Pune to Jammu.Then from jammu,it was a road journey of 2 hours. We arrived at Katra at 10:30 am. Having rest for a couple of hours, we moved towards Vaishnodevi.

Total journey is 14 km up to Bhavan and 3 km for Bhairavnath temple. I had completed journey by walking only.   
From the base at Katra, we started the awesome journey at 6:30 pm. There are three options: horse riding, “Palkhi” and helicopter ride.

But the fourth option by walking is quite awesome. Out of 4 members,3 members chose walking while one preferred for horse ride.
Road was good .There were some steps in between and steep road was also there. In mean while journey  we had some dance steps on Bhangada.

It was adventurous night. All facilities like food,rest room are available by 24/7 provided by Shirine board.
We reached the first destination at 9 pm having blessed at Ardhakumari. This place is 4-5 km from base. We had some food and we departed for next journey.
Road was awesome. There were two paths from Ardhakumari. There was a bit less crowd on the path that we had taken.
We reached our final destination at 1 am. This is 14 km from base.
We were blessed with Mata Vaishno Devi and after blessing we felt some divine energy. That night was quite beautiful.
We got one special coin as a gift by Shirin Board which has the picture of Mata Vaishno Devi. At 3 am,we had dinner. Then we left for Bhairavnath.  The temple is awesome and black dolls were there. There were black chains,Trishul. We ventured our return journey at 4 am. There is a saying if you are not blessed with Bhairavnath,then Mata  darshan is not completed.
One more member had taken horse ride and we departed towards the base.
At sunrise,we had almost completed our half journey.The sunrise was breathtaking and we clicked some moments there.

The helicopter service usually starts at the sunrise. Return journey was quite easy. We reached at the base at 7 am. We took an auto and we came to our hotel. After taking rest and some shopping of dry fruits,Kesher and some winter clothes,we left at 4 pm.

On next day morning, we walked for some distance. In food they have variety of Chana and Paratha. I don’t like both for breakfast so I chose Maggie.     

After breakfast we started our packing and left our hotel at 10 pm. Next day,we had lunch at noon at Punjabi dhaba on Jammu-Kashmir highway. We reached Pune at 7 pm by taking 4 hours flight.

Total cost of travel from Pune including flight was around 20-21 k (Except shopping ). It will be good having post paid Sim-card as Prepaid cards does not work there.