Route Map
16-Apr (Bangalore and Lucknow)
Much awaited and long planned vacation with parents. My parents were determined that they will take us with them on this trip and this trip will only be done with family, with comfort :)
After lot of to and fro, yes and no, we were finally set to go on this trip, dated 16th April 2023.
Fortunately or unfortunately, we as well started to see raise in the cases of COVID-19 and it was still haunting us over our yes or no plan :D
We even saw that it was a mandate now to carry our vaccination certificates to Lucknow and Patna airports.
Now it was time to start our journey from Bangalore, towards Lucknow.
We reached Lucknow at around 6:30 pm and checked into our hotel 'Treebo Trend Silver Grand'. We went for local market, did some shopping and later visited my friend Mayank, where we have sumptuous and delicious lucknowi style snacks and dinner.
17-Apr (Lucknow and Ayodhya)
We started early in the morning from Lucknow and reached Ayodhya at around 8 AM.
On the way to Ayodhya we visited a Sugarcane Gaana, where jaggery and other jaggery based snacks are made out of sugarcane juice. We got to purchase yummy 'Masala Gud' that was served during yesterday's dinner in Mayank's house. Masala gud is basically made up of jaggery being base and with spices like ginger, coriander, til and saunf. I guess you can already get a taste of how it would be :)
- Kanak Bhavan (Sita Rasoi + misc)
The very first place we visited in Ayodhya was Kanak Bhavan. This palace is named kanak bhavan means palace of gold. Kanak Bhawan is one of the finest and famous temples in Ayodhya. It is believed that this Bhawan was gifted to Devi Sita by Kaikei immediately after her marriage to Lord Ram. This is private palace of Devi Sita and Lord Rama.
We can see Sita Rasoi here in Kanak Bhavan, which was believed to be the kitchen where Sita devi used to cook food. Now, this kitchen is used to serve food for one and everyone who is visiting this place.
This is believed to be the birth place of Lord Rama.
The term “Ram Janmabhoomi,” literally translates to “Lord Ram’s Birthplace.” It is thought that Ram, the seventh incarnation of Lord Vishnu, spent his childhood near the Sarayu river in Ayodhya, as described in the Indian epic 'Ramayana'. Devotees of the Hindu religion hold the place of Ram Janmabhoomi in very high regard and it is one of the best places to visit in Ayodhya.
This sacred location is considered to be the first of the seven most significant pilgrimages for Hindus, and it is also considered to be one of the destinations that must be visited during the Ayodhya Darshan.
Lord Sriram temple at Rama Janmabhoomi is still under construction, where carrying mobile is prohibited.
Below is the proposed design of Rama Janmabhoomi temple (Pic Source: Google)
- Shri Hanuman Garhi Mandir (Hanumangarhi)
Hanuman Garhi is a 10th-century temple of Hanuman in Ayodhya. It is one of the most important temples in the city. The temple houses Hanuman's mother, Anjani, with a young Hanuman sitting on her lap.
- Sarayu River (Sarayu Ghat)
We finally got to visit Sarayu Ghat before we bid adeiu to Ayodhya. Even in this place, I see lot of people doing pinga pradhan pooja. The sand in this river seems to be golden brown and we can visibly see that the sand is as shiny as gold :)
After our visit to Sarayu River, we started our journey from Ayodhya towards Prayagraj (formerly Allahabad). It was a journey of around 4 hrs (150+ kms).
Well ! There was an adventure awaiting as soon as we entered Prayagraj. We saw that our mobile data stopped working. We thought it might be because we were roaming and thought that our operator (Airtel/Jio) still needs to enable roaming but still wasn't done. We saw similar issue (no mobile data) even with our cab driver's mobile. Then we realized that there was a curfew in Prayagraj as there was an encounter of Atiq Ahmed, because of which mobile data was disabled in and around the city. It took huge amount of effort to finally reach out hotel. I literally felt that without mobile data we were back by 10+ years at least :)
Finally we made it to our hotel 'Oscar Villa' and checked in !
18-Apr (Allahabad / Prayagraj)
Triveni Sangam is the convergence of three rivers (Ganga, Yamuna and Sarasvati), a sacred place where its believed that a holy bath here said to flush away all of one's sins and free one from the cycle of rebirth.
Point to be noted here is that, we can clearly see river Ganga and Yamuna converge, where as there is no sign of Sarasvati river as on date (in recent decades/century)
It is also believed that, Sangama (especially this holy place) is sacred for pinda pradhana samskara as well. Married couples usually bring another set of 'Tali' and its tied here as a sacred procedure/pooja.
One needs to hire a boat in order to take people from the shore to the point of sangama for performing all sacred procedures. We also need to hire a brahmin who can do the sacred procedures who can easily be hired near the shore lines. Please beware to pre-fix the charges for boatman and brahmin well before you start your journey towards sangama. There are all the possibilities that boatman and brahmin over there, will surely try to loot you :)
A picture without showing the Sangama of Ganga and Jamuna is incomplete and so we have capture couple :)
The characteristic of this temple is that this idol of Lord Hanuman is lying down. This Hanuman temple is the only one in the world, where Lord Hanuman ji is worshiped on the lying statue. Lord Hanuman here is also called Kotwal of Prayag.
It is said that the water of the Ganga touches Lord Hanuman and after that the water of the Ganges gets down. People here come to see this scene, when the water in the Ganges and Yamuna increases. In the sanctum of the temple, the statue of Hanuman is situated 8.10 feet below the temple.
History: It is believed that once the merchant was carrying Hanuman ji's grand statue from his boat. When he reached near Prayag with his boat, his boat slowly started getting heavier and reached near Sangam and got immersed in the water of Ganga ji. After sometime, when the water stream of Ganga ji changed some way So the idol appeared. The temple was established at the same place.
We can see in the below image that we have banyan tree sapling growing over the neem tree. During some sacred procedures a marriage is performed between Neem and Banyan tree and so is the result :)
The Anand Bhavan is a historic house museum in Prayagraj, India, focusing on the Nehru family. It was bought by Indian political leader Motilal Nehru in the 1930s to serve as the residence of the Nehru family when the original mansion Swaraj Bhavan (previously called Anand Bhavan) was transformed into the local headquarters of the Indian National Congress.
Jawahar Planetarium is situated in Anand Bhavan, which has been striving to inculcate scientific temper among masses through its sky shows on astronomy and science.
Swaraj Bhavan (previously called Anand Bhavan) is the original mansion of Nehru family. This is where Indira gandhi was born and brought up. This was the home of Nehru family until 1930.
Bhardwaj Garden is a major garden located in the city of Prayagraj. In this garden you get to see many paintings of Rishi Bhardwaj. Here you also get to see a waterfall, in which Shankar bhagavan and Mata Parvati in it. Cool place to hang out in a hot city ;)
After visiting Bharadwaj park, we had our late lunch and started our journey towards Varanasi.
Headed towards Varanasi and stay in Varanasi for night. It was a drive or around 3 hrs of about 120+ kms.
19-Apr (Varanasi, City Central)
Today we are at the moment around which this whole trip was planned. Lord Kasi Vishwanath Darshan :)
Today's trip was divided into 3 parts.
- Part 1 was to visit the main temple and nearby amma temples.
- Part 2 was to visit around 8 - 10 famous temples in and around central Varanasi and
- Part 3 of today's trip was to visit Gangaji (This is how each and everyone refers to flowing ganga river in this area 😊 )
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Part 1 : IMP day in Varanasi
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We had a busy day awaiting us. We started at 3:30 AM in the morning for our Part-1 trip for today. We were told that there is nija darshana of Shri Kasi vishwanatha swamy between 4 AM to 4:30 AM and we were in fact planning for it. Nija darshana is something where you will see the main idol without any alankara and one can actually touch the lord and do pooja and abhisheka all by themselves.
We were lucky to get our chance at around 4:15 AM in the morning, we were there in front of the main idol (in nija darshana) and we could touch the lord and do pooja ourselves. We offered the sand and water that we had taken from our prior Rameshwaram tour (This was our first step of Kasi Yatra) in our Pooja at Kasi Vishwanatha swamy temple. Our main intent of this trip was just completed and our hearts felt blissful and delighted.
- Morning visit to Kasi Vishwanatha swamy temple
I had heard too many things about The Kashi Vishwanath Temple Corridor project. Today i witnessed the developments around the main Shri Vishwanatha swamy temple and its no doubt, is one of the phenomenal developments in recent Indian history.
We continued our first day trip in Varanasi (Kasi) and visited several other main temples like,
- Kasi Vishalakshmi Temple
- Kasi Annapurna Temple
- Kalabhairava Temple
One will get a fair idea of how would have been Shri Vishwanatha swamy temple before the corridor project, of which we can get a glimpse when we visit other three temples as listed above.
It was already around 8 AM in the morning and we were onto our next step in today's plan, which is Linga pooja and visarjan where the Linga is made by the Sand we had collected during our prior trip to Rameshwaram temple. This Pooja was planned at Shivala Ghat and we were on our way.
- Shivala Ghat (Rameshwara sand linga pooja and visarjan to ganga river)
We had our Pooja contract done with one Brahmin who was from South and he had a team of his own in the Ghat. Brahmin looked very divine in his looks and as well sounded so. We started our Pooja which took around 45 minutes to one full hour. This was our other intent of our trip to Kasi and we had completed that as well now 🙏
It was now our breakfast time and we were already feeling very hungry. We started towards one of the good south Indian hotel nearby, which was a Kerala Style restaurant. We had yummy and hot breakfast and were satisfied with our early morning trip.
Yeah, we had an electric auto waiting to take us for the rest of the day's tour and I was ready to drive 😊
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Part 2 : IMP day in Varanasi
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We started second part of our trip today, which was another 6-8 temples in and around the central Varanasi.
- Sri Mani Mandir (also referred to as 108 linga temple)
The name ‘Mani’, which means gem, is given to the temple because the temple has Dwadash Jyotirlingas made of Rhinestone adorned in the temple. Overall, the temple is close to a traditional temple in terms of its ideologies yet modern in its unique way.
With over 150+ shivlings in the temple premises and other idols of gods, the temple is true spectacle.
- Gavalamma (Kaudi Mata Temple) temple
A visit to Kashi is incomplete without a visit to the kaudi Mata Temple. There is a reason for it. Just read on :)
The name owes its origin to the kaudi or shells which are thrown to the goddess as offering. The goddess here is considered to be a sister of Shiva.
According to legend, Shiva sister had her temple within the ancient temple complex. However, when she saw thousands of common people touch and hug her brother while praying, she became jealous and tried to stop this practice. At this, Shiva became angry. “He was at Kashi so that the common people could pray to him the way they liked” He said, and as punishment, banished her, and sent her out of the temple. She repented and prayed to Shiva for mercy, and finally he relented. He could not take back the curse, but He decreed that al those who visit Kashi should visit her too. Hence, a trip to Kashi would be ineffective if one returned without visiting her. Hence it is a practice to visit the Kaudi Mata Temple after visiting and performing required rituals at main temple. One can buy shells outside the temple, throw a few on the goddess and ask her to bless them by bestowing on them the fruits of their Kashi Yatra, and bring back a few cowries as Prasad.
Durga Mandir, also known as Durgkund Mandir and Durga Temple, is one of the most famous temples in the holy city of Varanasi.
Durga Mandir is situated on the Sankat Mochan road, adjacent to Durga Kund, 250 meters north of Tulsi Manas Mandir.
- Satyanarayana Tulasi Manas mandir
Another renowned sacred site in Varanasi that completes the pilgrimage circuit of the city is Tulsi Manas Temple.
One of the star highlights of the temple is a wall on which various scenes from the Hindu epic, Ramayana, have been beautifully depicted. Besides pilgrimage, the temple also allows travelers to have informative experience through a museum. With a range of exhibits, the museum gives travelers a chance to know about the Hindu epic Ramayana.
Tridev temple is between Tulasi Manas mandir and Sackat Mochan Hanuman temple. The temple is indeed maintained very clean.
This temple is dedicated to three Gods, Salasar Hanuman Bhagwan, Dadi Rani Sati Devi, and Khatu Shyam Ji Maharaj.
- Sackat Mochan Hanuman Temple
Known as Sankat Mochan Temple, the history of this temple is about 400 years old. It is believed that when Tulisdas ji lived in Kashi, he composed Ramcharitmanas with the inspiration of Lord Hanuman.
It is also believe that Hanuman ji gave darshan to Tulsidas here and took the form of soil and established himself here.
Well ! Part-2 of today's trip comes to an end and it was time for our Lunch.
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Part 3 : IMP day in Varanasi
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We started Part-3 of today's trip, which is to visit Gangaji and participate in the famous 'Ganga Aarti'
Started from our hotel room at around 3:30 PM, and did a pit stop at one of local banaras silk industries. Visiting all the way to Varanasi and not buying a Banaras silk saree was a NO GO 😇
- Ganga Aarti (Dashashwamedh Ghat)
After happing spent few thousand bucks on Banaras silk, we started towards Kedar Ghat, which is were our local guide dropped us for Ganga Arati.
Ganga Aarti is indeed performed in Dashashwamedh Ghat. Ganga Aarti is a well-planned, pre-choreographed and a visual spectacle to watch for all the tourists. Aarti starts at around 6pm in the evening and is usually completed by 7pm. It is recommended that we gather around in Dashashwamedh Ghat around 5pm, so that we get a good seat (no need to book one) and a clear visual of the pooja, since its usually very crowded.
There is another option to watch Ganga aarti and is from the lap to Gangaji :)
Yes, we can also watch Ganga aarti from the boat parked near the Ghat where Ganga aarti is done. And yes, we chose this option ! This is one more reason, why our local guide dropped us near Kedar Ghat and not at Dashashwamedh Ghat.
For this, we will have to pre-book a boat, that will take us along all the 84+ ghats (which is what they promise, but they will not do) in Varanasi and finally come and park the boat near the banks of Dashashwamedh Ghat, for us to take a view of Ganga Aarti from over the boat.
Ganga aarti was done at around 7:30 PM the day we visited and we returned from Ganga aarti at 8:30 PM.
One can get a boat contract to watch Ganga Aarti, for various prices based on the kind of boat starting from Rs. 150 till Rs. 800+ per passenger.
One Tip for the readers:
If one needs to get a clear visual of Ganga aarti, I would strongly advice not to mix boat ride and Ganga aarti. Ganga aarti is a real spectacle to watch from over Dashashwamedh Ghat, than from the boat since there will be lots of boats standing at the banks and for our boat to get a chance to be close to Ganga aarti is a difficult chance. It usually ends up such that more than 80% of boats end up lining up from 3rd to 8th rows of boats and there will be lot of disturbance and distance to watch aarti pooja from the boat.
If one can find out which boats will line up at the first row, then its a good option to take Ganga aarti over boat. But its a difficult bet !
One more point that I heard was that, if we book a boat from Dashashwamedh Ghat itself, then those boats will be given first preference since they are local boat man of that Ghat. If someone tries this option, then please feel free to put down a comment.
Another things that I found our very late is that, there is a way to book online ticket for Ganga Aarti where we can also participate in Ganga aarti and below is the website that one can use for the online booking of Ganga Aarti.
https://kashiarchan.com/ganga-aarti-in-varanasi/
Again, if someone tries this option, please drop a comment so that others will get use of this online booking facility.
Part-3 of today's plan is done and we started back to our Hotel to get a nice sleep after a long day of activities.
20-Apr (Varanasi, Sarnath)
This is our second day at Varanasi and we were about to get inclined towards our next steps in this tour. That is nothing but learning more about Gowtham Buddha 🌳
The name Sarnath comes from “Sarangnath”, who is also known as the Deer God.
We started our drive towards Sarnath, which I felt is another dimension of Varanasi. The city planning, infrastructure are all too different in Central Varansi (in and around Kasi vishwanatha temple) and here in Sarnath. We could see wide roads, well planned city and big trees along the roads in Sarnath, which was a big miss in Central Varansi for various historical reasons.
We have lot of places to visit in Sarnath and we started from famous Buddhist temple in Sarnath.
There are four most important Buddhist pilgrimage destinations,
1. Lumbini (birthplace of the Buddha),
2. Bodh Gaya (the site where the Buddha attained enlightenment),
3. Sarnath (the location of the Buddha's first sermon), and
4. Kushinagar (the location where the Buddha attained parinirvana).
Right now we are in Sarnath Buddhist temple complex, which is the third place in above list. This is the place where Gowtham Buddha started his preaching's.
- Bodhi Tree (First Preaching)
Bodhi Tree is just adjacent (attached) to Buddhist temple. This Bodhi tree is said to be the sapling of the main tree, under which Gowtham Buddha started his preaching's.
Sarnath’s Deer Park (also known as Istipana) is both a sacred site and a small zoo. There are big enclosures for deer and reptiles, as well as a bird house and a pond. There are many deer and blackbucks roaming freely. There are also a variety of birds, as well as emus, crocodiles, and turtles.
This temple is built by Chinese devotees in favor of Lord Buddha. - Saranganath Mahadev Mandir
Saranganath Mahadev Temple of which very few people know, it holds a great deal of importance. According to various Hindu scriptures, Lord Saranganath is said to be the son-in-law of Lord Shiva.
We can see 2 linga's here. Most probably as I heard from people around, one linga is of Lord Shiva and the other linga is of his son-in-law, Saranganath.
This temple is built by Japanese devotees in favor of Lord Buddha.
This temple is built by Tibetan devotees in favor of Lord Buddha.
We were all exhausted because these places are close by, but so close that its too short by 4 wheeler, at the same time tiresome if we have to walk 😁. Finally it was lunch time and we grabbed a good portion of it, to fill in our calories to burn more !
We started our run to few more places that we had to finish before EOD and we were starting from Sarnath Museum.
This is the oldest site museum of the Archaeological Survey of India. It houses the findings and excavations at the archaeological site of Sarnath, by the Archaeological Survey of India.
To keep the antiquities found during the site excavation, a site museum was constructed just adjacent to the excavated site at Sarnath.
- Kasi Vishwanath temple in BHU Campus (Birla Temple)
This temple is also known as New Vishwanath Mandir and also referred to as Birla Temple.
It is Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya who decided to build a replica of the main (original) Shri Vishwanatha swamy mandir in Banaras Hindu University campus. It is the Birla family who gratefully agreed to take on the challenging task of duplicating the massive temple. Thus this temple is referred to as Birla temple as well.
We decided to call off the day after another long run of city tour of Sarnath, Varanasi. Headed back to our hotel in Varanasi for another night stay.
21-Apr (Bodh Gaya and Gaya)
Started early morning drive from Varanasi towards Bodh Gaya. This was one of the longest drive that we had to cover during this tour. This was a road trip of around 6 hours.
We made it to Bodh gaya at around 11 AM and started our Bodh Gaya tour from Srilankan temple.
- Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi Viharaya
This location is also called 'Colombo/Srilankan Temple'. This temple is built by Srilankan devotees in favor of Lord Buddha.
- Mahabodhi Temple - Bodhi Tree (Enlightenment)
Mahabodhi temple in Bodh Gaya is one of the four holy places in the life of Gowtham Buddha. This is indeed the most important one of all 4, as this is the place where Buddha attained enlightenment. This is the place where Prince Siddhartha attained Enlightenment and became Gowtham Buddha.
This temple is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This temple complex is recently rebuilt and restored Buddhist temple in Bodh Gaya, Bihar.
This is one another Buddha temple in Bodhgaya. This one is very near to the Vietnamese Buddha Temple.
- Chalayaman Murti of Buddha
Chalayaman meaning, Locomotory statue of Shri Gowtham Buddha.
- Vietnamese Temple (Wat Thai Buddhagaya)
This temple is built by Vietnamese devotees in favor of Lord Buddha.
After visiting various places near Maha Bodhi Temple, we had our lunch in local well-known hotel, Magadh Tasty sweets and Veg restaurant. After a wonderful lunch and munching some local sweet delicacies, we started our drive towards Gaya. Its hardly around 20 to 30 minutes drive.
As soon as we reached Gaya, we made sure to visit AKSHAYVAT and an adjacent Vishwanath swamy temple.
Stayed in our hotel overnight.
22-Apr (Gaya and Patna)
This was our last day and last destination during our Kasi Yatra. Today's plan was to visit Vishnu Padam temple and Falgu river view adjacent to the temple.
This is a Hindu temple, in which Lord Vishnu is worshipped. Dharmasila, the footprint of Lord Vishnu etched into a slab of basalt, marks the location of this temple, which is located beside the Falgu River.
There is a small story behind this temple. This story is about an Asur by name Gayasur. Gayasura performed severe penance, and as a reward, was granted a boon that says: whosoever saw him would get Moksham. Lord Vishnu commanded Gayasura to crawl beneath the earth by putting his right foot onto the head of asura, so that immoral people would not get salvation.
Vishnu’s foot print was left there even after Gayasura had been pushed into the earth. The footprint includes nine distinct symbols, including Shankam, Chakram, and Gadham. It is claimed that these are the weapons of the Lord.
I was excited to see and get drenched in Falgu river. But to my surprise I saw that the river is completely dry and I could not see any clue of flowing water near by !
I got concerned and checked internet to find that there is a story behind this as well and Sita devi has cursed the river to be devoid of water, and cow should not be worshipped from front and Brahmin will not be satisfied.
I suspect this curse was local to Gaya as I see that we still have a practice of worshipping cow from the front. Never the less, I was really heart breaking to see such a vast river being dry !
After our last temple tour in this Yatra, we headed back to one of our local favorite restaurant 'Pramod Laddu Bhandar' and finished our lunch in Gaya. Now we had to catch our flight to Bengaluru from Patna. We went back to our hotel, packed our bags and started our drive towards Patna.
We reached Patna airport around 4pm, around 3 hours before our departure time.
We had reached Patna airport well ahead of time and we had to spent 3 full hours. So we decided to visit a Lounge in Patna Airport where we spent good amount of time, snacking and discussing about what all happened over last couple of days.
It was a long pending tour, coming to an end. We are surely going to miss these days.
Finally we reached Namma Bengaluru airport at around 10pm that night. Looking forward to the last step of Kasi Yatra, which will be another couple of days trip to Rameshwaram, hopefully not more than couple of more months to come 😀
Good bye and may god bless !
