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The Vaishnodevi Experience 2023

My first trip to Vaishnodevi was unimpressive. Climbing was hard, and it only served to highlight how badly out of shape I was, while my in-laws managed to cope so much better. Further, I hadn’t quite realized that the cave experience wouldn’t be the same as I had imagined, since the original cave was only opened at certain times a year, and that we only entered a newly created tunnel, one far easier to access, and hence more manageable with the crowds that thronged the mountain shrine. The resulting experience at the shrine, for barely a fraction of a second, hardly compared to what I had expected / imagined / heard about. So, for me, Vaishnodevi was like any other temple, nothing to write home about, something that was reflected (though not explicitly mentioned) in the blog post I wrote then.
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An Interesting Sight



Have you heard of Deballasting? I certainly hadn’t, until we happened to see the process in action……………..




We saw this sight while returning from Elephanta, and were curious about what they were doing.
Thankfully, we have a marine expert at home (my father-in-law), who told us that this process of pumping out the excess water from a ship is called Deballasting. Google yielded a lot more information, and you can check out this link for an explanation for laymen like us.

Anyway, leaving aside the technicality, it looks good, doesn’t it? Every person on the ferry was busy taking photos, and there might be quite a few floating around the internet already! In any case, here are a few more….







Some oil from the tanks seems to have mixed with the water, showing us all these wonderful colours! (I dont think this really counts as an oil spill, since the amount of oil would have been very small, so I could really enjoy the view!)







So, have you seen anything as interesting while on a boat ride?


Location: Apollo Bandar, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

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