OUR FIRST DAY OFF

Rusheel Nayak

The Jwalamukhi Temple

            Today was our first day off, and so we decided to do some sight-seeing.  First, we visited one of the most famous temples in Himachal Pradesh, the Jwalamukhi Temple.  This temple is believed to be built over one of the places where Sati’s body parts fell.  Instead of an idol, there is an ever-burning flame, which is considered by many to be a miracle.  There was over an hour wait to see the temple.  However, it was inspiring to see the bhakti (devotion) of the pilgrims, who repeatedly broke out into devotional chants.

            After this, we went to the Kangra Fort, which was originally built in the 1100s.  This fort, which has been rebuilt repeatedly, was really fun to visit because it was relatively quiet and had tons of history.  We also visited a Buddhist Monastery in Yol, which was built in 1993.

Krishna Narra

Group photo at the Kangra Fort

Today was a very interesting day. Due to it being our day off, I got to see how the lifestyle of the people were outside of our CORD circle. I saw how the people selling goods on the street were constantly trying to lure people into their shops. However I was really intrigued by the long and clustered line we had to go into in order to receive darshan in the Jwalamuki Temple. As a matter of fact, someone had fainted in the line. I offered water to help awaken him. I also saw a little child crying to his mom about his thirst. I helped them out by offering them water as well. But what really intrigued me was that none of the signs were written in English. I found this odd since we were in a tourist attraction and no one cared to have anything written in English. Although the temple was interesting, I still believe that there should be more entrances for people to go through instead of having them clustered in a long, curvy line. However, I did enjoy the Kangra fort and the Buddhist monastery. Both places were really interesting as well as peaceful. I especially enjoyed the vast room of the Kangra fort and how much there was to see.

Sonali Nayak

Today, we explored the surroundings. We went to Jwalamukhi Temple, and seeing the fire come out of the ground was really cool. Though the line was long and tiring, the temple was worth it. Also, we went to Yol, a city near the CORD center. We walked around the town, and then, we enjoyed walking back to the CORD center through the rice paddy fields.

Gowtham Raja

Today we went to Jwalamukhi temple, and waited for nearly an hour to watch a natural fire that came from the ground. As we were leaving, Krishna nearly got his camera taken away as he didn’t realize that taking a picture in a temple was prohibited. Later we went to Kangra fort and stood near the edge and looked down upon what seemed to a not so nice fall. We finished the day by going to Celebration, a local restaurant in Yol and enjoyed the local food.