Tirumala trip (Part II)

After reaching Tirmuala, we went to the luggage collection office, but found that the luggage has not yet reached. Instead of waiting for the luggage, we went to the central office, where a cottage is alloted. As we had reserved for a cottage at the TTD office in Bangalore, there was not much problem in getting the cottage alloted. Otherwise, for the current booking of the cottage, there was a long queue of about 200 people! We got the cottage alloted in VSGH II(Varaha swamy guest house). One of them in the queue suggested to take the room in VSGH II, as its supposed to be newly constructed and is also not far from the temple. The closest to the temple is Rambaghicha guest house, but it looked like a very old building. As the VSGH was 2 km away from the main office, we were waiting to get an auto. To my surprise, there were only a few autos, but there were a huge number of jeeps/cabs who were taking people from one place to another on sharing basis. We boarded a cab and arrived at VSGH II. Here, we are supposed to sign in at the main VSGH and then only get the keys from VSGH II official. After that, we finally got into our room. The room was not good, but the other rooms, which we could peek into, were similar to the rooms in Srinivasam at Tirupathi. I guess, it was our bad luck that we got an old room and not the newly built one. As it was already 1:30pm, we were concerned about the luggage and wanted to pick it up asap. We took rest for 10-20 min in the room and again headed back to the main office for the luggage. The luggage had just arrived and there wes a huge crowd trying to get into a small room, where the luggage was kept. It was like people fighting for some movie ticket. We thought its better to have lunch and come back, as it was already 2pm.

We started searching for restaurants and the only decent restaurant was Mayuri around the cental office. When we went inside, we were shocked at the crowd. There was so much crowd that we couldn't even stand inside. Luckily there was buffet on the first floor and we had lunch there, even though the meals were not good. After that, we came back to the luggage collection office. It was 3pm and still, people were fighting for the luggage there. I was so tired that, I wanted to try to get in for the last time. Luckily I could get inside the luggage room and found both of our bags. That was quite a relief, as some people were waiting there for their 2nd or 3rd bag, which they couldn't find. The TTD official there was telling them that it is still on the way and will arrive soon. We then got back to our room and rested untill evening. We went out for dinner at 7pm itself, as we wanted to get over with it before the restaurant becomes crowded.

On the next day (Sunday) morning, we again went for an early breakfast and went to the temple at around 8am. Our sudharshan token timing was 10 am, so we were wondering whether we will be allowed into the darshan queue at 8am. Luckily, we were allowed and we had the darshan in one and a half hour. That was supposed to be quite fast, when compared with the normal season time, when it takes atleast 3-4 hours. While we were in the queue, the kalyanotsavam preparations were going on and some priests had to cross accross our queue, into the kalyanostavam hall. Among them, one of the priests had got some turmeric rice and a very small quantity of sandal wood paste from that hall in form of packets, and started giving it to people there. I thought he was just giving away what was already used there, as its auspicious and shoudn't be thrown away. I soon realised that the actual reason was to get make money, as he was demanding some tip for this. I was really shocked when he asked me money. How can the prists itself be like that ! I gave 20 bugs to him, as he was asking for more when I gave him 10 bugs.

After the darshan, we were supposed to collect the laddus. For each sudharshan token, we are supposed to get two free laddus. I collected the laddus for the sudharshan token, and wanted to get some more for friends/relatives. There is a seperate queue for getting laddus without sudharshan token and I tried to get into it. At that counter, there was such a huge crowd, with every one on top of the other, that I just came back. I was just wondering why its not regulated like the darshan queue, which was so well maintained.

After that, we did some shopping with whatever cash I had. Luckily, we then found an ICICI bank ATM and it accepted my citibank debit card. That lead to more shopping, as we had some more cash now. We again had an early lunch and got back to the room. We then vacated the room around 1pm, as 24 hrs was over by then. For vacating the room, we are supposed to get a stamping from the main VSGH office, then handover the keys to the VSGH 2 official and then go to the refund counter to get the deposit back. At each of these offices, I was asked for a tip. It was so disgusting, that I wanted to come back to Tirupathi quickly. We talked to a cab driver and he took us around Tirumala to papavinasanam, akasha ganga and another temple. After that, he dropped us at Srinivasam in Tirupathi. He charged 500 bugs totally, and I am sure we paid a lot more than normal price. But, we couldn't help it, as we were very tired and were in no mood to bargain.

At Srinivasam, there are free lockers, where we can keep our luggage after paying a refundable deposit. We got one of them and dumped our luggage there. We then started searching for a good hotel to have our dinner. Finally, we found a 3 star hotel and had pretty ok food. If not the food, atleast the ambience was pleasant and we were really looking for such an ambience after our experience at Tirumala. When I was giving back the locker keys to the TTD official, again the tiping business started. That guy was asking me for tip, after giving back the refund amount. I wanted to blash him there, but again, didn't want to get into a fight at the last moment.

We had our return train at 9:30pm. It was Mysore fast passenger, and its the only overnight train from Tirupathi to Bangalore. Thats quite sad, as there are so many people who travel to Tirupathi from Bangalore. When we arrived at the railway station, we found that the first class cabin which was alloted to us has only two berths, but the list has four names, all of whom have been alloted the same coach. This was really irritating, as we just wanted to get into the train and sleep. Now, we have to wait and follow up with the TT, who generally is not co-operative. Finally, after waiting for an hour, we got our berths alloted in another cabin. That was really relieving for us after a tiring day. We reached Bangalore Cant at around 7pm, which is not bad for a passenger train, which was scheduled to reach Bangalore city station at 6:30 pm.


Overall, the experince at Tirupathi was good, but the time spent in Tirumala was really hard, with very less amenities for people who need some amount of luxury. There are a lot of amenities for pilgrims, but they are very basic and people would want some more better restaurants and better rooms provided there. And about the corruption at the grass root level, it very infortunate at a place like Tirumala.