Took a train in the evening from New Delhi at 5.30 Shakti express
Over night train comfortable journey (3 AC cost around 1000 per person
Reach on time to a beautiful new airport like Katra station early morning around 6 am and proceed to the hotel
Taxi will take INR 210 to any hotel at Katra
( We stayed Devi grand hotel,decent 3 star hotel around 3500 for triple room with breakfast )
Yes yes
Check in and take rest depending on your plan to leave for Darshan
10 AM :- We slept till 10 and then for quick breakfast
11 am :- Got ready to take darshan ticket Compulsory to buy tickets to bhawan (you need to take Aadhaar card with u )
If you have smart looking friend ( like my friend Nagender ) they don’t ask for it specially if there is lady at desk ????)
11 AM : Came back to hotel and got to ready
(Pack yourself with some minimum items like one set of dress /medicines /towel )
12.00 PM leave for darshan , Most of the hotels gives a comp drop to Starting point
Mind you , it’s better to have lunch before starting the trek ( lots of dhaba available )
Approx 100 to 150 per person , you can have a Tasty khana
1.00 PM: So finished lunch and started the trek ( you need to show the Pass at the entrance )
There are two entrance available
( auto can directly take you directly to the start of walking trek ) other wise you have to walk another 1.5 km extra
1.30 PM : So we started the walking trek and believe me there is no disturbance of ghoda or Palki
If you are walking with friends then 18 km trek does not look very far
Take a break of 5 mins after every 2 Km and there are lots of reasonable cofee shop
You will take around 4 hours to reach Bhavan
(Crossing ardhkuwari )
5.30 PM You have got VIP pass darshan then you can easily save couple of hours in the line (Gate4 is the entrance to VIP gate
It took is less than 15 mins to do darshan and come back.
6 PM Once you are done with darshan, have some snacks and then proceed to bhairav baba mandir
It can be done either by staircase ( approx 1900 steps ) hard task and end up wasting lots of energy or go trekking slow and steady
7 PM It will take up to 1 hour to trek and darshan can take around 15 mins and but if you can manage to be there at sun set .... awesome view of entire city of Katra from the top
8 PM Post darshan , you start to trek down and hard task as you are tired and legs are paining so you end up taking lots of break
So end up reaching down more than 5 hours , chatting /bitching with friends can make you feel it didn’t take than much of time
You have to be very careful if you plan to trek down in the night as it’s bit dark and faster
Finally we reached hotel at 1 AM
Woke up around 10 AM and luckily our train was at 10.30 PM so we had the entire day to our disposal
We went out to have breakfast at local dhaba and ended up having amazing paratha with pure ghee ( diet gone for toss)
You can shop around with some local stuff like dry fruits etc
So relax at hotel till evening , chitchatting with your friends
Leave for station at 9.30 and hotel gives comp drop to the station
( Katra station is state of art airport like station )
Because it’s new neat and clean
We boarded the train with some wonderful memories as it was not only spiritual but also fun as u get to spend lot of time when u trek for so many hours)
Although some easy way of reaching at Katra with helicopter service and all is available
But if you plan to go with friends atleast do trek one way as you will never be creating memories in fast and furious trip through helicopter
But my recommendation is never ever trek with elders or New born babies
