Badrinath

A closer look at Badrinath

Badrinath is the gentlest of the four Dhams and, for many families, the most joyful. The temple facade is painted in bright saffron, red, blue and gold, standing out against the grey Alaknanda valley like something from a storybook, with the Nar and Narayan ranges on either side and the sharp white pyramid of Neelkanth rising behind it. Unlike Kedarnath there is no trek: the road runs to within a few hundred metres of the shrine, which makes this a Dham that grandparents and small children can enjoy without compromise.

Just before the temple you pass Tapt Kund, a natural hot spring where pilgrims bathe before darshan even in near-freezing air — the water sits at a genuinely startling 45°C or so, fed from beneath the mountain. Below the temple the Alaknanda narrows into Brahma Kapal, a stone platform where families perform rites for ancestors, and the whole riverside has a hum of activity from dawn onward. The temple itself is believed to have been re-established by Adi Shankaracharya in the eighth century, and the black stone Vishnu inside, seated in meditation, is one of the eight self-manifested images in the Vaishnav tradition.

Three kilometres further up the road is Mana, the last Indian village before the Tibet border and one of our favourite stops in all of Uttarakhand. A short walk from the village brings you to Bhim Pul, a single enormous rock slab thrown across the roaring Saraswati, and to Vyas Gufa, the cave where the Mahabharata is said to have been dictated. Keen walkers can carry on five kilometres to Vasudhara Falls, a 120-metre ribbon of water that legend says will not fall on anyone impure — a claim the guides deliver with a completely straight face.

We stay in Badrinath itself rather than rushing down the same evening, which changes the trip entirely. The town empties after the last buses leave, the evening aarti is unhurried, and the sunrise on Neelkanth from a hotel terrace is worth setting an alarm for. It is a ten-hour drive from Haridwar, so we break the journey at Joshimath or Pipalkoti rather than doing it in one punishing push, and we keep the return day loose because the Alaknanda valley is far too beautiful to hurry through twice.