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-   -   Char Dham Yatra | A Divine Journey in a Ford Endeavour (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travelogues/265232-char-dham-yatra-divine-journey-ford-endeavour-2.html)

Brilliant travelogue of an epic trip!

My (senior citizen) parents are on the eve of starting for 4 Dham next week and no sooner had I 'made' them go through a related thread (not natural readers of team-bhp:D) than your thread appeared!

Very timely and extremely humbling to see the devotion and fervour in inhospitable environments. In fact this travelogue pepped up my folks from the anxiety about the unknown

I am very intrigued by your driving to these destinations and all the planning (sometime, someday) and you couldn't have done it in a more capable machine than the Endeavour

An excellent travelogue! Your suggestions on planning the Yatra are invaluable. Your well written experiences will be helpful to many who wish to embark on the Yatra in their own car.

Thanks. We did stop at Rudraprayag, Karnaprayag & Devprayag but did not go down all the way to ghats. At Rudraprayag water level was almost nil and photo from the main road was not coming well.

Above normal snow this year definitely. On related note, who would have thought that in Delhi AC are yet to run to its full glory, poor AC manufacturers lol:

Yamunotri was no different, even now a portion of bend caved in but hats-off to police & contractor present over there, they were soon seen putting concretes & sand and yatra continued with one-way travel at a time at that bend.

Kedarnath surely would have been tougher as you have done it and we are not right person to judge having taken helicopter route.

Thanks. I hope your parents complete the char dham yatra and receive God's divine blessing as we did.

It was a wonderful trip and beautiful pictures. Some people say it is better to go in September. It is a little colder then, but apparently far more relaxed. What is your view on that?

Thanks a ton for the detailed explanation. This will be really useful for anyone planning the Char Dham yatra. Thanks once again

Definitely do not visit in May. It's total chaos up there.

Folks,

Some naive questions. Asking as this is the custom in many South Indian temples so wanted to make sure we do not go wrong in case of Kedarnath and Badrinath.

Is there any dress code for the temple? Like Indian traditional attire etc.?

Further, given the weather up there, what are the recommendations for Kedarnath, especially in June.

Thanks in advance for the guidance.

I understand where you are coming from. No dress code. It’s very cold out there so expect everyone in heavy woollen attire. Carry multiple woollen socks and may be couple of low cost footwear which you do not mind losing as you need to wear it in queue till you reach temple entrance (due to cold) there after only socks, which would get wet soon and you may need to change after darshan. But I tell you, you won’t feel much, the place and the mood is divine and it gives lot of encouragement and will power. I did not had extra socks nor did my mother but no one complained or faced problem.

June would be crowded but other months not very different either. It becomes better only towards end September. Expect rain anytime, more after 15-June. The weather changes by hour so rain do not affect yatra at Kedarnath expect in case of heavy rains or land slides. Badrinath is not a problem as distance between car/bus stand to queue (in a shade) is less than a kilometre (need to back to join the queue but it’s covered shade)

Nothing's wrong in being prepared. Any decent clothing would do. There's no rigid dress code to visit either of the temples. You can easily go in Jeans and T-shirts if that's your cup of tea. Just make sure you are not taking any leather with you inside the temple (Belts etc), it's not enforced when the queue is a mile long but if you are lucky with a very small queue they might check for leather. You can have your smart watch and mobile device with you as long as you are not using them inside the premise.
If you are planning to visit in June, it won't be too cold but make sure you go before the monsoon hits. Monsoon results in frequent landslides and spotty transportation. They suspend Helicopter services at Kedarnath when the weather is not ideal.
You would need warm clothes, especially for nighttime. You can get by in just a T-shirt in Badrinath while sun is shining, on the other hand you will definitely need layers at Kedarnath. If you are travelling by helicopter, get ready to be hit by sudden change in temperature when you step out at Kedarnath. If you are planning to trek or ride to Kedarnath, get a raincoat. They sell cheap (Rs200) Raincoats there, just get one for each member of your family, it's an absolute necessity, umbrellas won't do.
Get waterproof or water-resistant shoes. If you don't have one, take a spare pair with plenty of socks. You would not want to wear wet socks/shoes. Cover your head when it's drizzling, it's sure shot way to catch cold without feeling cold at the moment. Get some gloves too.

Queues in May were long, so long that they ran past the 'shaded' stretch. If that's the case when you visit, wear sunscreen. Even if you think that sun isn't very bright or under cover of cloud, you will get sunburn. UV radiation hit harder up in these mountains.

Make sure to register every member on Uttarakhand Tourism's Char Dham Portal. If you are taking your own vehicle, get "Private Vehicle Registration" for your vehicle and generate a trip card over the Green card website.

Make lodging arrangements in advance, especially if you are planning to stay the night at Kedarnath. Make your peace with Traffic Jams. Carry snacks and water in the car.

So we completed our Road Trip from Bangalore to Uttrakhand.While I will cover that in a separate post elsewhere, I will stick to providing my observations regarding Kedarnath visit on this thread.

We reached our place of booking which was a few hundred meters from the Kestrel Aviation Helipad on 16th of June. We had booked a heli flight to Kedarnath for 17th morning and the reporting time was 5 am.

As an additional information, the heli bookings are done through IRCTC websites which opened in April. There are 8 heli service providers each having their own helipads in different places along the same road and all within a few kilometers of each other. The onward slots are normally 6-9 am and 9 am -12 noon with an option of same day return. Based on availability, you get the chopper service providers depending on the slot you choose. We ended up with Kestrel Aviation. The slots go fast and it the website is quite erratic. We started booking as soon as the slots were opened in April and it took over 4 hours of fastest finger first for the payment to go through. Another one hour for the ticket to arrive on the mail.

After reaching the helipad a little before 5 am, we found a horder of people waiting there. All were booked for 6-9 am slots. The waiting area was a dingy room with one end being the office separated by a window. Just next to the window was the weighing machine for each passenger to be weighed.

None of the office staff arrived till around 6.30 am. The lone chopper was all covered up with not a soul in sight. After 6.30 a couple of young security guards came and wandered around. Upon asking we were informed that the first flight will only be after 8 am. Around 7.15 a couple of employees walked in to office and started settling in. Then there was a mad rush of all those waiting rushing to the window to show their tickets. Stronger the person, the earlier s/he could hand over the ticket. Then no further movement for another 30 mins. After that they called each person for weighing. Another 15 mins later, the security guard at the gate of the helipad (up above and some distance away from the waiting area) started calling names. Apparently people were grouped in 6 by weight. However, there was no update that any of us had to go there. Only after a couple of pilgrims noticed, they came down and informed that they have started calling for queueing.

By now the chopper was being uncovered and gas being poured in. Starter batteries were connected for it to start (normal procedure for first start of the day for non-self-start choppers).

Finally at 8.15 the first sortie took off. My wife got in to that per the manifest and I was slated for a later flight.

One key observation - no one ever checked any ID or any baggage. Anyone with a ticket could walk in for anyone else and carry anything they want as long as the bags are small.

There was a customary briefing at the pad for a minute. The chopper arrived after dropping the previous passengers and we were hurled (literally) in. No seatbelts or any other precautions followed.

We landed in 6 mins on Kedarnath Helipad. I looked for my wife and then we started our trek up to the temple which is around 700 - 900 meters from the helipad. The queue had already reached all the way up to close to heli-pad and since we had to report back by 11, we decided to try our luck with the VIP Darshan (1100/-) tickets as advised by many previous travellers.

We reached next to the temple and there was practically a stampede all around the temple. The person distributing the tickets was standing with his book and collecting cash surrounded by a few official looking men and a horde of Police personnel. Approaching him was near impossible. Upon asking the policemen, we were told, he is issuing each ticket for 5500/- (not 1100/-) but they would not let us go near him even if we were willing to shell out. Apparently they wanted us to first take care of them which we felt was outrageous so we decided to look for other options. In the meantime, there were innumerable "Pandas" sauntering around asking people if they want darshan. Each of them quoted between 2.5k to 3k per person but we noticed that they too had to go and beg and get concurrence from those quarding the queues and agree on a price with them. The crowd was building and many a times cops resorted to mild lathi charge - even on women and children. We saw women fainting, children getting crushed and banged against the temple walls. Even after paying the money to Pandas, their sole responsibility was to push us inside the temple and then every one was on their own. It was sheer pandemonium.

This was a stark contrast from Kashi Vishwanath corridor, Rameswarm or Tirupati. The corruption was all prevalent and very visible. The mismanagement of humongous proportions being encouraged by the authorities. I wonder why Uttrakhand govt. has done nothing about it.

We came back to the helipad by 11 and found that Kestrel aviation was on a break as their choppers were not flying for another hour or so. Not enough chairs to wait and no refreshments closeby so we sat on the floor and waited.

The staff arrived around 12 and then started the manifest and we finally took off from Kedarnath at 1.15.

Came back, rested that day and drove down the hills next morning to New Delhi with very bitter experience of such a holy shrine.

The Endeavour did not let us down and we completed 5300 kms over 20 days with stops in various cities. More on that in a relevant thread.

Uttarakhand govt. tried to do something about it back in 2021 by making a 'Uttarakhand Char Dham Devasthanam Management Board' to take over administration of all Char Dham. But the pandas (made up of specific families from specific villages) and the Purohit committee protested against it for months. The 2022 Uttarakhand state election were nearing and these pandas hold a lot a sway in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand. Also the talks of taking over Hindu shrines and not other religions started to grow. So the end result was the board being disbanded and temple committee rule reimposed.

Remember, behind every poor experience for an Indian citizen, there is always a political motive.

Guess what? The panda community in Joshimath is now protesting about mismanagement of Char Dham Yatra by both authorities and temple committee.

We have similar experience in June 2024 for same Kestrel aviation Sirsi helipad.
About Darshan,we decided to stay overnight at Kedarnath at Agarwal bhavan.
So we could peacefully do the Darshan without any crowd.
But really some enforced orderliness is really required at all Chardham places.
Hope some day it becomes like Varanasi .