Dwarka- Jyotirling

On July 10, 2009, I parul and daksh set out for Dwarka and caught the saurashtra mail at 9.15 p.m. from Borivali. Next day at around 3.45 p.m. we reached Dwarka station. It’s a small station and was filled with devotees arriving from across India to visit Dwarka and Bet dwarka. The station was unique in the sense it was different from other stations I have visited so far. There were no single shops, outlets and bus stand. There were however autos waiting for passengers arriving at the station. We took an auto and asked him to take us to a budget hotel, near the temple. He took the only single road outside the station and after travelling across residential houses for roughly 10 minutes we arrived at Meera Hotel. I checked the hotel room and seemed to be ok for one night stay. Total Damage: INR 250.00. Auto damage: INR 20.00. We got a room on the first floor and after taking a bath I went out to enquire of the temples and surroundings. Just outside the hotel I checked with an autoguy and he agreed to take us to Jyotirling, Rukmini temple and drop us at Main temple. Total Damage: INR 200.00 within half an hour we were ready for our trip and our first stoppage was Jyotirling at a distance of 13.00 K.M. from our hotel. Meera was located near Isckon gate and was just outside the main city and roughly at 1-1.5 k.m. away from the main dwarka temple. It was however centrally located and was at a suitable location to cover rukmini, bet dwarka, bus stand and jyotirling. The road to the jyotirling was quite empty and was surrounded by lush green vegetation on both the sides. It was the perfect place to be and we were enjoying each moment and on the way saw lot of peacocks. On the way I saw the local animal called Neelgah (as big as horse, with skin colour similar of donkey). Finally as we were approaching the place one can easily see a huge statue of Lord Shiva standing tall amidst the place. One can hardly miss the beauty of the place and I was surprised to see a religious place which was not at all crowded by smaller outlets. It was almost 5.00 P.M. and there was hardly any queue and we got darshan within seconds. On the temples left was a huge Shiva statue and in between was a banyan tree and the whole place was having a tranquil and peace atmosphere. After few photo sessions we set out towards Rukmani temple which was on the way to Bet-dwarka and hardly 2 k.m from the main city. The temple was quite old and had the ancient look with sea water hardly 800 meters away. One needs to be beware of the local priests who promises to narrate the entire story of the place being away from main dwarka temple, ending up with donation of INR 100.00 towards the trust. We then proceeded to the main temple which is in the heart of the city and the city itself is quite small. The temple is magnificent from outside and one cannot take camera, mobile phone inside. Inside the temple has the status of Lord Krishna and has separate queues for male /female. Just behind the temple is the Arabian sea/ghat. After our darshan we searched for some good place to dine. In dwarka there are lots of dining places with gujarati thali concept. We somehow found it difficult to look for some good place and finally after much enquiry reach at a local chauk and took a dinner at a famous thali restaurant. Total Damage: INR 60.00. Dwarka as such has nothing great place to shop except for pooja items, bangles, idols of God etc. next day we left our hotel at around 7. 00 a.m. and reached the bus stand and got into a bus for Bet dwarka. Total damage: INR 40.00. Roughly after travelling for 40.00 minutes we arrived at Okha and immediately proceeded towards the ferry. There were people who were alredy waiting and the ferry takes in almost 65-70 people. Total Damage: INR 20.00. One can also book the entire boat for INR 600.00. The ferry took almost 20-25 minutes to reach Bet-Dwarka—basically an Island on the other side where Lord Krishna ruled. The boat ride is worth an experience and the breeze was great /fun. Finally on approaching the other side one has to walk for roughly 5-10 minutes to reach the place which is surrounded by shops/ small restaurants and the temple is a roughly a 2-3 mnutes walk. One has to leave his cellphone /camera outside and even luggage is not allowed inside. Its an old temple, but worth a visit. After finishing darshan we took the chakkda and proceeded towards a Hanuman Temple- roughly 5.00 k.m. from the main temple. Chakkda is basically the cheapest /only mode of transport in bet and has a handle just like motorcycle with a carrier just like the tractor trolly for carrying people. Parool and daksh sat in the trolley with other passangers and I rested on the side frame balancing myself and the luggage. It was a lonely, road trip with mangroves on both the sides without any human settlement—the perfect places I always love. We finally arrived at the temple where one needs to take care of ants-big ones which dot the entire place. After our darshan , we proceeded further for just 5.00 minutes and arrived at an ashram of some ancient saint. We were running late and had a train to catch from Okha and rushed towards the ferry and finally managed to reach Okha station at 12.00 P.M. since we had 30 minutes more, we took lunch just outside the station and had a great food along with butter milk.
Thus one more journey to an end, but will always remain in my soul.
Key Take aways: Ready to adjust to gujarathi food, Bargain hard,return journey best from Okha
For more pictures please follow the following link:http://www.flickr.com/photos/30002962@N05/