Monday 7 July 2014

Adventure at Muktinath

We,a group of ten people went to Nepal to have the darshan of Muktinath. This is one of the Divyadesams outside India.

Our travel to Muktinath was full of adventure, even though our travel agent arranged everything. I like to share my experience with the people who are interested in visiting Muktinath. Going to Pokhara from Kathmandu by road is very interesting. On the way , we visited Manokamna Devi temple. The ride by cable car to the shrine is breath-taking. One should avoid going to Manokamna temple on Saturdays, as there will be heavy rush and one may have to wait for hours to get the cable car ride.

From Pokhara, one has to take a flight to Jomsom, the base for going to Muktinath. The flight to Jomsom by small planes is operated only in the morning between 7 AM and 10-00 AM. The plane has to fly between the mountains and if the wind in the gorge is high, the flights are not permitted. One has to count his luck to have the flight on the day. We met many people in the hotel, who could not have the flight.

We were lucky to get the flight to Jomsom. The hotels here display the menu board in Tamil. The hotels offer idli, dosai, sambar, rasam etc. We were supposed to go to Muktinath temple , which is at an altitude of 12000' by jeep. Here our adventure started. The jeep operators were on a strike. Our hotel owner suggested that we could go on motorbike.The distance from the hotel to Muktinath temple is 25 kms. Only we got on the bike, we started to realise the adventure in this ride.Literally there is no road and the path is full of stones and pebbles.The path crosses Gantaki river bed and continually winding and rising.With the chill wind blowing on our faces, we at last reached Muktinath with our hearts in our mouth. The eldest member of our group is 75 years and no one believed that we traveled to Muktinath by bike.

The temple is managed by some Nepali women. There is no puja or archana in the temple. There are 108 theerthams ( only spouts) in which devotees take bath, Then they dip themselves in the two ponds in front of the temple. After the darshan,we were lucky to get the jeep, which had started plying.

We had an wonderful and awesome experience and all felt the Viswa roopam of the Almighty in this trip.

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