Day 5 - Bageshwar (21/05/2008)

It’s the 5^th day of the trip and we are at the main destination of the trip. As usual I shall give a little introduction about the place. Bageshwar is a small town on the way to Almora from Kausani. Recently it was announced as a district. We were told that the temple here called as Bagnath temple is 12th century temple. The belief is that Lord Shiva roamed here in the guise of a tiger and hence is the name Bagheshwar. Here we can also see the confluence of the Gomti and Sarayu rivers. There are also other temples like Chandika Temple and Shri Haru Temple.

We got up very late and were lazy today. This was because we had a full day to spend at this place and there were not really much places to see. Everybody wanted to go and do a holy dip in the river. The river was flowing right behind the Bagnath temple. The flow was water was fast but it was not so deep. While we were taking the dip in water dad was busy doing the anniversary ritual for grand father. The Brahmin performed the pooja at the river bed.

I have heard a lot of polluting the holy water like Ganges. I also heard that there were dead bodies floating in Ganges. I could see the same at this place. I saw some dead bodies being burnt at the river. When the dead body is burned and once everybody left some people come there and stop the fire and simply throw the dead body into the water. This was a real shock to see such things happening at these holy places.

Holy Water

View of Temple from the River

View of a bridge on the river

After the bath at the river and once pooja is done by dad, we visited the bagnath temple. By the time we reached the main temple, the other group who came with us was performing Abhishekam followed by Homam to Lord Shiva. We along with the group chanted Vishnu Sahasranamam in the temple premises.

Some baba at the temple

View from the Temple entrance

View of the main temple Entrance

We took walk back to hotel through the narrow lanes. We saw some shops and eateries on the way. We stopped at a small hotel for breakfast. We had hot Jilebi which was being prepared freshly before us. We also ate samosa chat.

Shopping place

Hot Jilebi

The Narrow market lanes

As there is no other schedule for the whole day we wanted to go to some place nearby rather than sitting at the hotel room. We heard that there were no great places near by which we can go by evening and come back. I and brother thought of going to Pindari Glacier which was just 40KM away. We got disappointed when we came to know that we can only see the glacier after trekking for 16KM onto the mountains.

As there was nothing really to do, we all decided to sleep till evening. In the evening we had the Shiva Parvathi Kalyanam. It was 6.30 PM and everybody left for the pooja other than I, brother and bhabhi. We got fresh and went to the temple at around 7.30PM. I did not take my camera here and later blamed my self for not taking the camera. The other group members performed Shiva Parvathi Kalyanam. The procession with the idols of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvathi was taken grandly with crackers and chanting of “Om Namashivaiah” on the streets upto the river. After dipping vigrahas in the river went to Bageswar Temple and all together witnessed Shiva Parvati Kalyanam performed by temple pujari.

While the kalyanam was going on we were supposed to tell our names and gotras to the pujari so that he will perform pooja on our names also. The situation there was so bad that we had to tell our own names in mind and pujari would say just “mama”. Pujari could not spell over Gotras and names. There was full of gags and laughs going on while pujari was making kichdi of all the names. The day ended with good and rich experience in Bageswar. We had our dinner and hit the bed.