Tirupati-Tirumala Trip: 24-25-26 Feb, 2006

For Reference : www.etirupati.com/related_links.htm
Preparation:
There are many sacred pilgrimage locations in India, Tirupati is one of them and holding the crown of richest temple trust in India. Many of my friends and relatives have been there but I didn’t get a chance to go and have ‘Darshan’ of Lord Venkateshwara.
But as I am currently working in Bangalore, it was good opportunity to plan a trip, as it is just 250 KM away from Bangalore. Actually the plan of Tiruapti was postponed twice because of work on weekends. But this time there was no possibility that we will postpone it.
On Thursday, the plan was finalized. We asked many of our friends in Bangalore regarding how we should go ahead for this trip. What is the possible timing that we will get for Darshan when we will reach there in Saturday morning? Answer of this question is so variable that you will get mad, what to do, should go or not?
But we decided to go ahead. Many people also suggested that we should opt for package tours. But as usual these package tour companies keep the schedule so tight that you have run with them. So we ruled out the idea of package tour.

Friday(24th Feb,06): Journey Begins
After crossing the horrible Friday traffic of Bangalore city we reached ‘Majestic’ bus stand at 8:30 pm. We booked for APSRTC [ www.apsrtc.net ] Volvo of 11:45 pm to Tirupati. Luckily we got last seats available. This late night bus gave enough time to finish our dinner.

Saturday(25th Feb,06)
We reached Tiruapti at 4:20 am in the morning. The bus reached earlier than my expectations. Without wasting time, quickly we got into ‘Sudarshanam’ token line. When we joined the Queue the available darshan timing was of 12:30 pm on Sunday. By the time we reached counter it was 2:00 pm. So, we got the darshan timing of Sunday 2:00 pm. This system of issuing token is amazing. They take your snap using webcam and fingerprints. Using these details a barcode is generated for you. One darshan token is issued to you with 50 Rs. fees. This is non-transferable. After getting the token our next destination was Hotel. We got a hotel (Hotel Grand) very close to Bus-stand. The hotel is good with very reasonable rates. We checked in and collapsed. At around 9:30 am we were ready to leave. We had good south-Indian breakfast at the restaurant in Hotel.
We found one travel desk at Hotel itself, so we hired a cab on day-basis. He was supposed to show us major temples in Tirumala and Tirupati. The cab fare was quite expensive, but overall experience was good. The cab driver helped a lot. We visited lots of temples during the day some of the major I will mention here.

Temple1: Padmawati Temple
This temple is of goddess Laxmi. Here again the money came in business, you have to take Rs. 40 token for quick darshan (less than 20 min otherwise for normal line time is 2 hours). We opted for this quick darshan line. The darshan was really quick; you can not even see the idol of god.

Temple2: Kapileshwar Temple
This temple is of Lord Shiva. This has one lake and lots of small temples around. The view from the temple is good. One waterfall merges into this lake during rainy season. We got the darshan easily (without any token). Next day (Sunday) was Mahashivaratri, so there was no chance of Darshan getting easily.

After this we moved to Tirumala. (The town on hill top where Lord Venkateshwara’s temple is situated.) The journey through ghat is of 22Km. This ghat is one-way, so it is very safe and pleasant. After lunch we went to a place called ‘Papvinashaknam’. It is said that after having bath at this waterfall all your sins are forgiven by god. That’s why the name is Pap (Sins) and Vinshakanam (Destroyer). We just had some water on head. Nobody was in preparation for bath.
After papvinashaknam our return journey to Tirupati started. On the way we visited ‘Akashganga’ dam, ‘Japali’ (Hanuman Temple).
In around 45 min we were again back at Tirupati.

Temple3: ISKCON
We visited the ISKCON temple in Tirupati. This trust runs lots of charity activities such as free food scheme for poor children. Idol of Radha-Krishna was very beautiful. As usual it is in Marble.

After a refreshing walk at Municipal Garden we moved to Govindraj Temple.

Temple4: Govindraj Temple
Here again you have to take Rs 20 token for a special darshan queue. And without any thought we were in the queue of the token because by this time we were used to this system. The idol in this temple is sleeping idol. There was break for darshan on account of some pooja. We were the first in queue. After the pooja we got special darshan.

After a day full of pilgrimage we were back to our hotel. We decided to checkout at 6:00 am and start walk to tirumala.

Sunday (26th Feb,06)(Mahashivratri)
Sunday morning we got up early. After checking out from hotel we took auto to Alipiri check post, from where the steps for Tirumala start. From all the information sources we got the info that this is 11 KM walk, so were mentally and physically ready for the walk. At 6:55 am our journey towards tirumala started. The steps ahead are well maintained so no problem in walking. Initial 500 steps are quite tiring because the slope is very steep. Lots of people were walking along with us. Many of them were walking bare foot. I also found some people burning ‘Camphor’ on every step. I found this must be really tiring; you have to keep your candle burning, put camphor tab on each step and set it on fire. Second kinds of people were who were applying ‘Turmeric’ and ‘Kumkum’ to every step. I couldn’t believe this. These people do this till the end. But their determination was strong and they were moving quite comfortably. This was totally strange for a first timer like me.
TTD has provided all necessary facilities on the way such as, toilets, food joints, potable water, security posts, and first aid center. I was impressed with these arrangements. After 6-7KM of walk this foot-path meets the ghat road. For some time you have to walk along side the tar road. After 8Km there is a deer forest where you can lots of deers. These deers come closer to the fence, so pilgrims can watch them. The weather was pleasant, so it walking was fun. We took breaks (we termed those as pit-stops) at regular intervals. We have kept a good buffer for our darshan time, so we were enjoying the walk with snacks and some photography. We covered the distance in 3 and ½ hour. This is good time as standard estimated time is 4 hours.
The day before we had visited Tirumala, so it was not a new place for us. We shopped for some photos, bracelets etc. Temperature was rising, so it was becoming impossible to roam around the town. After lunch we opted to rest in common halls of TTD trust.

Temple5: Lord Venkateshwara
At around 1:00 pm we started our journey towards Lord Venkateshwara’s temple. We joined the queue at 1:30, though it was ½ hour earlier than our estimated time, the security people allowed us in. After some security check and scanning of bar-code of our tokens we landed in a Hall full of people. There are TV’s for entertainment of people but nobody even looks at it. Everybody just has one thought – ‘When will I get darshan?‘. At around 3:00 pm the gates were opened and we started our journey towards main temple through a corridor. This corridor was very much congested. At 4:00 pm we were in the main temple. Whole temple is fully coated with gold. On the way also got see to some trust volunteers counting money. I heard that counting is a big task here and around 150 people are assigned for this task.
On the way everybody was chanting “Govinda-Govinda”. As we were getting closer to God, the crowd was growing. We had darshan at 4:45 pm and we were out of the queue in a fraction. The darshan was very quick. You just have time to look at god.
After the darshan everyone’s face was lit up with satisfaction of having Lord Venkateshwara’s darshan.
At 6:30 pm we started our return journey to Tirupati where we had to catch KSRTC [ www.ksrtc.org] volvo at 9:30 pm for Bangalore.

City Life and Gardens/Lake

Saturday:(18th Feb,2006)
This weekend was quite different than last three. For this weekend we had plans for Tirupati. But there was a chance that we might need to work on weekend, so we canceled that plan. On Friday night we came to know that there is no work for weekend. Then we decided to relax at home only. Late in the afternoon on Saturday we decided to go to Ulsoor Lake. This is good lake for evening walk or jogging. It has jogging track around it. We can get typical picnic spot like item like ‘Bhel’, ’Bhutta’ etc. We had ‘Bhutta’.
The walk was very pleasant and relaxing.
At around 7:30 it got really dark (There were lamp-posts but not lamps on that.) We left this place and went to Brigade road. This road is full of shopping Branded stores such as Rbk, Nike, Peter-England etc. After finishing our shopping we went to Restaurant called Ebony. This restaurant is open roof-top and on the 13th floor. It has a rocking lounge bar. The space is so costly; you have to take min 250 rupees coupons. We enjoyed the time in this bar. Basically we didn’t have any plans to go there but we had to wait to get the open terrace table at ‘Ebony’. Finally at 10:15 pm we got the table and we left the bar.
The restaurant food was too good. We had pastas and Cheese cake for desert. At around 12 we started back journey. This was the longest I stayed out in Bangalore.

Sunday: (19th Feb,2006)
Sunday also we didn’t have any special plans, so we decided to go to common hangout place in Bangalore that is ‘Forum mall’. We wanted to try different restaurant in our area for Lunch. We had very good lunch at ‘Spice Garden’. This is also a good restaurant.
At round 3:15 we reached ‘Forum Mall’. Here there is nothing new to do, just roam walk through shops. But this Sunday I bought a Novel written by ‘Jack Higgins’. I bought with the hope that I will start reading and try to finish that soon (As my rate of reading is slow).We took some snaps because that might be my last visit to that mall and last weekend in Bangalore. After all this we moved to ‘Lalbagh’, [http://www.discoverbangalore.com/lalbagh.htm] a botanical garden in Bangalore. By the time we reached there it was around 6:45 and almost dark. But this garden is well maintained and has lot of lighting, so there is no problem in roaming there after sun-set. This garden has one glass house. This glass house was lit up with lights. It was looking like palace. The bushes in this garden are shaped like animals such as Elephant, Bear etc. After a long walk at some point we lost the way. But finally taking reference of glass house we reached the exit. The ‘Bhel’ we got on way back was very disappointing. I tell you never eat any chat-item in Bangalore.
At end of these two days, I found that gardens and lakes enhance city's beuty and provide some relaxing moments for metro people from routine life.