My north trip - a photologue

[ExtremeTorque]

These are pics from my recently concluded trip to Delhi, UP, UA and HR. There is nothing much to write about as this was primarily a meet the wifes extended family kinda trip, with short stints of sight seeing thrown in.

Akshardham temple - this is the last point one can carry his camera or any other electronic device.


Our visit was on a sunday and noticing the crowd we decided to come back on a weekday. The crowd in the below photo is only the queue to deposit electronic items in lockers. There was another serpentine que for frisking.


Next on was



Beautiful DL roads - CWG magic?


Moonrise over India gate


Random



Personally, this is the best pic of the trip


Soldiers names etched on the India gate


A super huge Hanuman statue, enroute Karol bagh


The karol bagh market on a cold evening


The missus was delighted


Gastronomics and some funny spelling. Chiled Lassi after Cholly Chawal & Dhai bhalla, anyone?

[MX6]

delhi is magical on wintry mornings. so this trip explains your lengthy sabbathical from t-bhp. all geared up for more photos. did you meet up with any t-bhpians there?

[ExtremeTorque]

Morning MSji! Yeah it was a 10 day trip but we were so running around all over DL, HR, UP & UA/UK, i didnt get to meet any TBHPians. I did spot a few LTD and LCLC cars in Delhi & Agra. Rishikesh & Haridwar pics coming up shortly.

[TaureanBull]

Hi, ET. Looks like an interesting set of pics. Can you summarise the places you visited in this tour? Did Delhi visit consist only of these places?

[ExtremeTorque]

Haridwar & Rishikesh - Traveling through wester UP and Uttarakhand (confusion between UA or UK?)

For a person from the south, the petrol price looks very attractive. This was the first thing that caught my attention in UP.



We started from Ghaziabad and the toll roads are decent upto Muzzafarnagar.





After Muzzafarnagar the traffic comes to almost crawling speed, especially at town due to these...We are obviously in the sugarcane belt.





Baba Ramdev's ashram just before Haridwar





First glimpse of Har-Ki-Pauri at Haridwar





The ghats at Har-Ki-Pauri







I can confidently say these were the best Puri-Kachori i ever had
MIL Ordering some



Mohan ji Puri wale - one of the many such shops and the first one in line



Doing what i do best



The sweet section



Market enroute Mansa devi temple





The rope way to Mansa Devi temple



The mighty Ganges meandering - as seen from the Mansa Devi Temple. The ganges travels 250KM through the himalayas and enters the indo-gangetic plans for the first time in Haridwar



The temples along the Har-Ki-Pauri ghat



Proceeding to Rishikesh, the Yoga capital of the world. We did see a lot of Yoga schools but i didnt take any pic as i didnt want to disturb the sanctity.



Lakshman Jhoola





I failed to realize it gets dark in the mountains pretty early. This pic is of the Ram Jhoola take at around 5.45 PM



Brass statuettes in the market of Rishikesh. I regret not buying the green buddha. Maybe next time..





The shop keeper said that this buddha statue is gold coated and is directly bought from Nepal. He quoted Rs. 3500 for this.

[ampere]

I was about to ask if you had Puri-Halwa at Har-Ki-Pauri and then I see a snap of "getting caught in the act" ! Man you really reminded of those times!

Nice.

More than Har-Ki-Pauri, the Kankhal side of Haridwar is even better, where you will see Ganga crystal clear (may be for the last time, before it starts getting muddy).

Sitting below the bridge (I think thats the road which leads to Najibabad/Bijnor) I spent hours enjoying the serenity of gamges!

Hopefully I also get to see Chotiwalla?

[ExtremeTorque]

Originally Posted by TaureanBull

Hi, ET. Looks like an interesting set of pics. Can you summarise the places you visited in this tour? Did Delhi visit consist only of these places?

TB, i was headquartered at Ghaziabad and did a little bit of Delhi sight seeing spread over 2 days. Visited Haridwar & Rishikesh (UA), Muzzaffarnagar, Aligarh, Agra (UP), Hisar, Gurgaonva (HR).

Originally Posted by ampere

I was about to ask if you had Puri-Halwa at Har-Ki-Pauri and then I see a snap of "getting caught in the act" ! Man you really reminded of those times!

Nice.

More than Har-Ki-Pauri, the Kankhal side of Haridwar is even better, where you will see Ganga crystal clear (may be for the last time, before it starts getting muddy).

Sitting below the bridge (I think thats the road which leads to Najibabad/Bijnor) I spent hours enjoying the serenity of gamges!

Hopefully I also get to see Chotiwalla?

Ampere, I wish I had such info (shud have placed a query on TBHP) before hand about Kankhal. We were short of time and rushed thru. I had a mesmerizing experience with the Ganges too. I had an extreme sore back and one dip in the icy cold waters releived 70% of it. The suspension bridge that you are referring to is NH58 and connects Meerut-Roorkee. Chotiwalla? I am not sure, can you eloborate?

[ampere]

I think its the same bridge visible in Photologue-22 in the background! Can you/others confirm! Its been more than 12-15 years since I went.
Those were times, when my dad said we are going "somewhere" and I used to go!


Chotiwalla is one of the oldest restaurant in Rishikesh!


Just googled to see that they now have a website too!
Chotiwala Restaurant

[ExtremeTorque]

Originally Posted by ampere

I think its the same bridge visible in Photologue-22 in the background! Can you/others confirm! Its been more than 12-15 years since I went.
Those were times, when my dad said we are going "somewhere" and I used to go!


Chotiwalla is one of the oldest restaurant in Rishikesh!


Just googled to see that they now have a website too!
Chotiwala Restaurant

My bad! The missus, who is from these parts did tell me about Chotiwala and their food. She was reading the TL at office and called me to remind me. About the bridge, i am not cent percent sure but I do know that from Meerut you take a different route to Nazibabad. We took the Muzzafarnagar, Rourkee route and the suspension bridge came enroute.

[Fordmanchau]

Originally Posted by ExtremeTorque

TB, i was headquartered at Ghaziabad and did a little bit of Delhi sight seeing spread over 2 days. Visited Haridwar & Rishikesh (UA), Muzzaffarnagar, Aligarh, Agra (UP), Hisar, Gurgaonva (HR).

Arun, why this special "va" at the end in Gur-gaon, it's anyways a concrete gaon!! how did you like the place ?
Seems like 2010 has been a wonderful year for you, lots of travelogues .
Meanwhile your snaps of getting caught in the act at the chotiwala looks tempting. Trip up north of Delhi, is long overdue.
Post the whole thing fast!!

[ampere]

I used to take the Sangam "link" express via Aligarh-Rajghat-Chandausi-Mooradabad-Najibabad-Laksar-Hardwar.

Had been there so many times, that lost count!

There used to be an Ayappa temple close to station, where they had clean rooms for stay. Always stayed there. (Should be still around)

PLUS: Has it ever happened that the Pujari of a temple invited you for lunch!
(It is usually the other way round is'nt it!)

[ExtremeTorque]

Next up was the remaining leg of our Tour-de-Dilli. We hired a taxi from Ghaziabad (our head quarters)

I was unaware of the HoHo service, else this would have definitly on the top of our priority list





Enter the Bahai temple - Lotus temple









We decided to get a bit 'touristy'



Next up was the ISKON temple. Unfortunately the Lord decided to shut us out. ISKON was closed from 2 - 4 PM. We nevertheless took the opportunity to take some photos of the gods











Continuing our sojourn of Dilli sight seeing, next stop was the obvious choice, Qutub Minar

[sidd25]

Wow. amazing stuff.
Hrishikesh tops my chart on long pending UK trip.
Have you visited rudraprayag?
I want to be at that place. Wish get some more info from the forum.

[MX6]

You seem to have lost weight! And nice photos of Hardwar there. Long lost memories.
We were Car-jacked in Hardwar in 2000 by the taxi drivers. Interesting story. Incidentally, it was also a moment of aggression from a rather relaxed me to extricate ourselves from a dangerous scenario!
Due to that we had to cut short our trip at Hardwar and come back to Delhi. Nice photos mate. Keep them coming.

[sanjaykaul]

Great Trip Log.

Originally Posted by ExtremeTorque

Haridwar & Rishikesh - Traveling through wester UP and Uttarakhand (confusion between UA or UK?)

For a person from the south, the petrol price looks very attractive. This was the first thing that caught my attention in UP.

Attachment 472748

As of today, the petrol in UP is RS 59.56/= and Delhi is RS 55.87/=. Delhi is much cheaper than even UP and that’s why you will see Delhi-UP border area petrol stations (on Delhi side) doing brisk business.

Originally Posted by ExtremeTorque

The shop keeper said that this buddha statue is gold coated and is directly bought from Nepal. He quoted Rs. 3500 for this.

Attachment 472775

The Statue I guess is reasonably prices even if it was only Brass (no Gold coating). I would love to buy it anytime for that price considering the prices that I have seen till now. Will find out the prices from Moradabad (Brass Capital) soon.