Today's post is about Sahastradhara location which is located just 11 km from my house. Sahastradhara literally means 'thousands of waterfalls' and this place justifies its name because thousands of waterfalls flow from the caves and rocks of sulfur and sulphur here. This place is located in Dehradun district of Uttarakhand state located in the north of India. As much as this place attracts tourists, it also has religious importance, so let's go on this journey.
Winters are going to stay for a few more weeks in the Himalayas and I am saying this because the weather has been a bit bad since yesterday and today it has crossed all limits when dark clouds started raining. After thinking for many days, finally Saturday was decided to visit Sahastradhara. Because the weather outside is very bad today, so we woke up leisurely and decided to go after breakfast.
We made a bag in which we keep all the necessary things related to swimming and start our scooter. As soon as we come out, it starts raining lightly, we don't stop and keep going. While riding the scooter, we decide that we will see the ponds built on the upper side of the Sahastradhara river and if the water is a little deep there, we will take a bath there. After this, we reach Sahastradhara and stop under a wooden hut.
The rain has become very heavy here and our clothes are almost wet, I don't like getting wet in the rain in winter at all. We wait for about 20 minutes for the rain to stop, which also stops. Riding back on the scooter, we reach the upper ponds where we park the scooter and visit the ponds located here. The ponds here have not been repaired yet, perhaps they will be rebuilt in a few weeks.
The ponds will be prepared for tourists and when the summer will be at its peak from the month of March, thousands of people will come here to take a bath. The local people earn money from the tourists coming here by giving food and changing rooms on rent. Since there is no office or factory here, they depend on tourists for employment. The local people earn their living by selling food, changing rooms, swimming clothes and other items.
We were disappointed at the upper ponds, after which we take the return route in light rain. In about 20 minutes we reach the main Sahastradhara. After parking the scooter in the parking lot, we reach our new favorite pond. We like this pond because it is about 6 feet deep and about 12 meters of swimming can be done here.
There are dark clouds in the sky, it is winter now, raindrops are jumping in the pond and when the cold breeze is hitting the cheeks, we are getting a direct message that do not bathe today, come tomorrow, it will be sunny tomorrow. But we are a little stubborn and we have bathed in this river many times this winter. First of all I take off my clothes and jump into the river, the first dip tells me that the water is very cold and on top of that the cold wind is making it even more difficult.
When I have been swimming for 10 minutes, my friend also gets into the pond, now both of us are in the pond and we both do a lot of laps in the pool. Of course the water is very cold but whenever we are swimming we feel fine and whenever we stop we feel cold. After about 40 minutes I come out because now my body temperature starts falling, my friend swims for another 10 minutes and comes out.
After coming out we change our clothes, I feel a little more cold so even after changing clothes I keep shivering for a long time. To warm up our bodies we drink a hot tea each after which I get some relief. Now it is 3 o'clock so now we have to go home. We come back to the scooter and ride on it and head back towards home. It is cold while driving but now I am feeling better than before.
It does not take much time to cover a distance of 11 km, after coming home I take a bath again and drink hot coffee to make myself feel cozy. So this was today's day which we made wonderful by swimming in the Sahastradhara ponds near our house and that too in winter. Do tell us how you liked our journey by commenting.
Disclaimer: This post is originally written in Hindi and I have used Google Translator to translate the Hindi text in English. All the photos have been clicked by me from POCO F1 smartphone and edited in lightroom, post thumbnail created in adobe photoshop.