Trip to Amritsar ,Katra and Natha Top Jammu

I am back with yet another travel experience. This one is mix of the Spiritual and Fun trip.As the year started its good to start with Spiritual trip. So as planned 6 of us joined for this trip.This trip covered three places Amritsar, Katra[Maa Vaishanv Devi Darshan] and Natha Top.Yes, planned a trip during a weekend with 2 leaves. Yes, you heard it right in 4 days we covered all these places. It was a bit tight schedule plan, but we executed it correctly so yeah no regrets only fun time.

Pre planning included booking flights 2 month ahead of departure which we got for 11k

Route: Bangalore to Amritsar and Jammu Tawi to Bangalore. Also booked train from Amritsar to Jammu Tawi. We had booked sleeper , if possible book AC one there is not much difference and additional benefit is that you get bedding in AC. We booked cab from just dial which costed us 8k overall[3k in amritsar[1 day] +5k jammu [2 days]],which included one day in Amritsar and two days in i.e. from Katra to Jammu.We started from Bangalore to Amritsar flight which was on Saturday morning [9.55 am].All reached airport on time ,some of us took bus and other shared cab and joined Airport as they all were starting from same area.

Photo of Trip to Amritsar ,Katra and Natha Top [Jammu] 1/2 by seema navale

Reached Amritsar around 1.30pm we already were in ethnic as our plan included visit to Golden Temple. So once we reached Amritsar our cab was waiting for us.

Amritsar is a beautiful city with its village look and Sarso field. Our first place to visit was Atari border as we can’t delay there is a timing. On the way we stopped near a dhaba had paratha and lassi.

Took few snaps in Sarso de khet. These fields remind of the DDLJ and other Bollywood movies which show Punjab. This city is quite authentic in these looks with a farm house and field all the way.Sharing few snaps:

Photo of Trip to Amritsar ,Katra and Natha Top [Jammu] 2/2 by seema navale

Day 1

Atari bagha border

Reached Atari border in 50mins, its 25km from Airport. You can’t take purse, handbag or other carryon on bags. Please leave all these in the cab if possible. You can carry phone or camera.

Run to get your seats, so that you can have good view. Once you reach the entrance you can see both Indian and Pakistan flag. Beginning of the show they allow women, girls or kids, old ladies to line up and hold flag and run near the border. If you want to do this be seated or wait near the first row as the line will grow like anything. Later they will allow to rock the show with your steps on patriotic songs.

The view at Atari brings out the patriotism within you. There is march performed on Indian as well as Pakistan border which is good to see.This show gets over around 5.30pm.Start early from your seat as there would be huge crowd and traffic jam later. Next we headed towards Golden Temple.

Photo of Atari bagha border, Wagah, Hardo Rattan, Punjab, India by seema navale

Golden temple

Women/Men need to take dupatta or hanky on their head. Make sure you do this before you enter. If you miss many people inside will make you do this. We first wanted to visit Jallianwala bagh which gets closed around 7pm, but due to some renovation this is closed for two months.

It was around 7pm when we entered Golden temple. I would suggest please visit Golden temple in evening without fail. Temple view is mesmerizing night time. We left our footwear near a counter and entered the temple, there will be queue, after 40mins we were able to finish the Darshan. You can take time and spend some time once you reach bhawan no need to rush out.It feels quite peaceful in this place.

Photo of Golden temple, Atta Mandi, Katra Ahluwalia, Amritsar, Punjab, India by seema navale

Day 2

Vaishno Devi

Disclaimer postpaid sim incoming /outgoing works 4g /2G will not work.Prepaid sim of outside state does not work here. Luckily two of us had the postpaid sim. When we reached hotel, even though we had booked it from three sites the owner refused to consider our booking.And rather offered expensive price. So we just checked another hotel nearby found a good deal. We complained about the earlier hotel to the respective site where it was booked.Then we all had bath and got ready for Jai Mata Di ke Darshan.We all planned to go by walk.We had breakfast nearby paratha and Maggie and started around 1. 40pm.Make sure you need to take

Darshan parchi[biometric] from the Darshan counter before you start.So here starts our journey to Sherawali Zor se bolo Jai Mata di.

Photo of Vaishno Devi, Bhavan, Katra by seema navale

Day 3

Jammu Tawi

While getting down we used stairs for most of our way, so reached in 2.5 hrs. Then from down we took auto to reach hotel and had some sleep.Next day early morning planned to do some small shopping nearby I bought Akrot and Badam. These are abundantly found here and are usually of good quality. Cab came around 10 and we started to Natha Top which is around 80 km from Katra.On the way had breakfast paranthas and Maggie.

Day 4

Bengaluru

Once we reached Delhi we had dinner in subway and reached Bangalore around 11pm.Thanks to my trip buddies who helped to plan, book and have fun during the trip namely Adarsha, Chit , Pragya, Sharukh and Priyanka .

Jammu Tawi

We dropped our cable cart plan as it costed around 1200 per person and it was far away. Headed towards Jammu tawi airport. Dint get to shop anything as we were late. On the way stopped by many places to take few snaps. Yeah and here we reached on time, but flight was delayed by 1 hour ;)

Natha Top Road

Then at around 6pm we headed towards the hotel. Driver suggested good Hotel nearby in better price. ForestView hotel. This hotel had hot water 24*7 and good balcony view and very spacious rooms and very yummy in house canteen. After long time we had good non veg here.

Next day early morning we got ready and went for walk. There is a Shiv mandir nearby which we visited.Near this mandir saw a unique item being sold. Key chains or quotes written on logs. They will write your names as well and your quotes in a very beautiful handwriting. We got many keychains and quotes.

Some of which are as below:

Day 3

Natha Top

The road to Natha top is narrow and two ways. Many times people and buffaloes rush and most of the road is blocked. On the way the route is quite scenic and we took few snaps as well.Around 2.30 we reached Natha Top. On the way you get warm clothes and Gum boots for rent.We could see snow from far mountains on the way, we all were very excited to see it live.

We got rental warm clothes +boots for 450 per head .Then yeah we could see it

"Yeah haseen vadiyan Woh khula aasman.".Take a look:

Then we had Prasad which tastes yum with lot of ghee. We had two times.Then we had langar [ Prasad meal] from temple, this was also yummy. After this we headed to do some shopping bought some dupatta’s which has some fine work in them. There were juttis also which can be taken. We had train at around 1am so our cab dropped us near railway station. Since we had booked sleeper class and forgot to get bedsheet, we bought few woolen chadar near railway station for 300rs. Since its quite cold in the night have the necessary bedding.

We reached Jammu Tawi[Katra] around 6.30 am. We got down had hot tea. It was drizzling here and damn cold also. At a distance of 100mtrs there is busstop. Take tickets to Katra and board it. It took us around 2 hours to reach Katra. Jai Mata Di .

Photo of Trip to Amritsar ,Katra and Natha Top [Jammu] by seema navale

As it was raining we bought raincoats in the bus stop for 100rs each. Then we headed towards our hotel.As it was near some Darshan ticket counter we could easily find it by asking people.

There are two routes one with steps and other which is same route which is taken by khacharr[mule].Khacchar route is covered , but loads of khacchar on the way and their shit as well is a bit bad.But you find many shops where you can eat or drink nimbu soda. Many restrooms are also available.

There is another way to commute is by helicopter which needs prebooking which costs 1000 rs per person one way. After this also I have heard you need to walk 5km.We completed the route from Mata’s blessings around 7pm.On the way the route is quite scenic with mountains around.

First thing once you reach is search for locker. We ended up in a mess as we entered during Aarti time, many people who went for Aarti had the keys, lockers are minimal in number. Once they return the keys next person will get the key. We waited around 1 hour, later it was so much crowded for locker that we decided to divide in group of two where 3 of us waited with our belonging and 3 of us started in Darshan queue. It took us around 3hrs 15mins to complete the Darshan. After the Darshan though we were happy that we could do it. Then we ran and sent the other three. Since it was around 11pm the crowd reduced and next set people covered it in 1hr 30mins.In the mean time we actually did some dumb thing we kept the footwear of people who went to Darshan in footwear stand and went to have dinner. By the time we came back one of our friend’s new shoes were missing. Beware do not keep anything valuable, people are always watching. Since it was 1am in the night we decided not to start with Bhairav ghati as we had to reach down and have some sleep before we start.When you plan Vaishanav devi to cover you need to plan two days.

We reached the top and started playing in snow. We also did sledging , were the locals get a sledge andYou get to slide on that with him from the top of the hill. Also did many Bollywood songs like chandani and one kannada movie step also. Most of the time due to our stunts snow went into our boots and we had to remove that and get back to normal state.

Adding some of the videos and snaps:

There are many tea stalls nearby were you can see fire as well, which you can use like campfire, have Maggie. Many locals will also get rabbit, horse etc. which you can pose with. This experience was quite breath taking, I have no words. Please do visit and really get the experience to know it.

Trip to Amritsar ,Katra and Natha Top [Jammu]