Rajaji National Park vs Valley of Flowers National Park
Two parks in Uttarakhand. Rajaji National Park has 3 tickets and tours to book; Valley of Flowers National Park has 2 tickets and tours to book. The table and the two notes below put them side by side; the full pages have what to see, the ticket and the timing for each.
Rajaji is the tiger reserve that lies on the doorstep of the holy towns of Haridwar and Rishikesh, in the foothills of the Himalaya in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, about five to six hours by road or four and a half by the fast trains from Delhi, and for the great numbers of travellers who come to Rishikesh for yoga, rafting and the Ganges, it offers a wildlife safari within half an hour of their guesthouse. The park has several gates and ranges, of which the one that matters to visitors is Chilla, on the eastern bank of the Ganges, nine kilometres from Haridwar and about eighteen from Rishikesh, which has the best track network, the most water and the most animals; Motichur and Ranipur, on the western side near Haridwar, and Mohand and Asarori, near Dehradun, are the alternatives.
The Valley of Flowers is a high hanging valley in the Garhwal Himalaya, in the Chamoli district of the Indian state of Uttarakhand, and it cannot be reached by road, so that to see it requires a trek of four to six days in all, which is, however, among the easier and the best supported in the Himalaya, because it shares its route with a great Sikh pilgrimage. The journey begins with a long day's drive, ten to eleven hours, some 270 kilometres up the gorge of the Alaknanda from Rishikesh or Haridwar, which are themselves five to six hours from Delhi, by way of Devprayag, Rudraprayag and Joshimath, on the road to the temple of Badrinath, to the roadside settlement of Govindghat; a night in Joshimath breaks it.
