Blogs from Valley of Flowers National Park, Uttarakhand, India, Asia

Ohhh! Not possible for me to avoid the warmth but fearsome invitation of the “Valley of Flowers” any more. Some times, I think about the curse of my father, when I was young. I told him about my dreams, about my future plan to become a tourist!! He is a man of conventional thinking and accustomed with darn reality. He ridiculed me saying: My boy! You wanted to become a vagabond!! Ok may god fulfill your wishes! Being suffocated with the long boring monotonous work, I too was thinking for some relief. And suddenly I came upon the idea of visiting Valley of flowers, which is far away from the Din and bustle of the modern sophisticated life but not too far from New Delhi. After much hesitation, I finally dared to inform Mahua my only ... read more

So as I learned from the educational video I watched at the visitor centre in Ghangaria, the valley is famous for having over 500 species of flowers, creating great carpets of colour during the summer months. Sadly when I was there the weather was pretty misty, depriving me of the blue skies I had imagined and totally ruining my photos. The valley is surrounded by amazing 6000m peaks but you couldn't really see them for the mist, except at times when the tops of the mountains would break through like islands floating above the clouds. It was still gorgeous and the weather made for a very mysterious atmosphere, but it did not translate well to photography (not at my inexpert hands anyway). There were no more than about a dozen other people in the valley that ... read more

Arrival into Haridwar, confirmed our idea that we were well and truly ‘over’ Indian towns. Hardiwar was absolutely jammed packed with people, most of which had come to do their pilgrimage to the sacred waters of the Ganges. Haridwar is an interesting enough place. The Ganges properly begin here and thousands and thousands of devotees and pilgrims come to the sacred ghats to take a holy dip in the waters. It also attracts beggers, sadus (holy men - easily spotted in their orange robes, slightly wild eyes and hair down to their backsides) people with deformities and everything else in between. The crowds of people lining the river made an amazingly colourful and overwhelming sight. I wish I could have photographed everything. The photos would have been stunning but it didn’t quite feel right to take ... read more

Joshimath - Govindha - Ghangariya - Valley of Flowers... read more

Well my time in the peaceful land of Rishikesh came to a swift close when Jordan and I decided to finally visit the Himalayas up close and personal. Our bus left Rishikesh at something like 4:30AM and our Rickshaw driver waited anxiously through the night in his little auto rickshaw for our agreed 3:30am wake up time. The bus ride was awful. The road wound its way through countless valleys and mountains with locals systematically vomiting out the windows and leg room at an all time low. I can safely say that I hated the bus ride more than Randy hates Tia Carerra (which is a lot). After the horrifying bus ride concluded from Rishikesh we found ourselves situated on a beautiful river in the heart of some splendid mountains in the town of Govindghat. Basically ... read more