SHERAGHAT is a tiny place on the Bank of Saraju river. It has few huts, on both sides of the road, selling essential things for the villages spread around in the Hills. People get down from the bus to have a cup of tea, hot Pakodas and boiled eggs too. It has been always our stopping point, after a nerve breaking drive, ( with few Rum stops) on our way to Choukari from Almora. This place has some emotional attachment thats all. You may pass through the place without realizing.
I am posting here few photos and marked the locations of the photos on it.
You can see the Saraju river flowing down. A tributary joins on the left. The road from Almora comes from the right bank, crosses the bridge and goes to Berinag. The tributary has a foot bridge. ( Please read the note on the map below.)
The Sheraghat Bridge on Saraju river. Someone is already on the bridge and I am going on to the bridge on the left.
The upstream of the river as seen from the bridge.
The down stream, a cremation is going on, you can hear the people crying. The bridge faraway is the foot bridge on the tributary. It is almost late afternoon and trees are casting long shadows and time for the Leopards to get up.
Two people are sitting on the foot bridge and watching the cremation.
This photo was taken seconds before the blue atired girl vanished from the bridge, (on the left).( I mean, she did not fall from the bridge, just left.)
I saw her at the bus stop sometime back and she was quite pretty.. People normally hurry back before evening due to Leopards, who come out for hunting at dusk, They generally don't eat human beings, but love to eat dogs.
This is one of the rare trips, we ( we 2 brothers) , had allowed our wives to come along..My tea is waiting for me to finish the photography. While my brother is framing driving strategy with a smoke , ladies are enjoying tea. Guess who is someone ??
In our subsequent trips since 2006, we did not go via , Sheraghat, we took a longer route via Jageswar, Gongoli hat, ( the famous Kalika temple) and Patal Bhubaneswar. That is another story
