North India Tour Day 1 - At Har Ki Pauri Ghat in Haridwar

A Story from my Old Travel Diary - Recollection of our North India Tour

April 2023 - It was a family tour to Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. Our travel destinations included Haridwar, Rishikesh, Mussoorie, Shimla and Manali.

Day 1 of our Tour

The main attraction of our Day 1 tour was to watch Ganga Aarti (Harati) at Har Ki Pauri, the most famous Ganga ghat in Haridwar.
April 2023 - we landed at New Delhi airport at around 11.30 a.m, collected our baggage and walked out. We had a light brunch outside Terminal 1 of the airport and waited for our pre-booked cab. After lots of Google search and going through customers' reviews we prebooked a cab through Solo cabs for our round-trip from New Delhi - Haridwar - Rishikesh - Mussoorie - Shimla - Manali - Delhi. We repeatedly requested the Solo cabs to send a good conditioned car as our trip planner included too long drives. Yet they have sent a horrible car which was wobbling all through and we felt very uncomfortable to sit. Initially we thought of rejecting the car but as that would cost us more, so we travelled in the dabba car only as we had no other option.

We started from the airport at around 1 p.m and headed to Haridwar. On the way, we halted at India Gate, took few clicks and continued our drive.
The expressway drive via Meerut was enjoyable with green fields on either sides of the road. At around 4 p.m we stopped at Panditji Dhaba, a pure veg dhaba on the roadside in Meerut. We ordered for daal, roti and sabzi (which is commonly served in North India). Food was tasty and was served hygenic.
We came to know that Ganga aarti is at 6 p.m. Somehow the driver managed to reach Har Ki Pauri at around 5.30 p.m. From the parking spot we walked and walked towards the ghat wading through the heavy crowd of pilgrims all along as it was Ganga Pushkar time which is held once in 12 years. The ghat was jam packed with pilgrims who were walking literally by dashing and pushing others without least bothering. There were orange clad saddhus and local vendors sitting on either side of the road leading to the ghat making it much more difficult to walk.

We did not walk but waded through the crowd and reached the ghat with great difficulty. It was our first time visit to Haridwar and the moment we saw Ganga Maiyya, we forgot about the heavy crowd and were spellbound at the mermerizing sight. The beauty of Gangamma is beyond description.

Haridwar - the Gateway to Hindu Gods

Haridwar - a small ancient town in Uttarakhand - is one of the most sacred and famous Hindu pilgrim places. The sacred river Ganga touches the plains at this place after its upper course. People from all parts of the country visit this place and take a holy dip in river Ganga to get rid of all their sins. There are some specified Ganga ghats in Haridwar but Har Ki Pauri is the most popular ghat which is heavily crowded with pilgrims. Haridwar, as the name signifies, is known as the Gateway to Gods. The word 'Hari' means Sri Vishnu and dwar means gateway. The Chardham yatra of the pilgrims start from Haridwar only. It is an ancient religious place where we can see many sandhus and sanyasins moving around.

Back to our story, by the time we reached the ghat it was almost 6 p.m and we couldn't find even an inch of a place to stand. We knew nothing about the place where Aarti takes place, no one including the police person / security gave us proper direction to reach the spot from where we can watch Ganga Aarti. I had high hopes of Ganga Aarti but was much disappointed as we could hardly watch it. Somehow we managed to wade through the ocean of pilgrims and found somewhat a better place from where we had a distant view of Aarti. My goodness, the crowd was too unruly and the people standing behind me were pushing my head forcefully as if I am blocking their view. It was a very disgusting experience, a lesson learnt that we should never visit such places during festive occasions.

Hari Ki Pauri

Hari Ki Pauri is the most famous Ganga ghat in the holy town of Haridwar. The word 'Pauri (Paudi)' in local language means footsteps. As per the local beliefs there are the impressions of Sri Maha Vishnu's footsteps on a rock at this place. Hence it got the name Hari Ki Pauri. When I was making our trip planner I had high hopes of Ganga aarti at Har Ki Pauri and was determined to watch the event but things were different on ground. Pilgrims irrespective of age and gender are taking dips in river Ganga. The beauty of river Ganga is undoubtedly timeless and boundless but it was annoying to see pilgrims doing all sorts of activities in the Ganga waters. These people need to be educated on how to conserve nature.

At around 7 p.m. we saw the crowd dispersing and moving aimlessly, so we thought that the event might be over. We went to our parking spot with great difficulty after inquiring various local people and the security people. And as always we did some shopping at the local roadside vendor where I bought a small model of Badrinath temple for my Bommala Koluvu. After this terrible experience in the evening at Har Ki Pauri we proceeded to Rishikesh where we had night stay in a horrible prebooked hotel.

Though we were disappointed as we couldn't watch Ganga aarti properly and despite of those horrible experiences we had, we felt satisfied with the mermerizing beauty of clean flowing waters of Ganga Maiyya. We spent some time simply staring at river Ganga with blank minds.
We headed to Rishikesh with mixed feelings in our minds, on one hand satisfaction of watching Ganga while on the other hand disappointment of not able to watch Ganga aarti and very much disgusted with the unruly crowd. In the map it was showing 40 to 45 minutes from Haridwar to Rishikesh but there was heavy traffic which moved at snail's pace. We left Haridwar at around 8.30 p.m and were stuck in the traffic. We reached the hotel at Rishikesh at around 10 p.m. The hotel kitchen was closed and we had to walk out for dinner. We couldn't stop on the way for dinner due to the heavy unruly traffic. Most of the nearby restaurants were closed and with great difficulty we entered a horrible hotel which was very unclean and unhygienic playing cheap Hindi movie songs at high volumes. We had aloo paratha which was the only available item. Unfortunately my daughter had vomitings after having that dirty stuff.

We had no other option than to have dinner at this place. So with all those terrible experiences we were back to our hotel room which too was not as good as shown in the online hotel booking sites. We were damn tired and immediately my husband and daughter jumped on to the beds. We booked the hotel accommodation online, with the option for an extra bed but the room was too small and the sleepy staff just dumped an old, unclean mattress on the floor. I had to adjust the night on the stinking mattress and couldn't sleep properly.