My journey to Dev Bhoomi

After a long gap of 14 years I got the chance to visit my home town, Pithoragarh which is also called mini Kashmir of Uttarakhand and Uttarkhand in the contrary is called Dev Bhoomi as most of the religious places are situated here. My journey started on 4th June in the evening. The bus started at 5p.m from Anand Vihar,Delhi and my excitement to visit my home town increased. With the advent of the dusk I could see people feeling sleepy and most of them slept by 10p.m but I was all awake tracking each and every moment of the journey and was waiting to reach Tanakpur as somebody had told me that the real journey starts from Tanakpur. Finally it didn’t take much time to reach Tanakpur and we were there by 3 a.m. Very excitingly I woke up my mother and we got down from the bus as the bus was supposed to halt there for almost an hour. There were many CD shops where we could listen traditional kumauni songs being played and we could feel to be in the Kumaun. How that one hour passed listening to those traditional songs we could not make out.

We got into the bus and I could see the driver changed here. I had an easy guess that the previous driver must be tired and could not drive further but later I came to know that besides the reason I was thinking, the reason was that driving in the hill needed a skilled driver as the terrain now would be difficult with many twists and turns which only a skilled driver could handle. The half journey was over and we had to cover another half and I said to myself ‘the real journey starts now’.

I was overwhelmed at the first sight of the hills. It’s not that I had seen the hills for the first time… I have been in Shillong which is also a hilly area for 14 long years but the beauty of the hills here was bewitching. The driver was alert at each and every turn and drove very swiftly. With every turn I was thrilled with the awesome beauty of the hills that God has blessed Uttarakhand with and somebody  would not have just called it the Kashmir of Uttarakhand. I regretted being bereft of this beauty all these years inspite of being a native of that place. The hilly area is gifted with lush green forests with colorful flowers and variety of orchids that I could easily see hanging from the pine trees. Seeing the villages in the deep gorges increased my excitement . My mom closed her eyes as she feared looking down but I fully enjoyed the thrill . We reached Pithoragarh at 9 a.m in the morning when we were supposed to reach around 12. So hats off to the driver.

We stayed at Pithoragarh for two days enjoying the beauty of the nature. Then we headed towards Didihat which is 58km from Pithoragarh.The 2 hour journey in the jeep was fun as I was overwhelmed at every moment discovering the beauty of the hills. I could not hold my heart thumping seeing the beauty of the hill and felt to be in the lap of nature. On the way to Didihat there is a temple where every vehicle halts for sometime to offer prayer as it is believed that a vehicle has to take the blessing of the god here then only the journey would be safe otherwise there are every chances that the vehicle would fall into gorge as it had happened once when the driver didn’t stop there. I took the arti and jeep started again. I could not stop praising the beauty of the hills and also the way driver drove in such a difficult and risky terrain. Having met all our relatives there we came back to Pithoragarh and I wished to visit some of the important tourist places of which one was Patal Bhuwaneswar known for huge Shiva statue and other natural beauty but unfortunately we had to come back to Delhi as I had an important exam to take. But as soon as I get time I’ll again head towards Pithoragarh to get the sight of its overall beauty.


Pithoragarh is a destination for all those who want the exciting and thrilling journey and be in the lap of nature away from the daily hassles of life. So if you are looking  forward for such a journey then Pithoragarh is the destination for you.