A Trip to Tirupathi

I guess this is the right season to meet Venky. Do you know why?

* Less crowd as it is not a vacation time

* Easy to book a lodge

* Less rush in footpath pilgrim route

* Good Darshan without Jarugandi Jarugandi

* Easy to get Lodu @ Lodu counter ;)

* Hair shaving queue and waiting time is minimum

I was @ Tirupathi last week with my family. Let me freak out my experience about the trip. We started from here by 3 pm on Wednesday(3rd Nov). It was a 145 Km journey and took around 4 hours for us to reach Tiruchanoor. We drove on the NH-05 connecting Chennai and Tirupathi. The Road between Tiruthani -- Nagari was a real mess with loads of Humps and Bumps, may be due to the rain. We visited Alamelumanga temple at Tiruchanoor, which is situated at the foothills of Tirupathi. We had very easy Darshan and got sweet Pongal as prasadam. We also got Tiruchanoor ladus (This one is different from the one which we get from Tirumala). After that we checked into hotel Mayura, keil Tirupathi. Next day early morning by 5.30 am we started from the hotel to the footpath pilgrim starting point. After having a cup of tea we started walking up the hill. After 2 1/2 hours and 2000 steps, we reached the Galigopuram, where we got our free Divyadarshan tokens. Then we found a Idly shop nearby and had our breakfast [hmm.. not that much good Idly :( but Dosa was ok]. Then it took us another 2 1/2 hours to reach the last step(3550th step). On the way we were attracted by statues of 10 avatars of Lord Vishnu, and 12 aalvars (It was actually a pitstop for us to relax), stream of flowing water, small water falls, sapthagiri green valley's view point, deer park, different kind of snails, beetles, dragonflies.... I missed out one more thing in the list, ie. Leopard posters and not the real Leopard (Thank Venky, I din't see those). Then we enqueued into the Srivari free darshan queue. It took us about 2 hours to reach the Venky's sanathi as we were interrupted in between by a Swami Oorvoolam. But it is a real worth waiting time as we had a peaceful darshan without Jarugandi Jarugandi. I don't think there is much difference between Rs.300 special ticket and Rs.20 free darshan ticket. May be this is because of the thinner crowd. After darshan we were servered with pulisaadam as prasadam. Then we proceeded towards the ladu counter. I was amazed seeing the counter. Previously there was only one counter which was tailed by a veryyy long queue. Now they have set up many queues separately for Rs.20, Rs.50, Rs.300 tickets. This is really cool. Within 10 mins of wait time we were all issued the Tirumala ladus. Then we had a light lunch in a small hotel nearby and left down to the hotel. It was about 5.30 pm when we started from there and reached home by 10.00 pm.

If you plan to walk up the Tirumala hill here are few tips that may be useful:

* Carry a bottle of water and glucose or juice.

* Have few candies(instant energy booster) in your pocket.

* If possible carry few fruits like banana, orange, grapes, biscuits. If not you can get those on your way too. You can use them to feed the deers too ;)

* Have handkerchief or hand towel. 100% sweating is guaranteed.

* It will be good to have moov or iodex.

* Usually 80% footpath route has shades. But it is better to carry an umbrella or cap depending on the climatic condition.

* Few people say that we should walk on barefoot. But it is easier to walk with shoes.

* Now a new rule(Gandhian) is imposed on the pilgrim. It is regarding the clothes which we wear while meeting Venky. Men are supposed to be in shirt & pant or dothies and women in salwar or saree. They boycott foreign clothes.

* One more rule is that they levy fine if we are found littering the place. It is around Rs.100. I was surprised to see a tea seller(in cycle) having a large plastic bag in front of his cycle to put the used tea cups in them. This sort of commitment would definitely keep the place greener and cleaner forever :)

* Of course carry a camera if you would like to get snaps near the deer, falls, streams, view point.

* Don't carry flowers or garland. We were not allowed to carry flowers to Venky's sanathi. I don't know whether there is some other way to carry it for Venky :(

Few clicks

Pitstop

Galigopuram

Feeding biscuits to the deer

Small water falls

Anjaneya statue

Last 3550th step

Anju