Sunday, October 21, 2012

The Water Jump Bath at Barot | Alive is Awesome

This is my third blog post for Cinthol's Alive is Awesome Blogging Campaign

Barot is a quite, serene, and unknown 'travel destination' in Himachal Pradesh. Barot serves as the reservoir location for the Shanan Power House in Jogindernagar, Mandi (H.P.). River Uhl flows by the small town and  it indeed looks like a dream land.

Barot stands at a height of 2200+ meters, which makes it quite a cold place throughout the year. Noisy waters flowing give a dreamy effect to the surroundings.

Geographically , the location of Barot is quite interesting. The region is divided by the River Uhl into two Districts whereas the River Uhl itself lies in the Punjab. Simply speaking, the river waters belong to the Punjab State because they constructed a power house on the river long ago.

Now, coming to the main point, other than the natural beauty, serenity, and 'weird' status of water rights, Barot is popular for its Water Jump. At Barot, there lies a vertical pipe, aiming towards the sky, somewhat like Iron Pillar (लौह स्तम्भ) in Delhi.




The Barot Pillar is not an architectural masterpiece but just a iron pipe emerging of the ground. It must be 10 meters long. At frequent intervals of time, water shoots out of the mouth of the pipe and goes as high as 25-30 meters.

Being a Civil Engineer, I was wondering about the science behind the water jet but I could not figure out any reasonable logic. The only thing that came to my mind was a nice cold bath under that jet.





And as I have already stated, Barot remains cold throughout the year, and it was underground water, we all were ready for a 'bone chilling' bath. As soon as the first drop fell on my body, I knew it was going to last for quite some time.

It turned out to be an Alive is Awesome moment for us. Some of my friends had come from Mumbai and they were super-happy to dance in the Himalayan waters. Soon it went out of control and the lads starting jumping in the running, bone-freezing waters of River Uhl.

What started from a casual bath turned out to be an Alive is Awesome Bathing Experience.


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