We friends decided to tour tirupathi to pay a visit to Lord Balaji at TTD (TIRUMALA TIRUPATHI DEVASTAHANAM). A day before the tour there was a little confusion as two of our friends opted out of the tour.
We Decided to go by car and park our car at the base of the mala and walk to the top. We took the red hills - periyapalayam - uthukottai - tirupati road. We had trouble driving through the roads after crossing redhills. After we traveled around 50 km we reached Andhra Pradesh and the roads were back to normal.
After reaching thirupathi we parked our car at TTD’s main office and took an auto to Aliperi. Aliperi is the starting place for pilgrimages to walk up the mountains by footsteps.TTD must be praised for maintaining the place in good shape.
On the way up the mountains, we could obtain free tickets for darshan from office set-up by TTD, especially for people who walk up to visit temple. The tickets are free of cost and are given only at “Kali koburam”. Though the tickets are given there we had to cover some more distance to get seal, just to make sure that we complete the trip by walk to the top thirupathi. Advantages of the tickets have been reduced in the recent past, after giving free ladus at start they have stoped it now. In the start they give preference for those with nadapatha ticket over others. But, now they allow us along with other tickets after certain point. The advantages still remain. We arrived at our booked accommodation after receiving the clearance and rested for a while.
After freshening up we started for the temple and entered the day was April 4th and because of exams for students the crowd was quit less. We are always scared of the crowd in thirupathi Last time when my frieds went to thirupathi on July 17 2010, due to a specia pooja for lord venkatesh for being captured by kuberan for not payin back the loan. The temples where closed for public for a very long time and the crowdes unaware of this stood for hours together. My friends estimated that they waited in the Queue for more than 5 hrs. It’s all about timing if you want to have a wonderful dharshan in thirupathi.
The dharshan was wonderful and I miss the old days when I went closer to the lord more often than now, but still the energy of the people never fails to take away this small set back.
We got ready early in the morning and acquired a taxi to get down the mountain to the car. There was little traffic and reached our homes sooner than we came.
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