Seetha, Hari and I did the Kailasa Yathirai this summer. We were honoured to have ever practical Jayakamala and Aficionado + Connoisseur + what not, Gopu sir, with us.
There are three ways of doing the Kailasa Yathirai:
1. Government route: Longest (25-30 days), and cheapest
2. Overland through Private Operators in Kathmandu (15 days, Rs75,000 approx, ex Kathmandu)
3. Flying through Private Operators in Kathmandu (12 days, Rs1,25,000 approx, ex Kathmandu)
We chose the third option. Reasons:
1. Option 1 was never considered
2. We were not sure about quality of accommodation/ toilets in option 2.
3. We wanted to go to Salagramam too, an additional 4 days. 16 days looked more manageable than 19 days.
Recommendation:
Take option 2. We learnt later that flights are dependent on weather. We were stuck in a place, on the way back, for 4 days as no flights could operate due to weather. We heard that last year, a group of yatris were stuck for 9 days on the way to Kailash, their visa expired. They could not go to Kailash and returned.
We went in May-June to match with Hari's school holidays.
Recommendation:
Plan your yathirai in August - September. Snow would have melted after three months of summer and you can do pradakshinam. Due to snow, we could not do pradakshinam .
Travel Agent
We went through Samrat Travels. We felt comfortable,
1. Rajaram Tiwari, their Sr Manager, responded quickly to our email queries.
2. CN Pandey, their CEO visited our home in Chennai in January, spent an hour clarifying our queries.
3. We felt what they gave was a good deal (Rs125,000 for Kailash, Rs26,000 for Muktinath)
Following was the schedule:
There are three ways of doing the Kailasa Yathirai:
1. Government route: Longest (25-30 days), and cheapest
2. Overland through Private Operators in Kathmandu (15 days, Rs75,000 approx, ex Kathmandu)
3. Flying through Private Operators in Kathmandu (12 days, Rs1,25,000 approx, ex Kathmandu)
We chose the third option. Reasons:
1. Option 1 was never considered
2. We were not sure about quality of accommodation/ toilets in option 2.
3. We wanted to go to Salagramam too, an additional 4 days. 16 days looked more manageable than 19 days.
Recommendation:
Take option 2. We learnt later that flights are dependent on weather. We were stuck in a place, on the way back, for 4 days as no flights could operate due to weather. We heard that last year, a group of yatris were stuck for 9 days on the way to Kailash, their visa expired. They could not go to Kailash and returned.
We went in May-June to match with Hari's school holidays.
Recommendation:
Plan your yathirai in August - September. Snow would have melted after three months of summer and you can do pradakshinam. Due to snow, we could not do pradakshinam .
Travel Agent
We went through Samrat Travels. We felt comfortable,
1. Rajaram Tiwari, their Sr Manager, responded quickly to our email queries.
2. CN Pandey, their CEO visited our home in Chennai in January, spent an hour clarifying our queries.
3. We felt what they gave was a good deal (Rs125,000 for Kailash, Rs26,000 for Muktinath)
Following was the schedule:
1 comment:
Thanks for the info, ur suggestions and recommendations would be very useful when we plan a trip of this kind. Thanks for sharing.
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