We got ready by 7:00 am. I had asked the front desk last night for tea at that time. I waited for sometime and did not see any signs of tea coming. I went out to the corner store which had just opened. I ordered three tea and Poha. He gave tea in a plastic bag with a knot. Opening it and pouring the tea takes skills. I did not spill a drop. We finished eating and drove to the top of the hill to take darshan of Mahankali Mandir. We got 3/4 of the way and the traffic just stopped. There were a lot of people going up for darshan. Many people were getting out of the cars and walking leaving the driver to bring the car to the top. We did the same thing. We reached the place where we can take the Rope way to the top and the climb about 200+ steps to the Temple. When we got to the end of the line for rope way we were told it would take about 3-4 hours to get to the front of the line to get into the Rope way car. We asked how long it will take if we climb the steps. We got different answers as usual. Any where from 1 1/2 hours to 4 hours. We decided to climb the steps. After all the number of steps also varied. Some
Said 1200, others said 2000 and still others said 1800. As we started climbing we wondered if we made the right decision. We had to stop after 10 minutes. Fully wet and out of breath. But we took a break and continued. We had decided if we are too tired we will turn around and come down. Slowly we kept going up. We saw one man crawling up the steps without taking a break. Every time we took a break we would see him come up. It took us about two hours to get to tht temple on top. The views from top were fantastic. All around we could see beautiful scenery. We stayed on top for about 20 minutes and then we came down by the Rope way. On the way down there was no line and it took only 5 minutes to come down. All said and done we climber approximately 1500+ steps (85 floors – using my iPhone health app) We drove off towards our Parikrama path. We reached Badrikashram around 4:00 pm. This is a fabulous place on the North Bank of Narmada Maiya. True Ashram feeling. When we came here Maharaj Keshavgiriji greeted us with a smile. Asked us for tea. He called over to the kitchen and asked them to make four cups tea medium sugar. The kitchen was out of milk so he called the Gowshala and asked them to express some milk from a cow. In fifteen minutes we had tea made with freshly expressed cow’s milk. He then gave us keys to two rooms to stay for the night. He wanted us to check out the rooms to make sure everything was good. The room was fantastic. We took bath washed clothes and then went down to the River. There is a 30-40 foot tall Shiva statue and same size Hanuman statue standing amongst trees in the Ashram. When we went down to the river we saw one young man feeding chapati to the fish. There were quite a few fish scrambling for the food. I also fed some. There was one Sadhvi (Female Sadhu) who was doing her evening prayers. The scene was very peaceful. We washed our hands and feet in the river and came up to the garden area. There was evening tea being served. I had another cup. Dinner was delicious. At lunch I had eaten yogurt and sugar and made a comment that I would like to eat Shrikhand in Gujarat. Well! At Dinner they served nice thick Shrikhand along with Rice Daal Chapati and Bell pepper Subjji. I had seconds of Shrikhand and enjoyed every drop of it. All in all we have climbed 105 floors today and walked 10 kms.