I would like to share my travel experience to Maha Kumbh Mela Haridwar on 10-11 April 2010.
Me & my wife were talking of Kumbh mela on 9 April evening. Some how we decided to go to Haridwar for coming weekend means 10-11th april for visiting Kumbh mela. So to take things forward I tried various options for reaching haridwar namely:
A) By train if given a choice I would have taken a train but getting reservations on such a short notice was not possible.
B) By road this was the only other option left (every one said no for this & They were right I found out the hard way).So we decided to go by our car.
Day 1.
We started from Delhi at 6 Pm in the evening after coming form office. My wife was very excited for the trip but the ride out of Delhi took us close to 1:30 hrs. More pain was awaiting us onwards. The road after Muzaffarnagar was totally jammed and to reach Haridwar, police at muzzafarnagar told us to take the deoband-saharanpur route. I was totally lost at 12:30 am at night don’t know where to go. Finally I followed a government bus which took us on a canal road and reached haridwar at 3:00 Am. The drive time usually takes 5:30 hours but due to huge traffic jams & detour it took us 9 hours.
Checked in hotel which I have booked in advance at 3 :00 .(you should always book in advance for Kumbh Mela as the hotels are having more than 95% occupancy).
Day 2:- Started from my hotel at 8:00 am for the VIP Ghat . (I would suggest use local transport or go on foot as its really bad for driving in the city) . As the entire city was jam packed like a sabzimandi.It took me close 1hour 10 mins to reach our VIP Ghat which is in front of Har ki paudi.
Spending time at the Kumbh Mela was a fantastic experience which me and my family is going to cherish for a very long time. There was so much to See (Sadhus, Naga Sadhus, Childrens, young, old, rich, poor, healthy and deathly sick) display their deep faith and bathing at the Ghats in the hope of cleansing of all there sins and attaining salvation.
Many of the same people showing their normal, aggressive, rude sides just outside the tent city (as if to say that the bath in the holy water cleansed them of all their historical sins, and so that they could revert to their usual selves). Some one said that taking a bath in Maha Kumbh gives you and your ancestors (till 88th generation) rid of Sins and give Salvation.
I am surprised and happy with the strong organizational capability displayed by the local Administration to put together a fully functional, temporary city for the event (tents, roads, water, electricity, security, toilets, etc).
We took the holy dip and were in water for close to 45-50 mins. Water was clear and cold but the experience was most amazing. I admit that this was the most fantastic experience I ever had. I didn’t go there for a religious experience...but for a cultural one...and I loved it.
My only regret is that I didn’t attend the festival on one of the holy bathing dates which brings out the fervor in the crowd, particularly the sadhus. Hopefully there is a next time for that. We left Haridwar at 12:00 noon and was back in delhi by 9:00 pm. It was the most hectic weekend but I enjoyed it to the core.