My trip to Vaishno Devi
Continued from the previous page
19-20th April 2008 Katra - Jammu - NH-1A - Ghaghwal - NH-1A - Pathankot - Delhi
After yesterday’s tiring 18 hour trek, we managed to wakeup at 7 in the morning. Our legs were aching with pain and getting up and packing became a chore neither of us was comfortable with.
After packing we decided to checkout of the hotel and went out for a bit of shopping and breakfast. By 10 pm we were at the cloak room near bus depot, collecting rest of our luggage.
Earlier we were told that Haryana Roadways Bus leaves every hour, so we decided to wait for the next bus to arrive. An hour went by and there was no sign of any bus to Delhi, I went to the information counter at the bus depot to find out the bus timing, only to be told the same thing.
It was almost 12 o’clock when we finally got tired of all the waiting and went to Jewels Restaurant to have a cold drink and escape from the heat. After standing in the queue for 15 minutes I finally got the token for cold drinks, only to be held up at the cold drink counter for another 10 minutes.
Finally after getting the cold drinks, I went back to the table my sister was sitting at and just as we began drinking our cold drinks, we saw a Rajasthan Roadways Bus, leaving for Jaipur via Delhi. We hurriedly finished our drinks and picked up our luggage and headed towards the bus. Thankfully not many seats were taken when we reached there and after 10 minutes or so the bus started its journey. We were thanking god and thinking that our troubles were finally over, little did we know, this was just the beginning.
Less than half an hour into the journey, we heard a loud bang, followed by hissing sound. Upon inspection it was found that one of the rear inside tyre was punctured, thankfully bus could still be driven and the bus driver drove the bus slowly to the first puncture repair shop. Sadly there was no electricity at the shop, so the driver drove for another 10 minutes to reach another puncture repair shop.
Now the whole fixing the puncture routine began, the puncture repair shop owner was a total nincompoop and was having problem opening the tyre, so our driver took charge and finally got the tyres off after a little over half an hour. Puncture repair guy took the flat tyre and spent the next half an hour fixing the puncture. When he finally bought the tyre back and was about to mount it, there was another hissing sound and just fixed tyre was now completely flat!
After another 15 minutes it was concluded that the tube had gone bad and needed to be changed, at this point all of the passengers and driver were thoroughly pissed, so the driver decided to take the spare tyre off the roof, another half an hour went by and by the time our bus resumed its journey towards Jammu, we had already wasted two and a half hours! Conductor announced we will be skipping lunch break to make up for the lost time.
However this wasn’t going to be the end of our woes, less than an hour after we hit the highway, we came across a police barricade. It turned out a bus had killed a villager and his fellow villagers had decided to block the highway. Our bus was forced to take the diversion to avoid the problem.
Since the traffic moving on National Highway 1A was now using small village roads, barely wide enough for one bus, there was bound to be traffic jams and pretty soon we were caught in one. Few of the locals traveling in our bus decided to play the role of Good Samaritan and started managing the traffic, this finally got our bus out of the jam and once again we continued our journey to find NH-1A.
However there was more trouble i.e. traffic ahead, our driver who was now thoroughly irritated, decided to ditch the roads and started driving our bus off road. From dried river bed to small water crossings to gravel filled trails, our bus driver was driving on terrain which would give majority of city slickers goose bumps and was interesting enough for me to actually start enjoying this little detour.
Our bus doing off roading on the small trails near Jammu
In fact the detour was more scenic than the boring national highway and I was thoroughly enjoying the whole experience.
The look on the face of the villagers when they saw a bus from Jaipur driving past their homes, which most likely wouldn’t even get visited by local buses, was priceless. In fact few of them stood up and pointed towards the bus and shouted with amazement, are yeh toh Jaipur ki bus hai (look it is a bus from Jaipur)!
However the excitement was short lived, as we once again encountered traffic from the opposite direction and our bus got stuck at a point where the thorny shrubs were pinned against the door, making it impossible for any one to get off the bus and direct the traffic. Finally some of the locals and a policeman climbed out of the bus and started directing the traffic.
Thankfully we didn’t get stuck in any other traffic jam after this and managed to reach Pathankot by 8:30pm! Which meant it took our bus roughly 8 hours to cover 150kms!
Rest of the journey was uneventful and we managed to reach Delhi by 6am, having spent 18 hours in the bus, instead of the 14 hours we were supposed to spend. But we were just glad to have made it back to Delhi and in a way the delays (especially the detour) had made the journey more interesting and memorable (at least for me). In fact the return bus journey is one bus journey I would most likely remember for the rest of my life.
Photogallery of my trip to Vaishno Devi