A couple of months back a few of my uncles and aunts planned a trip to Srisailam during the Christmas break. My parents also decided to join and tickets were booked well in advance for the whole group. In early December, there was a back out - and that is how I came to be invited to tag along.
We (wife, kid and self) boarded Sabari from
It was an interesting train journey. More than half the compartment was occupied by Ayyapa devotees – those returning from the Sabarimala pilgrimage. Around
Since our stop (Ongole) was at
From Ongole we proceeded by car to Srisailam via Podile, Markapur and Dornala . The ‘Prof’ informed us that it would take us around 4-5 hours to get there - three fourths of the distance to be covered in the plains followed by around 50 Kms of ghat roads. The fearless Innova driver got us to Markapur in double quick time. The roads were not exactly wide or in good condition. That did not seem to deter him. He also did not seem the least bit intimidated by trucks or APSTRC buses and always seemed to veer off from head on collisions at the last minute. All of us were praying to Lord Siva even before getting to Srisailam.
Markapur, a sleepy little town was just waking up as we arrived. It did not seem to have a decent, clean restaurant. We picked the one that looked the better of the lot and quickly dug into breakfast on offer.
The roads got worse as we moved further into the heart of Andhra. But the terrain started giving way from dusty and rocky grey to various shades of green with yellow sprinkled in for good measure. For a while it was sunflower country…..
Then it became red hot …..
We also saw miles of tobacco crop and thuvara parippu crop.
Our Prof informed us that while the main crop in the coastal districts was paddy, this area was good for cultivating crops like tobacco, chilli, sunflower, thuvara dal, kadigu etc.
And soon the ghat section started…
After a couple of hours of scenic journey, we finally made it to Srisailam. The climate there was quite pleasant. We checked into ‘Ganga Sadan’ which is one of the Devasthanam (equivalent of Kerala’s Devason board) built accommodations. The rooms were spartan but spacious and clean. Unlike Guruvayur, the rates were reasonable and facilities plenty.
They had even provided access to clean drinking water (1 rupee per liter). The purifier seemed impressive (quartz filter-carbon filter-reverse osmosis-active carbon filter-UV standardization etc!!)
Before we go any further a bit of background history/mythology on Srisailam -
The holy town of
The story behind Bhramaramba Devi is also interesting.
And now back to the blog. We quickly had a hot water shower and proceeded to the temple. Since the ‘free’ queue was quite long, we took the Rs 100 darshan ticket and proceeded to wait. It took us about an hour to get to the sanctum sanctorum. In-spite of the wait, we only got a brief darshan.
By now all of us were hungry and thirsty. Went to a makeshift restaurant nearby and had spicy Andhra meals.
Post lunch it was time to visit the Pathalaganga which is a deep gorge near the Srisailam Dam. To get there, earlier one had to walk down the hill to the reservoir valley. Now there is a ropeway which starts just one KM away from the temple.
View of the dam from the ropeway
Professor explaining the significance of Patalaganga to the rest of the group
From here, one can visit the
Once we were back up where our car was waiting, we decided to visit the Shivaji Spurti Kendra created to commemorate Shivaji’s visit to Srisailam. We stopped a monk to ask for the way and he guided us in exchange for a lift.
Imposing statue of Emperor Shivaji.
Next we visited the Chenchu tribal museum situated at the entrance of Srisailam town. But first we took snaps of the large statues at the main round about.
The museum itself was disappointing. Though the exhibits were well kept, there was no description. Interestingly the exhibits were numbered meticulously but as I mentioned before without write-ups the numbers were of no use.
I felt that Nandu (my daughter) might have had a good time in the garden if she had been there. For some weird reason, there were swings, a large play area and even a dinosaur. Maybe the intention was to have a museum (for the adults) and a garden (for the kids).
By now most of the members in the group were tired and we headed back to Ganga Sadan for a short late afternoon siesta. In the evening, after a warm shower and steaming hot coffee, we decided to try for one more round of darshan. As we neared the temple entrance we realized it was going to be next to impossible. This being a long weekend, the rush was increasing by the hour. We had to be satisfied with darshan from outside.
Woke up to a foggy morning (which meant a late
The first stop of the day was the Sakshi Ganapathy temple located 3 KMs away from Srisailam. Lord Ganapathy here keeps a record of all the pilgrims to tender evidence of their visit. The idol holds a book in the left hand and a pen in his right. The devotees are supposed to visit this temple on their return from Srisailam and inform Ganapathy of their name and ‘Gotra’. For a small fee, we got the pujari to chant our name and Gotra so that Ganapathy could log our visit!
From here we proceeded to Hatakeswaram. As per the local folklore, Siva appeared to a potter devotee over here. Within the peaceful temple premises, there is a small
From Hatakeswaram, we proceeded to the small but beautiful subterranean streams – Panchadhara and Phaladhara. Legend has it that the Phaladhara originates from the forehead of Lord Shiva. Panchadhara signifies the five aspects of Shiva. We were informed by the Prof that the water from these streams flow uninterrupted through out the year.
The last stop just before we returned from the Srisailam area was the highest peak in the surrounding area – Shikaram. As per the Skanda puranam, whoever can successfully see the Shikhrama (you have to peep through the ears of the Nandi statue) of Mallikarjuna temple from Shikaram is free from rebirth. Eager to attain Moksha, all of us tried our luck (Rs. 2 for an attempt) but alas it was not yet time!!
Interestingly at the heights of Shikaram, one can also see the height of commercialization. Since viewing the central gopuram (with the naked eye) through the ears of the Nandi is extremely difficult, help was at hand nearby – for a price of course. Just before we approached the Nandi statue, there was this resourceful chap with a pair of binoculars at a vantage point. For Rs 10, he was helping the pilgrims focus on where to look at!! With modern day technology one can cheat even the Gods!
With that we descended from the hills and by
We had lunch at the same restaurant we had stopped enroute the day before. There for the first time during this trip I managed to get hold of my favorite daal powder. Whilst I loved the food, the others found it a bit too spicy. Even the beet root thoran was hot!
By evening we reached Ongole station.We had nearly 4 hours till the train would arrive at Ongole. We spent the time resting, walking from one end of the platform to the other and generally ruminating over the events of the past two days.
