Wheels on the Himalayas : Where Alaknanda Meets Bhagirathi River- Part I

@himalayanwomb and I planned that this time we will go somewhere on a scooter at the end of the year 2024. Since we had to go by scooter, we packed limited stuff in a bag and as we were about to leave in the late morning, rain started falling. Dehradun is a valley, so it rains here suddenly anytime. We had two options, either wait for the rain to stop or start our road trip. Since we were very excited to go, we picked up the raincoat and started on the long road journey.

We had not planned much about where we would go, we just knew for today that today we would visit Devprayag Sangam and learn a little about its history and then move ahead. As soon as we left the house, the drizzle stopped in about 2 kilometers and the journey became easy. Since we were wearing very warm clothes, we did not feel cold at all and we reached Devprayag.

Devprayag Sangam

Devprayag is one of the five Prayags. Here the Alaknanda river meets the Bhagirathi river. Devprayag is 111 km from our home in Dehradun. We reached here in about three and a half hours, and the time was also 3:30 in the afternoon. The temple was closed, the Pandit ji said that first visit the Sangam and by then the temple will open. According to mythological belief, Lord Rama performed Yagya on his return after conquering Lanka and here in the first century Adi Shankara established the idol of Raghunath ji and built the temple.

People from every corner of India come here for darshan since a very long time. There are 108 steps on the way from the temple to the Sangam, which are very high and one has to climb and descend very carefully, otherwise there is a lot of pain in the knees. There were many people at the ghat, some were doing holy dip and prayer, some were just watching the Sangam and some were enjoying photography.

I filled my hands with water in the Sangam and sprinkled it on the whole body. As I spent my childhood in my village which is on the banks of Bhagirathi river, whenever I go on such a trip, all the memories get refreshed. Taking bath in the river on every festival and special days has always been a tradition of our village, and nothing feels more sacred than this.

After spending some time here, we came to the temple and by then the temple had opened. We had darshan of the Shri Ram Bhagwan and read what was written in the temple premises, talked to Pandit ji and he suggested a book named Kedarkhand to know more about the temple.

After reaching the road from the temple, we drank local orange juice which was very sour, we parked the scooty at this shop here. After stopping for a while, we decided to move ahead from here and thought that we should stay in Srinagar tonight. It was around 46 km from here, the sun was about to set and we moved ahead. We reached there in about 2 hours. Here we found a hotel, had dinner and rested.

This was the journey till here. I will tell you about the journey ahead in the next post. Now I have to enjoy fries and tea which our dear @surabhi who has given me a break from the kitchen today and is preparing snacks for us.

Disclaimer - This post is written in Hindi using Google Transliterator, all the photos are taken from my phone OnePlus, and the thumbnail is made in Photoshop.