Thursday, October 23, 2014

Travelogue 2


In the order of Latest-first (going back in order, w.r.t the latest trip), this is the 2nd tour that I went before my Kerala Trip(for which I've written a separate post ,the first part of the Travelogue series). Lord of Guruvayoor gave us chance to have his darshan in this tour. This tour has a nice prologue to be talked about.
I had been to a marriage of my engineering classmate where I met my Mechanical Branch classmates after a gap of 7 years! Ride down the memory lane kick-started and continued during dinner too where I was sitting beside this Adarsh (if I get a chance, I shall blog about this wonderful guy sometime) who was one among top 10 scorers of our batch. I got to know that he along with a bunch of machas (guys) do climb up the stairs of the Chamundi hills every Saturday early morning! Though I excitedly committed to join the group for this weekly-trek without fail, so far I’ve been able to make it only once. During the climb they were refining a tour plan which they had started to conceive some couples of weeks back. Ok, there is another coincidence as well. I had applied for leave on 25th and 28th of July 2014 to make it a long weekend as 29th was marked as public holiday in our company. I sometimes do that – applying leave in advance, so that I can plan something suitably later. This time though, I didn’t have to plan as well. All I did was packing the luggage a day before the trip.
Trip route summary: Kanyakumari – Suchindram (aka suseendram) – Trivandrum – Guruvayoor
No. Of Days: 3 Days 2 Nights
Mode of Travel: Train and Bus.
This was a unique trip in many ways. The machas had planned this trip with one main aim – to take the parents along. There were 7 machas in the group. Some had got both parents, some only one and some came sans parents. Some even got their cousins, siblings and friends (I got my friend Manoj pothkar apart from my mom). The team size kept on adding up on daily basis. This prompted the core committee to say “Done. No more seats” when finally the numbers touched the 20-mark.
Since the planning was done perfectly well before, there were not any hiccups in the trip. Rooms for stay were booked at Kanyakumari for night#1 and at Guruvayoor for night#2. Train tickets too were booked well in advance.
Trip was fairly simple. Day 1 Saturday we reached Nagercoil (train will not go to Kanyakumari as marketed by Railways. Nagercoil is the last stop) early morning by train from Bangalore. We then reached Kanyakumari by hiring 2 taxis. The day was spent at Kanyakumari. Since it was Amavaysa that day, we took bath in the ocean as it is considered very auspicious. We then took Darshan of Kanyakumari Devi at the temple near the beach and then came back to hotel. After having bath and lunch we left for Rock Memorial-Thiruvallavur statue islands. After coming back in evening, we went to Suchindram by hiring a mini bus. Spent good amount of time there. The temple is famous for the tall status of Lord Hanuman. This temple is very huge and has temples dedicated to many Gods and goddess. Out of them, the Brahma-Vishnu-Maheshwar god is very beautiful.  We had the Dinner at a hotel beside the temple and came back to Kanyakumari.
Day2 Sunday: Reached Trivandrum, capital city of Kerala by train from Nagercoil. Visited the Huge AnantaPadmanabhaSwamy Temple. As it was Sunday, there was a bit of crowd. Otherwise, we were told that there won’t be any rush or queues. Security is too tight. Male devotees should compulsorily wear Dhotis. No shirt/banians. Not even a towel should be there on top! Needless to say that mobiles and other electronic gadgets too will not be let to accompany with you inside. Female devotees should be in sarees. If wearing any other dress, they should wrap a dhoti kind of material just like how males wear the dhotis. No purse or baggage allowed. There will be lunch available for good amount of time. But you should wash the plates yourself afterwards. Don’t think you can just hold it under the tap water and put it back. There will be a quality supervisor sitting who collects the plate and checks it for cleanliness. If he finds it not clean, you need to go back and wash it again!
3 of my friends left for Bangalore from here by 4pm train. The rest of us travelled towards the abode of Supreme head of God – Lord Krishna. The Guruvayoor. The Jan Shatabdi express goes up to Thrissur. From here, we travelled by a local private bus to Guruvayoor which is 25KM from Thrissur. It was late night by the time we reached. We hardly slept for 2-3 hours. The next day being public holiday, we were warned by the Temple Guest house staff to expect serpentine queue. In worst case, we will have to spend the whole day in queue they said.
Day3 Monday: Not to take any chances, we resolved to make it to the queue by 4 am. Though we indeed reached there by that time, the queue had already grown by significant length but thankfully not as big as to consume the whole day. When we had almost come near the gate, doors were closed for an hour for the puja purpose (around 6-7am).  Once it opened the queue movement pace picked up and we had the darshan of lord by almost one hour.
The team split into 2 halves. One half travelled towards Bangalore by 10.30AM train (which they were able to catch by god’s grace, given the delay in Darshan). The other half, which included me, travelled towards Mysore by bus. We first travelled till Calicut from Guruvayoor. It was around 2pm when we reached Calicut, where we had the lunch at Saravan Bhavan near Bus stand(suspect it to be original saravana bhavan hotel. But nevertheless the food was good). Post lunch, we got direct bus (Kerala RTC) to Mysore from here.
Reached Mysore @9PM. I guess the blore group also reached their destination around same time. Everyone was happy with the planning and success of the trip. And as I say always, lord himself called all of us to his abode to give us blessings. Hari OM Tatsat.
 

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Khushboo Gujarat Ki - Mother of all Tours

You may think that you have come here for a trip, but let me tell you that it is because god gave you the permission to visit his home. That’s the reason why you are all here today, taking the blessings from lord himself. – as said by a pandit at Bhet Dwaraka.
Every strand of hair on my two hands was standing straight as I heard those words. The fact that the tour was successful stands testimonial to what the pandit said above and I strongly believe that anyone who reads this post will also agree to that.
It all started when the news about upcoming long weekend – the first weekend of month of October 2014, was floating around in office. The part of my brain that takes care of weekend/holiday planning got into action and started gathering the data –
  1. No. Of holidays
  2. Places being covered so far.
  3.  what place comes next in priority
  4.  who all may join
Let me discuss only point#3, rest being personal stuff which no reader of my blog will be interested in. In my Kanyakumari tour (I will shortly put a post on that), Manoj had made one point that he wants to explore more of North India from now since it is easy to do so when we are still young and can afford some extended leaves in office. This statement had settled down in some corner of my brain. When my brain kick-started planning, this remark came up for processing and I thought I should give it a try. But where north? Mumbai is the max point in north I’ve been to, on my own planning (have been to Delhi with parents when I was kid). Amitabh bachan surely is most charismatic person. His “Khushboo Gujarat ki”ad immediately flashed on my mind. Can I make it to Gujarat?? Seemed a bit difficult. But as pandit said, what happened in the last 2 weeks of August (I had smelled the October long weekend only in mid aug) still seems to be miracle for me. Lot of sleepless nights went into the planning. Let me present a short and crisp version of it –
  1. No. Of days of General holiday = 2 + 2(weekend) = 4 days – 2nd to 5th of October 2014
  2. No. Of days of leaves applied = 4 days – 30th of sept and 6th to 8th of October 2014
  3. Total holidays at disposal = 8 days.
  4. Onward journey –
    1. 30th of sept night – Mysore to Mangalore
    2. 1st of Oct 1pm – Mangalore to Mumbai.
    3. 2nd Oct 2pm – Mumbai to Ahmedabad (reached @ 9 PM)
  5. Return Journey –
    1. 7th Oct mrng 1a.m – Ahmedabad to Mumbai
    2. 7th Oct 5 PM – Mumbai to Mangalore
    3. 8th Oct – Mangalore to Mysore
I had to split the journey in the above fashion just because there were no tickets available for direct trains. I stayed at my relative’s place in Mumbai and at Guest house of LIC in Mangalore during transit. The above travel iternary itself is the first proof of how God made it possible for us to visit him. A few months before, I had fractured my Left toe finger due to some injury (yet to recover from it). There was a terrible pain when I had reached Mumbai on 1st Oct. But thanks to my family doc, I remembered one of the drug he had prescribed in case of severe pain. It worked for me.  Point #5b above – a reason for even an atheist to believe in god. I've underlined it since I've lot of memories with this journey. A goods train which had left before ours in the same route (not sure how long before) had got derailed! Thus our train was diverted to some other route and thus we passed thru Dudhsagar falls in Goa and all that before we reached Mangalore with full 7 hours delay!! Not just this. Another incidence happened related to this journey itself which I don’t want to write here as I want to forget it.
 
Coming back to the tour, I had booked the package tour – Saurashtra Darshan, of Gujarat tourism (govt). Details –
  1. 4 days 3 nights – 3rd Oct 2014 to 6th October
  2. 7500 INR per head
  3. Package includes Guide, AC bus and AC Accommodation.
  4. Imp places covered – Rajkot, Jamnagar,Porbandar,Dwarka,Nageswar,Somnath,Virpur.
I was writing down all the information about each day in my phone so that I don’t forget anything when I reach home. I will paste them as it is here (without editing the grammar also). The package was decent enough. The accommodation was pretty good as well as the bus. Guide was very helpful and gave good info about many things. Since it was a long weekend, the bus was fully booked. The trip started from Ahmedabad (in front of Sabarmati ashram, 6 am) and also ended at same place @ 8pm.
Before I paste the daily details let me thank the Almighty for making this tour possible without any hardships – Hari OM Tatsat.
 
Day1
Bf at Limdi,surendranagar dist. 8.30am. Start of saurashtra.
About guj:
Ahmedabad aka amdavad aka karnavati nagari was part of Mumbai till 1960.

Saurashtra also known as kathiawad. Ruled by krishna and ashoka. Holy part of guj.

Porbandar is famous for sudama and gandhi.

Kutch is divided into two. Greater rann of Kutch-white desert which looks like moon at night. Post monsoon when water dries sand looks like salt.
Little rann of Kutch-where wild ass is found.
Over1600 km of coastal line with 42 ports.kandla is major.
Ajanta clocks,reliance petrochemical ind,nano suzuki honda and several major industry. Cotton and peanut major crops.
Total 13airports highest in India.
2 jyotirling and one dham out of 4.
Only one hill station. Associated with lord ram vanvas.
Biggest network of roads. Even on borders.
Statue of unity is getting constructed near sardar vp dam which generates elec and provide water for agri.

When ahmed shah went in search of place to build new capital,he saw a rabbit threatening dog near sabarmati river. Decided to build city there after admiring power of sabarmati.
Gnagar is a newly formed capital of guj. Well planned and lots of greenery.

11.30 am Rajkot- alfred high school bldg. Rajkumar college.  Rk ashram.

1 pm lunch.

3.30 pm jamnagar. Darshan of lord hanuman at bal hanuman mandir where ram dhun (bhajan) is played by ppl non stop since 1964 thus entering Guinness book.
Raja jam ranjit singh famous for introducing cricket to india ruled

4.30 pm passed by reliance petrochemical refineries and then essar oil refinery

 7pm halt at Porbandar. Had darshan at sudama temple and dinner at nilesh parota house. Couldn't make it to chowpatty and khadi bandar.


End of day 1.
Day 2:

 Started from hotel at 7.30am. Scores of ppl soaked in pale red color were going towards Porbandar in all sorts of vehicles.

 
8.30 am- had darshan at harshad matha temple. Huge rush. Had bf and left at 9am.

1.30 pm finished darshan at bhet dwaraka. Place where sudama met lord krishna with a handful of beaten rice. Considered as home of lord. The other dwaraka which we say main one is actually office of lord known as gomati dwaraka. Lord's idol is 5000 years old and has golden pillars around. Temple outer structure is made of pale pink granite with beautiful carving which depicts life of lord Krishna. Bhet dwaraka is located on an island and one needs to take boat to reach there. Inaccessible during monsoon due to heavy waves. Place will be taken out of list by tourism dept from 15th July to 15th October. Luckily by Lord's grace we were able to get the darshan on this day of 4th October. Okha port- where we catch boat to go to bhet dwaraka is last stop of western railway.

 Left for nageshwar jyotirling from here.

 3pm - left nageshwar after having darshan. Lots of ppl due to holiday.

 Didn't had lunch yet.

 3pm - finally lunched at dwaraka.

 4.30 pm- Rukmini temple.

 5.30 pm - checked into hotel and left for night arati darshan at temple.

10.30 pm- back to hotel. A sense of fulfillment flowing inside having seen the lord during aarati. Guide explained everything beautiful. Had dinner too. A local lassi shop was serving tasty lassi at 15rs. I had 2.

End of day 2

Day 3 :

 Checked out of hotel @ 6am.

8.30am reached Porbandar. Visited kirti mandir-Gandhi's birth place. His home is maintained as is without any alteration. 3floor bldg with 19 rooms. Another bldg has been constructed newly, connected with home, for museum. Together the place is called as kirti mandir. Ironically,surrounding place is very dirty as cattle & dogs have made roads as their loo and paan spitting bins by humans.

10.30 am - crossed madhavpur town. This s the place where lord Krishna had married Rukmini. Goddess Rukmini is from a village near Amaravati in maharashtra(called as Vidharbha back then).when her parents decided to marry her off to Shishupal,she writes a letter to lord to rescue her. Lord kidnaps her and brings her to dwaraka where he marries her at madhavpur.

 Lord then vists his guru Durvasa rishi for blessing and asks him to come to dwaraka for function (I guess).sage asks lord to take him in a cart pulled by the couple as he is a sage with no carts or horses to travel. Lord agrees. On the way Rukmini mata feels thirsty and requests lord to provide water. Lord just knocks the ground with toe and water springs out. Both of them quench their thirst but forget to offer water to sage. Out of anger the sage cursed them that they will live separate for 12yrs,dwaraka will not have sweet water for drinking and their temple shall get constructed at far from each other. That's why goddess Rukmini temple is located at outskirts while Lord's temple is inside.(We visited Rukmini temple on day 2) 
12.10 pm- crossed chorwad - birth place of Dhirubhai Ambani.
Moving towards Bhalka Teerth. Bhalka is arrow. This is the place where lord was shot by an arrow fired by hunter.
As per research,lord was born on midnight od 21st June 3228 B.C and lived till 2pm of 18th feb 3102 B.C. 125 years.  At the time of mahabharath he was 89 years old.
Lord was cursed by kunti that like the way he destroyed kuru clan,yadavs clan will also meet its end  36 years after the war.
Yadavs were super knowledge ppl.once while playing,a group of children tried to test the power of a sage who was passing by. They made a boy look like a girl by magical power and asked the sage whether she gives birth to a boy or girl. The sage cursed them that he'll not give birth to anybody but will be responsible for extinction of yadavs by one iron piece. So in order to ensure safety of the clan yadavs throw all iron things into sea except for one small piece which was similar to arrow head. This gets into a fish which finally falls into the lap of the hunter who uses it to shoot lord.
When the hunter cries in grief realising his mistake,lord consoles hin by telling him about their previous births. Hunter-Vali and Lord Krishna-as lord Rama. When Vali asked Rama why he killed from hiding when the fight was going on between him and his brother sugreeva, lord Rama is believed to have consoled him by saying that.
He (Rama)will be killed in his next avatar by vali.

1.30 pm bhalka Teerth.

 2 pm -Geetha mandir- This is the place where lord balaram got back into his real form of Sesh Nag and went back to patal (under the ground).

 Triveni - Sangam (confluence) of harini (or hiranya not sure) Saswati as gupta gamini (flowing under the ground) and one more river.

 Many ppl believe that sarswati river has dried up. But a lot of research has now supported what majority of hindus believe-flowing under the ground. There is a interesting story behind thus belief. When Lord Ganapathi was writing Mahabharath as per the oral recital by Lord Vedavyas beside the River Sarswati, lord Ganapathi was loosing concentration due to the flowing sound of river. Thus upon request by lord Ganapathi,lord Vedavyas asked river for help and she immediately agreed and started to flow under the ground. This is the river beside which Goud Saraswat Brahmins used to live long time ago. I will cover this story in another post.

 Somnath - The another major attention of tour. There are 2 temples here now. New one built by Sardar Vallabhai Patel which is just marvellous and the old one built by Rani ahalya devi some 800years ago.

 There was this great King called Daksha who had 27 daughters had married them all to Lord Moon. Moon aka Chandra Devata used ti love Rohini out of his 27 wives. Daksha cursed him to become ugly when Chandra Devata didn't mend his way even after request by Daksha. Thus having realised his folly Of Being pride about his beauty,Chandra Devata decided to do penance to invoke blessings of lord Shiva. When Lord shiva appears,he says that he can't nullify the curse but can relax it to a extent. Thus Chandra Devata will become bright for 15 days and get dull for 15 days in a month. Som =Moon and Nath = Shiva. This place is also known as Prabhas Pathan and is the most holiest and first Jyotirling.

 The original temple which was looted more than 17times was believed to have the Jyotirling floating in air a little above the ground which was destroyed and plundered by Muslim invader ghazni. So much so that nothing remained in its place.

 One night, Rani Ahalya Devi got a dream that she should get a spot near the plundered site excavated and build a temple with the Ling idol that she will find during excavations. This temple which is more than 800 years old is now known as old temple after the Iron Man of India,the first home minister of independent India,built the new temple in the original spot.

 Security is very stringent and one cannot even wear a belt while entering. Free cloakroom facilities are provided to deposit our stuffs. The chowpatty behind the temple is excellent and provides a magnificent view of sea. Shri Patel's statue is placed right in front of the temple maha dwar. 
 5pm- pit stop at roadside tea stop. Proceeding towards Junagad now.

7.30 pm checked into Toran hotel at Junagad. Toran is chain of hotels maintained by Gujarat  tourism dept. Avg cost is 2000. Hotel is pretty old but decent and well maintained. Only problem I found is lack of lift facility. The other 2 nights we were made to stay in pvt hotels. They were also good. Avg cost in those hotels were 1500 to 2000.

 Food is not included in the package. Hence we had to go out on our for dinner. But rhe Toran hotel at Junagad is located at sone corner with no street lights on rhe roads outside. So here they arranged for food in hotel itself.

End of day 3.
Day 4 - Final day

8am -checked out of hotel.
Junagad celebrates independence day on 9th of November. It was on this day of year 1947 that the last nawab of Junagad escaped to Pakistan after a stern warning by Sardar Vallabhai Patel to stop his tricks to add Junagad to pak. Thus this place got it's independence 85 days after india got.

 The state of Junagad was supposed to be 2nd prosperous after state of Baroda. This place is famous for Kesar mango. Also the most hily hill - Ginar parvat is located here. There are 4 Tirthadham of jains located atop this hill and also it's believed that lot of holy Sadhu do their penance here. 10k steps-one needs to take to reach top. State's effort to get a ropeway built is met with stern protest by Jain folks.

 There is a fort here inside which Junagad was located earlier before the nawabs developed outer city. This fort is built in 11th century and still very strong. There was a queen named Ranak devi whi used to live here once and was famous for her beauty. A raja of gujarat wanted to take her away with him but failed to enter the fort and waited outside for 12yrs.

9.30am - reached Radha Damodar temple. There is a cave here where lord Krishna got Rakshas Kalyavan killed. When Lord was coming from Mathura,Kalyavan followed hum thinking that the Lord is running being afraid of him. Lord cannot kill him directly due to some reason which I'm not clear. Thus he gets him to this cave by trick. A king who had renounced the world was sleeping Here and gets woken up by this demon. The demon gets burnt up when the King's sight falls on him. The king had a boon rhat whoever disturbs him from sleep would die by getting burnt up.

 10am - reached Mrigi kund(pond). A temple similar to one atop Girinar hills is constructed here for benefit of those who can't climb the hills. During Mahashivrathri highly supernatural sadhus who do penance in hills come here to take bath in pond and it is believed that on an avg 1 sadhu out of 100 will not come out. He will disappear or attain moksh. More than 12 lakh ppl gather here on that day.

11am- reached Virpur. This small town 1km off highway is famous for Jalaram Bapu temple.

Jalaram Bapu was born on 9th of November 1799 and was famous for generosity. Once a sadhu came to his house and told him that he has heard a lot about him and wants to know whether he will fulfill his wish too? Bapu agreed and the sadhu asked give him his wife. Bapu was a little sad and discussed the matter with his wife. His wife thinks for a while and tells him that she doesn't want to tarnish his name and thus will go with the sadhu.

 The sadhu rhen leaves the place along with Bapu's wife and upon reaching outskirts of the place hands over a danda and jholi (bag) to her and asks her to go back to home by saying that they don't have to beg and eat anymore.

 When she comes back and narrates the story to her husband, Bapu immediately understands that the sadhu is no ordinary person but lord Rama himself In disguise. Bapu being a big follower if lord Rama immediately runs to the spot where his wife had left him but doesn't find anyone there. Upon reaching home he gets a pleasant surprise. A swayambhu (self evolved) idol of Lord Hanuman would be there at the spot where they had left the bag and Danda.

In the temple you can see the danda and Jholi as well as real photo of Bapu taken by some londoner.

Food is available 24hrs all day and not a single rupee is accepted as donation here now since already so many people have done so much of donation.

We did sime saree shopping here and then left for lunch.

1.30 pm - had lunch at Toran hotel on highway and started to ahmedabad where the tour will end officially.

7pm - back to Toran hitek opposite Sabarmati Ashram Ahmedabad. Tour ends here officially. Everyone was overcome with emotions. Thanks to gujarat tourism.