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.
One of the best things about birdwatching is the excitement we feel on spotting a new bird. Even better is spotting a new bird in our own backyard! We were decorating the road outside our building with rangolis to welcome a procession of a local deity, and Samhith, who was hanging around, giving his opinion of our artistic skills, suddenly called me... This is what we saw....