This June I went with Sankar Yatra for Kailash Manasarovar. I had opted for the 15 days yatra with Rudra Homam at Darchen, Kailash.
Let me start with only one positive note: The food was decent, at least I did not see anyone getting affected by food poisoning.
The accommodation at Katmandu & Nepalgunj was good. We did not expect to get anything decent at Manasarovar, HIlsa & Simikot as they had told us about it during the briefing session.
But what I( we) did not like was the partiality shown to some of the yatres in providing the accommodation at Darchen & Kailash camp. Some fortunate people were accommodated in the best hotel at Darchen while some of us were put up in a rat hole with absolutely no water, power or safety. What was even more irritating was neither of the tour managers bothered to check if we were keeping fine. AT LEAST ONE WAS TOTALLY ABSCONDING. People were mad with fury. HE even told me later that some one had bashed him( I am not surprised)
On my recommendation my cousin & two of her friends too joined from Mumbai.
They had booked their flight tickets from Mumbai to Katmandu. Sankara Yatra people had promised that they would be received at Katmandu airport & taken to the hotel. But no one came to pick them up & they had to wait for 3 hours at the airport. They were frantically trying to contact the tour manager Mr.Murali and the Bangalore office staff Yamini. Their first-day experience itself happened to be bitter & nightmarish.
They had told us that before the commencement of the yatra they would make a whatsap group of all yatrees to keep the family informed of the pilgrims safety & any crucial information. But it was never done till my husband forced them after repeated phone calls to Yamini. That too only around 20 names of yatrees were included among the 120 yatrees. In fact, most of the others never even knew that such a group existed or they were supposed to be included.
So obviously the families of those could not have known what was happening at the yatra. When things started becoming bad I first exposed it to through the common group. Obviously, the families got worried & angry.
We were able to do two days of Parikrama and happily waiting for the completion of third-day parikrama. In fact, we had paid money for the pony for three days. But to our utter disappointment, it was called off and we were asked to pack up and return to Darchen. No one including the two tour managers never gave us an explanation of why they did that. In fact, both of them went missing. We were left at the end point of third-day parikrama without even a shelter and it started raining. no tea or snack after a tiring day. Finally, we were shifted in batches to Darchen and given dinner at 12 midnight. Then we were asked to leave for Taklakot & reached there at 3 am. At eight we were asked to leave for Hilsa. We had not bathed for days and no time gave even for bathing & no hot water!
Then we got stuck at Simikot for two days and no information about the tour managers. They did not come to check if we were alive or not. On the third day, we went on our own to the SImikot airport to try our luck. Finally, we( the four ladies alone) by the grace of God managed to get boarding cards & left for Nepalgunj. The others also managed to reach Nepal by end of 5th but we missed our flight back to our cities on that day. Again we had to make our own arrangements to fly back.
But, despite all this, I thank God that I was able to go to Kailash & Manasarovar. It is only because of the blessings of my parents & all the elders. It is because of the bad karma I had to travel with such bad organizers.
Why I would never ever recommend Sankar Yatra:
they are highly priced
tour managers dont even know the itinerary
unprofessional & poorly trained staff members
cheating in the name of God
no first aid or a doctor in the group( but they say doctors travel with every group)
Please please don’t ever choose Sankar Yatra. Don’t get cheated by their advertisements.
There are so many other good tour organizers
Good Luck