A beautiful place to be in.

Image of Badrinath (a birds eye view) - photos are mine and mine only.

a more closer shot, check the waterfall, I could hear the thunderous roar of this waterfall from a km away.

Badrinath named after the Indian jujube tree ( a berry which is edible). Also it is an Important pilgromage center for Hindu faith of people ( which is 78% of indian population). This town ( back in the day it was just a village) was established a major pilgromage by Adi shankaracharya.
Back in the early 19th century. pilgrims has to walk 100s of miles to reach this place. This place was considered as part of 4 places where lord vishnu lived. Hencce it is most revered site.
I visited this site in 2019 october,not becasue of failth but also the fact that it is really beautifull.
and the jouney is amazing via road.
Geographically badrinath is loacted at the height of 10170 feet ( 3130 Meters). and it is beautiful to everyone. Those who come here to find their spritual selfe, may find it, but those who want to see the nature here will definately rewarded as the lanndscape is awe inspiring for sure.

The story behind Badrinath

Badrinath was abode of Lord Vishnu. Lord was doing his penance here then his consort Godess Laxmi became the shurb of Badri and created shade over lord. Hence This place was called badrinath.

5 prayags ( Places where river ganga meets other tributery rivers )

Rivers in India are worshipped like godesses. In my personal view it has lot to do with mixure of religion and nature. People were dependent upon rivers. Hence with time they started worshiping them as a force of nature. But river Ganga has a history and it is most revered. In the picture below, you can see that there are several rivers merging into one big river. RIVER GANGA ( or ganges) become itself after DEV PRAYAG. Ganges starts from gangotri. Which is also a sacredd place. to know more about the start of river ganga, @ashirkumar has posted an amazing blog about his travel to the start of river ganga. You can click here to read it.
In fact it is Alakanda, whch starts from badrinath and meets with Dhauli ganga at bishnu prayag which is quite a big triuteries. In 2020, there was avlance at vishnu prayag, which destroyed the hydro power plant there.
Becasue there are 5 points where ganga meets with other tributeries, hence there are 5 points of holy confluences. Panch means Five, Prayag means point of confluence of rivers.

The EPIC ROAD TRIP

I went all the way to badrinath from Delhi. whcih is about 525 Kms on a bike ( Royal Enfeild ). This journey was special, as the place was special and it was one hell of picturescape journey. Becasue this is tourist circult hence there was no need to pack my camp. Accomodation was not a problem. The only issue i was going to face in this journey was landslides. I nearly escaped one while driving my bike there ( Factually it was my friend's bike).

Here is the Screenn shot of my route created on Google maps. total journey was about 5 days. So over all over 1100 kms travelled whcih includes small hikes.

Route map

(Image source Google maps )

Route was simple : start from delhi and go to rishikesh, we stayed at rishikesh in a travel hostel where parking was avilable and met there with amazing content creator called anurag verma. He create amazing content on instagram. If you are indian you should definately check him out his handle is anuragminusverma.
from rishikesh, we started our bike and went all the way upto joshimath, whichle taking amall breaks to see the confluence of rivers in mid way. The way is so picturescape that you would want to stay at every point.
Here are some of the pics i had taken while driving the Bike :

I saw some of the most smazing sun rises and sun sets while on this journey.
In Joshi math we stayed at a hotel as temprature dropped suddenly and it happens every now and then we were not prepared ( me and my friend) for extreme cold, So we stayed the night at joshiMath.

Here is the view from Joshi math

Joshi Math to Badrinath:

from joshi math, we started on bike and first stop was Vishnu Prayag, hydro power project, but we cant go in there as it is sensitive from sequrity point of view ( They think people are spy, paranoia is there as it is close to china border). and by god Vishnuprayag is beautiful.

We stopped on the bridge to cross the river. We remain standed on the spot as it was so mesmerising that me and my friend said to each other that there is no point going up. But that day we went up to meet death and came back to life. Such was the adraline rush that for a day we could not sleep. Boulders were falling our head from 200 feet high ( though none of them hit us).

In the way to badrinath, there was landslide and the way was closed so we have to park our bike and cross the way, Disaster relief teams were trying to clear the path for motor vehicle but all in vein.
While crossing the land slide started again, we ran for our life. LOL after crossing we have to take a taxi so that we can reach to the village of BADRINATH.

View of badrinath

Badrinath is a sleepy village at the 10750 feet. It is amazing and breath taking. You need to be a bit fit to be there as oxygen starts thinning. But it is amazing. I went there in fall. So dont go in raininy season as it is closed for tourist and in winters temp drops to -15 degree centigrades. But all in all this is what i wanted. See for your self in pictures:

after praying in the temple. We started back to the same path. took a taxi to the blocked path and then crossed it ( highly dangerous) this tie we ran straight, as there was police blocking the way and they said that its too dangerous to pass. After crossing we thanked the gods above for keeping us safe. And we came back to joshimath once again and well I am alive and kicking to tell you the story of it.

Till i see you next time:
Sid
😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀