A trip to the heavens
Imagine this.
You are alone walking amidst the mountains. You have a joint in your hand , pain in your hind legs, extreme frustration in your head, and then you see this view , yeah the one at the top, right around the bend going high above in the mountains.
Will you not light up the joint?
Is that view not enticing enough, or is the exhaustion too much to pummel through.
Plus when you get up in the morning and walk grudgingly towards the opening of your tent , that functions as a door, as its like really cold; and then when you put your feet on the ground and feel that shiver run up your spine; and manage to widen the view, and you see that in front of your eyes. More importantly when you come out of your tent and go to the backside, you see this beauty. The village of Heidi , hiding in the Garwahal valleys of Uttarakhand.
So, basically what happened is this. Last year in April,i along with my parents, went to Uttarakhand to explore the mountains and visit a few temples. One of those temples was Tunganath. Now this temple is quite the climb. It involved a 6.5 Kms (They tell you its 5 Kms, but they do not include the 1.5 Kms it takes to get to the gates of the Temple compound) trek to the top of the mountain . The temple lies at around 3700 meters. So its quite high, actually the highest Shiva temple in the world. If you have a bit more grit in you, then you can climb to the top of the mountain(its another 1.5 Kms trek). The peak is aptly named, “Chandrashila” (moon rock);
The temple itself is quite a sight. Its a part of the Panch Kedar. To understand this you need to know that in the Indian epic Mahabharata, the Pandavas (the good guys) went to war with the Kauravas (the bad guys) , to uphold Dharma (in Indian epics no one is entirely wrong or right, so its messed up). Now in order to accomplish that stated goal, the Pandavas had to kill off a few people (most of who were their family; oops forgot to mention, the Kauravas were their cousins), who were primarily their enemies.
At the end of the 18 day war, it was the Pandavas who were victorious, but they had killed their own cousins, hence they would not find any acceptance in heaven. This is when they decided to pray to lord Shiva, to atone for their sins. They finally caught hold of Shiva in Kedarnath, but he escaped as a bull, but Bhima had attempted to capture the bull, but all that remained was the hump of the bull.
It is said that the bull disappeared in the ground and its hump is worshiped in Kedarnath, its hands in Tunganath, head in Kalpeshwar, stomach in Madmaheshwar and legs in Rudranath.
So anyway, my point is this. The views are amazing, the place is truly stunning the history is enticing. So, why not give Chopta and Tunganath a visit and trust me, the views are to die for.
