Tirupathi - Alipiri to Tirumala by Foot

I took these snaps when we walked up to Tirumala sometime in 2007.

1. This is the plateau after you cross the Gaali Gopuram. We usually rest here for a few minutes and have a cup of tea and then continue on our walk.

2 and 3. The spotted deer in the deer sanctuary. Most of us feed the deer with cucumbers and carrots bought from the lady who sits close by.

Birla Mandir - Hyderabad

Here is something from my Trunk. I discovered this rather old (3 years) snap of Birla Mandir, Hyderabad while organising my album on Picasa. We had stopped by Hyderabad when returning from Kolkatta. I always make it a point to pay a visit to this temple while in the city. The other must stop destinations are the Salarjung Museum and the Golconda Fort. We were fortunate to see the exhibition of the nizams Jewels during our visit.

Thirunelli Temple - Wayanad

TTD Digitises wall inscriptions

On each visit to Thirumala while in the Darshan queue I always attempted to make sense of the inscriptions on the walls. Though a lot of it was in Tamil I've noticed Telugu and Kannada as well. I've been very curious to know what our predecessors wanted to convey to future generations. This has been made possible with TTD digitising the wall inscriptions and plans to load them on to the internet for public viewing.

This news item appeared in the last page of this morning's "The Hindu". The Archeological Survey of India has completed the job of taking imprints of the scripts on the walls of the Temple. Read the complete news item here.

Sabari Yatra - Some Snaps

Ahobilam - Snaps during Journey

I found some snaps in my digital photo basket that didn't make it to the blog posts. The first is a few snaps I clicked on my Journey to Ahobilam by Bus. The bus had the old style seating, a long seat on the right side of the bus that's supposed to seat three and the shorter seat that supposed to seat two now available only on rural routes. Having got used to push-back seats and air conditioned travel the was difficult with these uncomfortable seats and no leg space. We couldn't catch some sleep either. In the middle of the night the bus stopped by a temple and we were served food. Yes it was cooked and carried along. The cooks travelled along. These snaps were clicked with my Palm Treo. The resolution is low.

The second set is a few clicked on my Sabarimala Yatra. I've posted this seperately.

Next Narasimha Swamy Yatra

I am planning my next Narasimha Swamy Yatra. I plan to visit the following places
1. Polur near Thiruvannamalai
2. Singar Kovil near Vellore

And the following places in the subsequent trip
1. Palayasevaram - On the road from Chengalpet to Kanchipuram
2. Avaniyapuram - Near Kanchipuram
3. Narasingapuram - Near Kanchipuram

Except for Palayasevaram my research on the web hasn't yielded much on the other places. I am comfortable with Narsingapuram because I have several relatives who belong to that place. Planning to hit the road in two weeks time. Hoping to complete gathering the sthala puranam and other details before hand.

Shri Pathala Pratyankara Devi Temple, Morattandi, Puducherry (Pondicherry) - One year Later

I have bee here every month over the last 15 months. Little has changed except that I see a lot more visitors , this time around I saw westerners. We did the Abhishekam 7th Feb 09. Close by someone is building a Navagraha Temple with large idols of the Grahas. Loking forward to another 12 months of darshan.

Travel Tools

Apart from the many Lonely Planet guide books I use several web resources. Here are three of them that I use very often

Wikitravel - An exhaustive resource of information for travellers by travellers. This is a must read before embarking on any journey.

Tripit - A social networking site with a travel theme where you can update your travel itinerary. Tripit will inform you if it finds any of your close friends in the vicinity

Travel Advisor -I often use their Localpicks application on Facebook to update my views on restaurants. The site gives you a great deal of information about cities. Their commercial tieups offer you deals and discounts depending on your country of residence.