The Indian Rail Budget

The railway minister seems to have indeed given a populist budget. He has announced 10 new Garib Rath trains apart from reductions in fare. Eventhough people feel that the travel fares have not been considerably reduced, the minister has been successful in keeping the fares constant, in the sense that they have not increased. He has also maintained consistency in this. The fares have been more or less the same for the last four years.

Whatever said and done, at the end of the day, things are conducive for promoting travel and tourism in the country. The steps taken by the railway minister and other connected ministers can take indian tourism to great heights is what is my hope.

Ooty to Tirupati

Google searches made by many individuals from various places have lead to my blog frequently. This has made me to give details of travel from Ooty to Tirupati. From Ooty, there is no direct way to reach Tirupati. I don't know of any travel operator providing cab facility from Ooty to Tirupati. But one easier way to reach would be through railways.

From Ooty, reach Mettupalayam by the Nilgiris passenger. Then from Mettupalayam, an overnight train (Nilagiri Express) would lead you to Chennai. There will be tour operators who ply between Chennai and Tirupati. One can reach Tirupati from Chennai by train (Chennai Tirupati Sapthagiri Express). Alternatively use Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam's tour package. This again is available from Chennai. I don't think so that they run any transport buses from Ooty. To have more details regarding tour packages run by the Devasthanam, visit www.tirumala.org which is the Devasthanam's official website.

For any ticket bookings or other details please contact me at shridr@gmail.com or at +91-9940171287. My name is Shridhar.

Travel to Tirupati (Info on accomodation, restaurants and places to visit)

I consider myself fortunate for having got an opportunity to travel to one of the most well known and most sought after places by pilgrims and general tourists alike, not only from India but also from across the world. This is one of the prime abodes of lord Vishnu, who in turn is one of the hindu trinity gods-namely Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. This place is also listed II in the list of 108 divya desams. The first one is Srirangam which is also called Bhooloka Vaikuntham, or the prime abode of lord Vishnu on the earth.

Tirupati is also one of the most crowded pilgrimages. So, all the more it is very difficult to get the darshan of the lord. People stand for hours in the queue to have darshan of the lord.

It was the wedding anniversary of one of our relatives and we had planned to join them on the occasion.

There is more to tirupati than the main temple. The highlight of this trip was that we were able to visit places and temples other than the main one in Tirupati. First we visited the Panchamukha Anjaneyar shrine in Tiruvallur, which was under construction. We had darshan of lord hanuman who had five faces, namely- hanuman, narasimha, hayagriva, varaha and garuda. The deity was so huge that one can have part darshan from outside the temple.

Next we went to the Veeraraghava perumal temple at Tiruvallur which is one amongst the 108 divya desam classified by Ramanuja who was the architect of Vaishnavism or worship of lord Vishnu. We went to the pushkarni (holy lake) called Hrittapanasini, there which is known for its sanctity. There is an old belief that if jaggery is dissolved into this lake then all diseases will be cured. The tank is so holy that evens a sight or a touch or a bath would immediately dispel all anguish of heart. As usual, at the centre of the tank there is a mandapam, where seasonal Festivals are performed. But when we went near the lake, we could see that it was extremely dirty and we found garbage lying on it.

From there, we went to Tirupati during late afternoon as we had to reach there quickly as some persons amongst us were to climb the hill on foot and rest by car. We reached the place in the night.

Good Restaurants in Tirupati: The best we found was Bhimas Deluxe in Tiruchanoor Road near Govindarajaswami temple. The food there was par excellence. Don’t forget to ask for Gonghra chutney (hope I have spelt correctly) there. This chutney can be used as sidedish to Dosas etc and also mixed with rice and taken. But some may find this place expensive.

Other less expensive but good quality restaurants in Upper Tirupati (i.e where the presiding deity is) were Anjanadri (formerly Annapoorna hotel) and Annamayya which is guest house cum hotel. When overcrowded, tokens are issued and people are called when there is place inside in the order of the token number.

We visited temples like that of Sri Kalyana Venkateswarar in Srinivasa Mangapuram. After that we went to Papavinasanam falls, the next morning. Then we took some rest in the afternoon and then went for the darshan. The entire ambiance of the temple was so superb that I felt like relaxing there for a while. The lord is well decoratedas a groom.

We had booked for the special arjitha seva. It was a small prayer (pooja) followed by renditions of few annamayya sankeerthanams. We went for the darshan after the pooja and to my surprise, there were no people behind our crew and we were the last set, for the moment from start to the darshan. I was feeling very uncomfortable as this place is a big crowd puller and there is no body.

But still, the davasthanam people were pushing us out of the chamber where the main lord is. So, whether there’s crowd or not, it seems that the devasthanam people have got habituated to the characteristic pushing with the word jargabndi which means “move”.

It would be more comfortable if people can stay put at Tirupati for more than one day and have darshan। One can cover many places if they also visit places that come on the way while going to Tirupati or places near Tirupati। Few of such places are Tiruvallur, Tiruttani, Nallattoor, Srikalahasti, Veyyanjeri etc.