A trip to Jakholi
I live in Gurgaon, part of NCR (National Capital Region). It is middle of scorching summer with temperatures hovering around 44 deg celcius. There was no respite in the last two weeks and the weather man predicted no changes for the next two to three weeks. Me and my wife wanted to get away from this place. I searched through my mind for any new places to visit in the hills of Uttarakhand and came up with the place called Jakholi.
No one seems to have heard about it, Jakholi. Any unknown place fascinates me. I love challenges so Jakholi sounded great to us. My wife trusts me so much that the name of the place really does not matter, she is accompanying me and that’s what matters. I could not get any help from any one including the Tourism department about its altitude. I didn’t want to land up in a place which is hot too!!. Definitely did not want to be like ‘from a frying pan into the fire’.
It is not that no one knows about it, we know it is a small village block near Rudraprayag. I called up the Tourist guest house at Jakholi and the caretaker told me the altitude is about 6200ft. That sounded ‘cool’. So we booked our accommodation through the internet for about 10 days. Though this place is relatively unknown, the accommodation was not available on one of the days. The caretaker advised me to approach the forest department who has great guest house at Chirbatia and a staff guest house at Jakholi. I called the DFO of Rudraprayag who was very helpful and gave me permission to stay for one night.
So accommodation being taken care of, we eagerly waited for the departure date and on 8th June 2010 we started off in our faithful Honda Civic. The journey was smooth on NH58. There was some construction work happening enroute but did not affect us much.
The plan was to break journey at Deoprayag, the route being Gurgaon, Delhi, Roorkee, Haridwar, Rishikesh, Kaudiyala and then Deoprayag. There were two traffic jams and got delayed. We had lunch at Kaudiyala and proceeded to Deoprayag which we reached about 4pm. A bit tired, not due to the long journey (330kms) but due to the waiting at traffic jams. Checked into GMVN TRH(Tourist Rest House). Very old construction and has basic amenities. It is already much cooler than Gurgaon so enjoyed the evening in the lawns over a cup of tea. The view from this place is good, surrounded by hills. Deoprayag is the place where we have the confluence of the two great rivers, the Bhagirathi from Gangotri and Alakananda from Badrinath. The holy name of Ganges is given to the river flowing from Deoprayag after the confluence. There is a bridge across the Ganges which takes you to Pauri. The bridge is a recent addition (in the last ten years) before which we used route via Srinagar to reach Pauri.
After a restful night at Deoprayag, we started off on our journey to Jakholi. When we reached Rudraprayag, the confluence of rivers Alakananda and Mandakini we took a detour from the highway to the DFO office to confirm our stay at their guesthouse. The road from Rudraprayag to Tilwara, 9kms was fairly good but later it became very bad. I had to crawl in 1st and 2nd gears on this bad road up to Mayali, 19kms. At Mayali we take a right turn towards Jakholi, 8kms. A better road compared to the road to Mayali. The road goes amidst thick forests of Pine trees.
Reached Jakholi by lunch time. The village is split over two areas, one with all the Block offices, banks, Post office etc and the other the actual Village with their dwellings. There are about a dozen shops The GMVN TRH is quite different from the rest with the building in a better shape than most. It had a very nice terrace at 1st floor and the whole roof top is open to the sky. This TRH is perched atop a hillock surrounded by Himalayan range of hills. The temperature is pleasant and cool. It drizzled a bit and nights got colder.
In the morning we could see quite a few of the snow clad Himalayan peaks like Gangotri, Yamunotri, Shivling, Chaukhamba and Nanda Devi. All these from the same spot on the terrace. How lucky and happy to have come to this place.
This is the first time (in our trips), we have decided to stay at one place. I was told that the road to Chirbatia is as as bad as the one from Tilwara to Mayali so didn’t venture to go there on 12th June. Instead we opted to stay at the forest guest house at Liza depot gues house. There was absolutely nothing available at the place but located in the forest. We visited their nursery of Pine, Deodar, Banj Mor Pankha etc . They extract a liquid from the bark of Pine trees by cutting ‘V’ shaped cuts in the bark. This is collected in big Tins and auctioned off for various uses.
I understand that there is a small lake called Badani lake about 25kms from Jakholi. The route takes you through a village called Ranadhar. I didn’t venture again due to very bad road condition. Only a Jeep can go there as it is very bad at certain locations.
There is a small park maintained by the Forest department and about half a kilometer from the TRH which we used to frequent. Our daily routine is to visit the park, visit the shops, buy some
things, look at mountains, read books, eat and sleep. It was really wonderful. My wife had the perfect surroundings to do her meditation, prayers and read her ‘God Speaks’ book with full concentration. Absolutely nothing to worry. Life can be really quiet. The Sunrise and the sunset scenes are spectacular from this place.
During our stay we met a few of the travelers who strayed to this place by chance or by recommendation from other GMVN personnel and not by choice. There was a group of eight from West Bengal, returning after a trek to Roop Kund and a few of them went to Ronti Saddle. They seemed to have a lot of energy even after their arduous trek that they went for an evening walk!.
We thoroughly enjoed the place and checked out on 18th and proceeded to another less known places called Hariyali Devi. The route takes us back to Rudraprayag, Nagrasu at which point we take a right turn. The road from Nagrasu to Hariyali devi is narrow and no traffic, looked desolate and scary. It is about 22kms. The road is being repaired though it is already fairly good (I may be comparing after the Tilwara-Mayali ride). The GMVN guest house is hiding on a road to the right and a gravel road with stones. The TRH looked even more scary than the ride to this place. Absolute silence and no one to be seen. The doors were ajar and pushed them and went in, my wife was sitting in the car with doors locked. I shouted ‘any one home?’ but no answer. There was a room with its door ajar and went in to find a man sleeping like a log (supposed care taker). He was the only inhabitant. The time was 230pm. Fetched my wife to see the place, one look and she decided we have to leave at once. The care taker said he will make up the room. It seems there is no electricity and no canteen which means no tea or food and we have to walk to the village every time. Quickly decided to leave the place, the time slowly crept towards 3pm, I am getting worried as we have to reach another TRH before night falls. In these Hills the roads will be blocked for night traffic and one is advised to reach the destination well before dark. We thought about many places like Gauchar, Gwaldham, Rudraprayag, Syalsaur (all which we had visited earlier). Finally after deliberating we decided on reaching Deoprayag (to get as close to Delhi but still be cool). We stopped over at Srinagar GMVN and had Tea. We could not contact Deoprayag TRH but took a chance as it is not on Internet booking site. The road to Srinagar from Rudraprayag is one way for a short distance and we had to take a very bad steep road. Later it joined the NH58 and we had a safe trip to Deoprayag. We were lucky we found accommodation.
The trip from Deoprayag to Delhi was interrupted several times due to the shopping of mangoes on the way. They were so tempting I couldn’t resist from buying, ended up buying about 12kgs.
Reached Delhi by 4pm on 19th June only to find we really fell into the ‘fire’ from a ‘cold frying pan’. This is definitely worse than from falling into fire from a hot frying pan. The moral of the story is don’t come back from such a nice place.
I live in Gurgaon, part of NCR (National Capital Region). It is middle of scorching summer with temperatures hovering around 44 deg celcius. There was no respite in the last two weeks and the weather man predicted no changes for the next two to three weeks. Me and my wife wanted to get away from this place. I searched through my mind for any new places to visit in the hills of Uttarakhand and came up with the place called Jakholi.
No one seems to have heard about it, Jakholi. Any unknown place fascinates me. I love challenges so Jakholi sounded great to us. My wife trusts me so much that the name of the place really does not matter, she is accompanying me and that’s what matters. I could not get any help from any one including the Tourism department about its altitude. I didn’t want to land up in a place which is hot too!!. Definitely did not want to be like ‘from a frying pan into the fire’.
It is not that no one knows about it, we know it is a small village block near Rudraprayag. I called up the Tourist guest house at Jakholi and the caretaker told me the altitude is about 6200ft. That sounded ‘cool’. So we booked our accommodation through the internet for about 10 days. Though this place is relatively unknown, the accommodation was not available on one of the days. The caretaker advised me to approach the forest department who has great guest house at Chirbatia and a staff guest house at Jakholi. I called the DFO of Rudraprayag who was very helpful and gave me permission to stay for one night.
So accommodation being taken care of, we eagerly waited for the departure date and on 8th June 2010 we started off in our faithful Honda Civic. The journey was smooth on NH58. There was some construction work happening enroute but did not affect us much.
The plan was to break journey at Deoprayag, the route being Gurgaon, Delhi, Roorkee, Haridwar, Rishikesh, Kaudiyala and then Deoprayag. There were two traffic jams and got delayed. We had lunch at Kaudiyala and proceeded to Deoprayag which we reached about 4pm. A bit tired, not due to the long journey (330kms) but due to the waiting at traffic jams. Checked into GMVN TRH(Tourist Rest House). Very old construction and has basic amenities. It is already much cooler than Gurgaon so enjoyed the evening in the lawns over a cup of tea. The view from this place is good, surrounded by hills. Deoprayag is the place where we have the confluence of the two great rivers, the Bhagirathi from Gangotri and Alakananda from Badrinath. The holy name of Ganges is given to the river flowing from Deoprayag after the confluence. There is a bridge across the Ganges which takes you to Pauri. The bridge is a recent addition (in the last ten years) before which we used route via Srinagar to reach Pauri.
After a restful night at Deoprayag, we started off on our journey to Jakholi. When we reached Rudraprayag, the confluence of rivers Alakananda and Mandakini we took a detour from the highway to the DFO office to confirm our stay at their guesthouse. The road from Rudraprayag to Tilwara, 9kms was fairly good but later it became very bad. I had to crawl in 1st and 2nd gears on this bad road up to Mayali, 19kms. At Mayali we take a right turn towards Jakholi, 8kms. A better road compared to the road to Mayali. The road goes amidst thick forests of Pine trees.
Reached Jakholi by lunch time. The village is split over two areas, one with all the Block offices, banks, Post office etc and the other the actual Village with their dwellings. There are about a dozen shops The GMVN TRH is quite different from the rest with the building in a better shape than most. It had a very nice terrace at 1st floor and the whole roof top is open to the sky. This TRH is perched atop a hillock surrounded by Himalayan range of hills. The temperature is pleasant and cool. It drizzled a bit and nights got colder.
In the morning we could see quite a few of the snow clad Himalayan peaks like Gangotri, Yamunotri, Shivling, Chaukhamba and Nanda Devi. All these from the same spot on the terrace. How lucky and happy to have come to this place.
This is the first time (in our trips), we have decided to stay at one place. I was told that the road to Chirbatia is as as bad as the one from Tilwara to Mayali so didn’t venture to go there on 12th June. Instead we opted to stay at the forest guest house at Liza depot gues house. There was absolutely nothing available at the place but located in the forest. We visited their nursery of Pine, Deodar, Banj Mor Pankha etc . They extract a liquid from the bark of Pine trees by cutting ‘V’ shaped cuts in the bark. This is collected in big Tins and auctioned off for various uses.
I understand that there is a small lake called Badani lake about 25kms from Jakholi. The route takes you through a village called Ranadhar. I didn’t venture again due to very bad road condition. Only a Jeep can go there as it is very bad at certain locations.
There is a small park maintained by the Forest department and about half a kilometer from the TRH which we used to frequent. Our daily routine is to visit the park, visit the shops, buy some
things, look at mountains, read books, eat and sleep. It was really wonderful. My wife had the perfect surroundings to do her meditation, prayers and read her ‘God Speaks’ book with full concentration. Absolutely nothing to worry. Life can be really quiet. The Sunrise and the sunset scenes are spectacular from this place.During our stay we met a few of the travelers who strayed to this place by chance or by recommendation from other GMVN personnel and not by choice. There was a group of eight from West Bengal, returning after a trek to Roop Kund and a few of them went to Ronti Saddle. They seemed to have a lot of energy even after their arduous trek that they went for an evening walk!.
We thoroughly enjoed the place and checked out on 18th and proceeded to another less known places called Hariyali Devi. The route takes us back to Rudraprayag, Nagrasu at which point we take a right turn. The road from Nagrasu to Hariyali devi is narrow and no traffic, looked desolate and scary. It is about 22kms. The road is being repaired though it is already fairly good (I may be comparing after the Tilwara-Mayali ride). The GMVN guest house is hiding on a road to the right and a gravel road with stones. The TRH looked even more scary than the ride to this place. Absolute silence and no one to be seen. The doors were ajar and pushed them and went in, my wife was sitting in the car with doors locked. I shouted ‘any one home?’ but no answer. There was a room with its door ajar and went in to find a man sleeping like a log (supposed care taker). He was the only inhabitant. The time was 230pm. Fetched my wife to see the place, one look and she decided we have to leave at once. The care taker said he will make up the room. It seems there is no electricity and no canteen which means no tea or food and we have to walk to the village every time. Quickly decided to leave the place, the time slowly crept towards 3pm, I am getting worried as we have to reach another TRH before night falls. In these Hills the roads will be blocked for night traffic and one is advised to reach the destination well before dark. We thought about many places like Gauchar, Gwaldham, Rudraprayag, Syalsaur (all which we had visited earlier). Finally after deliberating we decided on reaching Deoprayag (to get as close to Delhi but still be cool). We stopped over at Srinagar GMVN and had Tea. We could not contact Deoprayag TRH but took a chance as it is not on Internet booking site. The road to Srinagar from Rudraprayag is one way for a short distance and we had to take a very bad steep road. Later it joined the NH58 and we had a safe trip to Deoprayag. We were lucky we found accommodation.
The trip from Deoprayag to Delhi was interrupted several times due to the shopping of mangoes on the way. They were so tempting I couldn’t resist from buying, ended up buying about 12kgs.
Reached Delhi by 4pm on 19th June only to find we really fell into the ‘fire’ from a ‘cold frying pan’. This is definitely worse than from falling into fire from a hot frying pan. The moral of the story is don’t come back from such a nice place.
