Our first journey to Varanasi....<The most famous pilgrim place - Kasi Viswanatha Jyothirlingam>
Got
up early and started getting ready, its 7am. Massive crowd in front of the
hotel.
Again got into the buses and started towards Sangam – for holy bath at
Triveni Sangamam.
Here weather was too hot. Reached by 9:30am and had breakfast. Some folks are behind us asking for money by putting some vibhudi on our head and acting like sadhu/sanyasi….Also people are selling curd with sugar/salt to survive in that hot
All the ladies had fun time – there was a comb come clip which can be used various ways and that person was giving a demo and also combing hair for all those pilgrim visiting ladies and this looks like this J
Howz it?
Now its time for taking the bath at holy place – Triveni Sangamam. They charged 100/- per head and while taking the bath at a place where actual sangam takes place (Ganga – in light yellow colour, Yamuna – Green colour and Saraswathi as antharavahini) for moving to that place, they will charge 20/- per person just to get into the water from that boat J
After
this, some of them were doing doing pujas/ pinda pradan at this place. Next we are about to
go to Hotel and on our way we visited Hanuman Mandir and Madhaveshwar Shakthi
Pith temples. This time it’s too hot outside.
1-2
hours break and then started to Varanasi , on our way visited Sitha Madi temple
The speciality of this temple is the place where Sita devi went inside the earth. This temple is full of small caves which is attracting pilgrims. Also its been maintained very well with digital hoardings which talks about Sri Ramayan past times…Also there is a lotus pond garden surrounding this temple.
For more details : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dsd89oxqViU
After this break for dinner and started towards Kashi and reached around mid-night 12am.
Checked into the Hotel - Mahesh,.
After having breakfast headed towards Kala Bhairava Temple, we already got info about the places here so did not take any valuable things with us. It was heavy rush in the temple and interestingly all of the temples in Kashi were in small streets only. There will not be any sign boards and directions while reaching after the main road. Also lot people will be asking money to keep any stuff and forces to buy from their shop something or other. Somehow we managed to get inside the temple. Just in front of us someone theft gold chain of a lady who was standing and she started shouting while crying…luckily that chain fell someone’s footsteps and she immediately given to her. Interestingly none of the folks within the temple premise reacted… So one should be very careful. We are back to hotel room and by that time food is ready. Had lunch and rest for 2 hours.
In the evening went to Ganga Harathi and the ghat’s from boat. The local autos are good and they charge 120/- to 150/- per trip one way and can take up to 5-6 people. For the boat it started with 2.5K and then finally we got it for 1400/- for manual one. There are motor boats which will also cost around 250-300 per person, this needs minimum number of passengers to start with.
Had
a glimpse of major ghat’s and stopped in the middle to watch Ganga Harathi. We watched
from the boat. During this all the lights will turn off and
only those ghat section areas will have the lights turn on. One should not miss
this one. Now again back to Hotel and time for dinner.
Back to Hotel and
rest for the day and started packing our luggage for return journey.
After the dinner everyone got into cabs and reached DDU railway station and got into Sanghamitra Train.
We
boarded into Sanghamitra train from KSR Bangalore and got down at Allahabad
approximately 42 hours.We have got few hundreds of fellow travelers as a group
joined in the same journey. All of us got orange colour caps, id cards with
venue details and contact phone numbers in case of any help during the travel.By
the time when we reached Allahabad, it’s almost mid-night 1am and all of us got
into a bus, which dropped us at hotel - 'Hotel Prayag'
Here weather was too hot. Reached by 9:30am and had breakfast. Some folks are behind us asking for money by putting some vibhudi on our head and acting like sadhu/sanyasi….Also people are selling curd with sugar/salt to survive in that hot
All the ladies had fun time – there was a comb come clip which can be used various ways and that person was giving a demo and also combing hair for all those pilgrim visiting ladies and this looks like this J
Howz it?
Now its time for taking the bath at holy place – Triveni Sangamam. They charged 100/- per head and while taking the bath at a place where actual sangam takes place (Ganga – in light yellow colour, Yamuna – Green colour and Saraswathi as antharavahini) for moving to that place, they will charge 20/- per person just to get into the water from that boat J
Back
to Hotel and break for lunch. Since the cook was also came along with us, home made food and waiting to be served now.
The speciality of this temple is the place where Sita devi went inside the earth. This temple is full of small caves which is attracting pilgrims. Also its been maintained very well with digital hoardings which talks about Sri Ramayan past times…Also there is a lotus pond garden surrounding this temple.
For more details : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dsd89oxqViU
After this break for dinner and started towards Kashi and reached around mid-night 12am.
Checked into the Hotel - Mahesh,.
After having breakfast headed towards Kala Bhairava Temple, we already got info about the places here so did not take any valuable things with us. It was heavy rush in the temple and interestingly all of the temples in Kashi were in small streets only. There will not be any sign boards and directions while reaching after the main road. Also lot people will be asking money to keep any stuff and forces to buy from their shop something or other. Somehow we managed to get inside the temple. Just in front of us someone theft gold chain of a lady who was standing and she started shouting while crying…luckily that chain fell someone’s footsteps and she immediately given to her. Interestingly none of the folks within the temple premise reacted… So one should be very careful. We are back to hotel room and by that time food is ready. Had lunch and rest for 2 hours.
In the evening went to Ganga Harathi and the ghat’s from boat. The local autos are good and they charge 120/- to 150/- per trip one way and can take up to 5-6 people. For the boat it started with 2.5K and then finally we got it for 1400/- for manual one. There are motor boats which will also cost around 250-300 per person, this needs minimum number of passengers to start with.
Next day, early morning started for Kashi
Vishwanath Darshan, there are 4 gates to get into this temple. We are not sure
which gate we are into. The auto guy dropped us at gate-3 looks like near for
him and there is a big queue. So we already knew that one should not carry
anything because security will not allow other than flowers/ milk, planned
accordingly. After the security check is done we can see the left side broken
temple compound and a masjid and right side vishwanath mandir. Had darshan of
Lord Kashi Vishwanath and we can offer flowers / milk directly onto the
Jyotirlinga. Spent some time inside the temple and then exited by gate-1 to
visit Annapoorneshwari temple. There are no sign boards and one should always
ask near the shop people or police to get into the correct route. Those streets
are hardly 30ft. you can see scooters also riding in same route. Finally
reached Kashi Annapoorneshwari Temple and done Pooja there (kunkuma archana for
350/- per person) and headed towards Kashi Visalakshi Shakthi Peet. We could
see people behind us to buy bangles and offer to Vishalakshi. After the darshan
we need to walk a little to get an auto which will take us to the hotel. In the
middle did some shopping as well in those streets
.
Back to Hotel and rest till
evening.
Evening took an auto and roamed
around nearby places: They charge 100/- to 200/- per person depends on the
number of places we choose.
Tridev Mandir
Hanuman Mandir
Tulasi Manasa Mandir
Durga Mandir
Gavvalamma Temple
ISKCON temple
Next
day early morning went to Ganga snan in the holy river Ganga.
After the dinner everyone got into cabs and reached DDU railway station and got into Sanghamitra Train.
Reached home with memories and ended our Kashi Yatra!
