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This blog narrates my trip to Tirupati with my friends on 26-Nov-2005. We were six in total: Ravi, Swayam, Raj, Sriram, Vijay and me. We thought of going from a week before but then we could not decide as in that week we heard that some boulders were falling onto the road and the ghat road was dangerous.
On Wednesday we decided that we will go, and booked the tickets on Thursday. Since we were a little late in making our decision, we got reservation for only on an express bus. We left on Friday from office using company buses.
We reached Majestic bus station and had our sumptuous dinner. Still there was a lot of time left for the bus to start but we didn't have anything to do, so we had to wait about 2 hrs. Finally we boarded the bus and the bus reached Tirupati at around 5:00 AM.
It was a journey which we would not like to recollect. Reaching there we waited in the queue for tokens, and after one hour or so in the queue, we got our tokens for darshanam. We went to Tirumala and started our search for accommodation. We took one of the Guesthouses, of which the room rent was Rs.50/-. We took three rooms for ourselves. We reached the rooms around 7:30 AM. Although all of us were thinking of taking rest, we had to force ourselves to get ready. Out of six of us only Vijay had his head tonsured. Once it was done, we took a bath in one of the complexes provided by TTD (Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam).
Some of us had breakfast before we started for the queue complex. We reached the queue complex by 9:30 AM and entered the queue. It took around 5 hrs. to get the view of Lord Venkateswara for us. We came out took prasadam (laddus ) and finished our lunch by 3:30 PM.
We started for a local trip in an Omni for Rs.450/- at around 4:00 PM. We covered Papavinashanam, Akasaganaga, Narayana padam and Stone arch. When we reached the place of stone arch, the gate of it was closed as usual and we had to be satisfied with a glimpse of it from behind the gate. It is said that two rocks which depict Shankh and Chakra are there near the stone arch. We were about to return when we were told that we can view a small waterfall named Chakrateertha very near to the stone arch.
I was very surprised because I visited that place few times before but never knew that the water fall was there. We with our loads of enthusiasm went near (less than 5 min.s walk from stone arch) the water fall. We crossed the mini waterfall to find a small temple on the other side of it. The temple was on a mini hill(?)which you have to climb as there are no proper steps. After taking some snaps there, we started and reached to our rooms around 7:30 PM after our local site tour. We had our dinner and a small walk near the main temple. We came back to our rooms to take some rest as we have a long journey planned next day, to enjoy.
In all our enthusiasm and enjoyment we forgot to book the return tickets to Bangalore. Next day we found that there were no tickets available in any of the buses other than a luxury bus, and we decided to go for it. After booking the tickets we came down to Tirupati. We had our breakfast and started for Kanipakam, which we reached around 9:00 AM. In Kanipakam, after having the darshan, we looked for a statue of Vinayaka which resembles Kanipakam vinayaka but we couldn't find it.
Ravi got a snap with an elephant over there. After this we started to Tirupati, which we reached by lunch time. During the journey from Kanipakam to Tirupati, we saw the Chandragiri fort, which I was interested in, but couldn't include in our hectic schedule.
We had our lunch and started off to SriKalahasthi. We reached SriKalahasthi around 3:00 PM, kept our luggage in one of the private cloakrooms and went to see the temple. After having seen the temple, we thought of going to the top of hill near by to a see one more temple over there, where it is said that the devotee Kannappa has sacrificed his eyes to Lord Shiva. Meanwhile we found that there is a water fall (again :-)) and we decided to go there as none of us have gone there before. We bargained with an auto for to & fro charges of Rs.120/- and went there around 4:00 PM.
To reach the temple, we have to climb two hills. The two hills are separated by a small stream of water which you can see at the foot of the first hill itself. We climbed both the hills and reached the temple, which was small, on top of the second hill. Near to the temple we were told that the same water stream flows, and in the time when water is not coming from upper hills, one can see the water starting from the foot of a (Mango/Neem) tree. We went there to find water coming from upper hills.
There was one more, small temple with sphatika (crystal) lingam in it. Near the place where the water falls from a (around) 15 ft. high place, there was a shallow place with a diameter of around 10 ft. Three of us went into
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