We have this “teerth” (holy place), Shikharji which we go to pretty regularly.
Papa and mummy made plans a few weeks back to go to Shikharji on 16th and 17th of November. A day before that Ridhi expressed her desire to go to Shikharji as well. I asked papa whether accommodation and cab bookings can be made at such short notice, he asked me to go ahead and book the train tickets. I went ahead and booked the tickets from Howrah to Parasnath. Seeing the number of seats available I did not think about non availability of tickets for the return journey. However, I was in a for a rude shock. There was a 55 passenger wait list. I spoke to papa about it and he said “get the tickets booked, we will manage.” If we were travelling alone, I would have most probably canned the trip. However, taking a leap of faith, I booked the return tickets.
As this would be Anaya’s first train journey, I wanted her to have an amazing experience. The train which we booked was the “Vande Bharat Express” which is a super fast, premium train in Indian Railways. Even I was pretty excited about travelling on it!!!
Fast forward to the next day, we had to leave home by 5.30 AM for Howrah Station. Anaya was stoked to meet all her grandparents at the station. The train pulled in as we entered the station.
Watching the train pull into the station
Always the poser
The mandatory group pic
The excitements palpable
All settled in
The train journey was around 3.5 hours but there were some delays due to track maintenance work.
Once we reached Parasnath station, we took a cab to Sidhayatan, the “Dharamsala” (a building used for a religious or charitable purpose, or a shelter for travelers) where we would be staying. We rested for a while and then ventured out to visit a few places.
Our first stop was the Jain museum. From there we went to a few temples.
Some of these temples were architecture and craftsmanship marvels. From a marble cave temple to a temple where you could rotate heavy marble wheels easily, we were over awed!!!
After this we went to have dinner. Anaya was not feeling well after dinner so we Ridhi, Anaya and myself came back to our room to call it a night.
My Little Munchkin 