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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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Memories of 2012 - Amritsar

I had been to Amritsar as a kid, when I was even younger than Samhith. While returning from Jammu, we stopped at Amritsar, to visit the Golden Temple....





My memories of Amritsar proved to be vague at best... and the city had changed beyond recognition... Jalianwala Bagh had a completely new look, and I had to stretch my memory to remember even a bit of how it was then.... and so was Wagah Border... a place I remembered for its dignified and serious change of guard had turned into a circus!!! No wonder, every time I sat down to write a post about it, I found myself lost for words! 

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Location: Amritsar, Punjab, India

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