Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Pandari-Shirdi-Ellora Trip

I had been longing to visit Pandaripuram (Pandharpur) for quite a while. So when my wife asked me to plan a trip to Shirdi, I decided to combine Pandharpur with it. Though both of them are in the same state of Maharashtra, they are not visited together that often.
Pandharpur was close to my heart because of this story that I heard during my childhood days..!
Myself and my friend Ganeshraman made this trip with our families in Nov 2008..! (Yes there is no typo...I am just blogging some of my old visits...now...!).We had a great trip.!

 I've collated the photos into a visual photostory with some soothing music to go with. Each photostory is not more than 10 minutes of duration. The photos are collated in the order of our visit and each slideshow is appropriately annotated within. I had done this earlier to share with my family friends and relatives and so I could not omit a few of our photographs in the whole story. However they are all taken in the background of the places that we visited and hence will not be radically out of place. I also do not intend to split the post based on places as I intended this to be an account of our entire trip to be experienced together..So you might find it a bit lengthy, but will give you an experience of having made the trip together.. !
If you are short of time you may want to look at the videos first before looking at the Photostory as the videos are shorter..!
The travel plan runs like this - I guess this will be useful for someone who wants to visit these places from Chennai.

Summary
30-Nov-08       Sun  AN         1042-Mumbai Exp Chennai to Solapur
 5 -Dec-08       Fri 19:30         1041                 Dound to Chennai
Detailed
30-Nov-08      Sun  11:45am   Start from Chennai
  1-Dec-08      Mon  4:30am    Reach Solapur
                       Mon  6:00am    Depart to Phandarpur
                       Mon  8:30am    Reach Pandarpur - Stay at ISKCON Pandharpur
2-Dec-08       Tue    6:10pm    Start to Manmad (to Shirdi)
3-Dec-08       Wed 4:30am      Reach Manmad
                      Wed 7:00am      Reach Shirdi (60km from Manmad)
                      Wed 11:00am    Settle into a Hotel-MTDC Hotel The Pilgrims Inn
                      Wed 01:00pm    Shirdi Darshan
4-Dec-08       Thu Full day       Ellora
5-Dec-08       Fri                     Shirdi-Darshan
                      Fri 12:00pm       Proceed to Daund @150Km-by Cab
                      Fri 5:00pm         Reach Daund
                      Fri 7:25PM        Depart to Chennai
                      Sat 4:45PM       Reach Chennai Central
Pandharpur
Wikipedia holds good amount of information on this place.
We went to Solapur from Chennai by Mumbai express. Pandharpur is 70kms from Solapur and buses ply from Solapur.Numerous autos are available from Solapur railway station to go to the bus stand.

We stayed at ISKCON at Pandharpur. We blocked a couple of twin bed rooms from Chennai by phone.The Ashram does not charge rent for the rooms...! But accept donations.The rooms are spacious with balcony overlooking river Chandrabagha.  We could see the river from our balcony that overlooked green paddy fields and the house of our boat man Pandarinath amidst this green backdrop..!  See the video below.
Caution - You don't get hot water in the room. No Geyser..!
The ISKCON is on the west bank of the river Chandrabagha while the temple and the town is on the eastern side. Boats are available to cross over at a cost of Rs 5/- Per head. We enjoyed our stay in this peaceful locale and took the boat whenever needed rather than staying amidst the thickly populated town-side.Frequent boat ride itself was an experience..!

 ISKCON provides free Veg meal (very delicious) to the guests twice a day -Morning at 9:30am and Evening at 4:30pm-Yes dinner at 4:30pm and nothing after that. The ISKCON Sadhus do not eat anything after 4:30pm....! We used to go to the other side of the river and have dinner.

ISKCON houses a Radhapandarinatha temple. The krishna & Rukmani idols are of impeccable beauty. The evening Aarthi at this temple is elaborate and an exhilarating experience... with Sadhus dancing  in ecstasy..! A short video of this Aarthi can be found under Videos section below

The cute little Vittala Rukmani idols, the vast temple and grand wooden structure.. mark this temple uniquely. I understand this temple is built on a vast area and has 6 gates. The temple contains inscriptions that date back to 13th Century AD. Enormous amount of data are available on the internet about this place.
Some thing unique, I noted and liked when I visited was that in the banks of the Chandrabagha river a huge tented shamiana was erected where continuously Abhung was sung. Many devotees drop by and sing for some time before giving way to the next party. I am not an expert in music and so can not comment on the grammer of the musics... But it was so genuine and stirring that it drew me to the tent to seek these details..! I don't remember , if it was organized on account of some special occassion...! But my friend says Abhung at the Vittal Kshetram is a normal affair..!
We also visited a temple of Janabai,Thukaram famous devotees of Sri Vittala krishna.From ISKCON,the temple has to be reached by crossing the river Chandrabagha by boat and then a walk of 1 Km (Horse carts were seen for our return trip..!) On the way, We encountered a unique temple- rather a small mandapam- for Naradha in the midst of the river, half submerged.  The priest sits on the roof of the mandapam and comes down when a boat stops by..! See this interesting spot in the slideshow below.






Pandharpur VIDEOS



Shirdi
We went to Shirdi by train from Solapur to Kopergaun via Daund. The compartment is detached at Daund and attached to another train to Kopergaon. There is about 4hrs of halt at the Daund Junction.
We stayed at MTDC Hotel The Pilgrims Inn. We booked the accommodation online. Old hotel, but Spacious rooms and a decent restaurant mark the hotel uniquely..I liked it so much that I would love to stay there again...!

This Shirdi Photostory & Video covers some Shirdi sight seeing spots,the Hotel & some street shots. I could shoot a video of Dwarkamai temple with the lightings on..a video I liked much and might interest you too..!




Ellora
The cave temples of Ellora , a UNESCO world heritage site is the pinnacle of Deccan Rock Architecture.
Exquisite carvings and 150 years of hard work of nearly 7000 laborers mark these cave temples.Stupendous feat..!
The story and facts are annotated in the video.
Wikipidea will give you more information than anybody else could give you on this monument.!
Kailanasanatha temple is one of the greatest feats of all time, I would say..!

We also visited one of the Jyothirlingam temples en-route Ellora.
This temple -Grishneshwar Temple -is on the way to Ellora from Shirdi . Built by Rani Ahillyabai Holkar is an important Hindu pilgrim place located in the village of Verul, near Ellora caves. It is one of the twelve Jyotirlingas of India, where Lord Shiva is worshipped. Half a kilometre from Ellora lies this beautiful temple, built by Rani Ahillyabai Holkar, a Maratha princess. It is the most superb example of medieval temple architecture. This Jyotirlinga is said to be self - oriented. It is the last Jyotirlinga without which the journey to the Jyotirlingas is considered incomplete. The temple walls are richly sculptured. Queen Ahilyabai Holkar, who ruled Indore from 1765 to 1795, built both the temple and its masonry tank.





14 comments:

  1. Nice post, I have posted about 2 vittoba temples one of pandatrrpur and other of Kochi. Vittal - Rukmai are my fav. deities. i am yet to visit Shirdi and Ellora though I did soend good 7 years in Pune.I also love Marathi abhangans

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  2. I just saw those two posts. Cochi Vittobha is a news. Good temple and nice set of write-ups.

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  3. You will like Ellora. Should add it to your to-be-visited list. I have added a few videos that will give you an idea of what you can expect there.

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  4. The temple- last video is beautiful. It reminds me of the Orissa temple.Shall come back again to see one more video which is taking a lot of time to load.

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  5. Beautiful images.
    This December, I am planing for Shirdi, Ajanta, Ellora. The information here will definitely help me.

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  6. December is the right time to visit Shirdi and Ellora. I couldn't visit Ajantha as it needed a full day. I think an overnight stay at Aurangabad should help cover both and a few more spots at Aurangabad itself. Hope you saw the video of Ellora also. The kailasanathar temple is marvellous..

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  7. These pictures and videos are both very nice, enjoyed the post.

    I too really want to visit Pandharpur, read about the place years ago in text-books, but then Maharashtra was a far away land!

    Been to Ellora and yes the place is absolutely amazing, though I saw it when I was quite young.

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  8. These blogs help visit far away land Siddhartha, I enjoy visiting the posts about places that I am less likely visit, like the beautiful Monastery that I could visit thru your post..

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  9. BTW, thanks for patiently viewing the videos.. I guess these will be of help in case one wants to visit the place to get a fair idea.. I look upto pics and videos as many as are available before visiting a place to know what to look for in such places.

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  10. Wow, this is a fantastic blog! So many details, photographs and videos about the places..just like how a travel blog should be. Its so inspiring..I wish I could travel like you! Just waiting to finish my student life.. :) I am looking for more from you..
    Thank you very much for following my blog and thanks for your kind words. Thats really encouraging for me.
    Regards,
    Ganesh.

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  11. Hello Sridharan,
    You have very nice blog, I love your writeups and the videos were great!
    And what a coincidence.. Even I am blogging about Shirdi at the moment! And I stayed at pilgrims inn too..
    Thanks for dropping over at My Yatra Diary..will come here often to enjoy your interesting write ups and pics!

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  12. Thanks for stopping by and the complements Arti. I liked your nice blog too. It is quite a while since I stayed in Pilgrims inn. It was getting renovated when we stayed there. How is it now?. I will visit Shirdi again. I will visit your Shirdi post.

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  13. Ganesh
    Thanks for looking. I am glad you liked this post and blog. I liked your photo blog-my heart is in photography. We thrive on the encouragement of fellow bloggers and I am happy about your genuine complements-Thanks. I don't normally get to travel that much. But make best use of the opportunity when it presents itself.

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  14. Very nice and useful information for those who wish to visit these places..Your videos are excellent and inspiring.. Good work Helps many Thanks again

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