Lucknow, Feb 28 (PTI) A 20-hour stay at Maha Kumbh in Uttar Pradesh's Prayagraj has left a London-based group of travel writers and journalists in awe of the "spiritual energy" and the magnitude of arrangements at what has been billed as the world's largest religious congregation.

Everybody felt tied by the common thread of devotion, they said and described the 45-day gathering at the confluence of the Ganga, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati as "more global than ever".

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Travelling on foot, riding bikes and boats, meeting seers and pilgrims, and eating basic vegetarian dishes all the while striving hard to capture the experience in their minds as well as cameras, the group say they are now filled with "memories of a lifetime".

The group included 41-year-old Richard MacKichan who writes mostly on travel, music and lifestyle; Sorcha Bradley (31) a journalist for The Week, specialising in travel and politics, freelance journalist Noni Ware (57) and Nicole Lovett (36), the head of communications from Explorations Company, a travel firm.

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"What was truly amazing to discover was that an event this big witnessed a unity in the sense that everybody felt tied by the common devotional thread," a member of the group observed.

The trip was organised by the Explorations Company in partnership with the Uttar Pradesh Tourism Development Board.

Noni Ware told PTI that they decided to travel with the crowd and took a local bike ride to completely immerse themselves in the Kumbh experience. "It was awesome because never ever have we seen so many people in any one place, all driven by faith and a deep-rooted belief. That energy sort of rubbed off on us too."

"All my life I have told my children to never ride a bike... and here I was, doing just the opposite by availing a local bike for that experience," she said with a smile, though Lovett was quick to clarify that the bike ride was a "last-minute" change.

Noni feels that it was due to social media that the Maha Kumbh "actually hit this big outside of India" and it was on people's radar "Yes, there was the unfortunate tragedy (stampede) where people died, but before that, we all had become quite aware of the event," she said.

"As travel writers, we have been to big consumer and music shows around the world. But to see people walk such long distances for a pilgrimage was spine-chilling," she said. "To just know that now this whole temporary city Maha Kumbh Nagar would gradually come apart and very soon there would be nothing here except the river adds to the charm of it all."

Richard on the other hand was "still processing' the entire experience of how the ancient custom of taking a dip at Sangam during the once-in-12-years gathering to mark a specific planetary alignment could generate such a spontaneous spiritual response from so many.

Devout Hindus believe that a dip at the Sangam leads to the emancipation of the soul.

"It's all settling in gradually, still processing. The Maha Kumbh has a much wider global reach, courtesy of viral videos on social media. So to experience that, we decided to mingle with the crowd and this left us with memories of a lifetime," he said.

Richard was also mesmerized by the staggering logistics of the Kumbh Mela."We really can't fathom how an event of this scale could be managed," he said.

Lovett confessed that she is not deeply religious but asserted that the experience of attending the mega festival, the boat ride to Sangam, Ganga aarti, the akharas and getting lost in the kaleidoscope of saris while refuelling on 'chai' and several Indian cuisines "made my heart sing".

The group also met Mukesh Meshram, the principal secretary of the Uttar Pradesh Tourism and Culture Department, who briefed them about the tourism opportunities in the state and the Ayodhya-Varanasi-Prayagraj tourism circuit that many Kumbh pilgrims visited.

"Many made a dash in the last few days as none wanted to miss out," Meshram explained, adding the post-Kumbh impact was now being evaluated.

Over the past 45 days, more than 66 crore pilgrims and tourists visited Prayagraj for the Maha Kumbh with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath terming it a new record in religious tourism.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)