On the way to Tirumala

         Journey to Tirupati this time was memorable.Though it was my 5th visit, i was visiting after 12 yrs.65 members all together (Neighbours & friends)were all set to see lord Balaji.We had reserved the train 3 months ago.Left home @ 6:00 PM on 4th and reached Bangalore city railway station @7:30.Took train at 8:30.I had prepared sand witches for dinner.I could hardly sleep in the train because of excitement. Landed Tirupati at 5:30 AM.From there we hired 4 tempo's to reach Tirumala (Hill) and reached Tirumala @7:30.
         There was hell lots of changes when compared to my previous visit.It took lot of time for us to book rooms since we could not book before as they were all full..Meanwhile i had yummy idlis while waiting for rooms.Finally we got three rooms.One of them was very far from the other two and we had to travel through free bus :) ..We reached our rooms in groups and got ready by 10:30.Entered for darshana at 11:00 AM...People with 300 Rs ticket were in the queue for 7 hrs and we just had 50 Rs ticket and joined them later.Luckly we finished darshana @ 1:00 PM(in 2 hrs) which was beyond our expectation ;)Then we ate temple prasadam and went to take laddus :) .. Few of them spent lot of time in buying extra laddus which was irritating.
          The main intention for visiting Tirupati was to recite the Vishnu Sahasranaama..After buying laddus me,mom and other 3 people went to have free lunch in temple.Rest followed us later.By that time it was 3:30 PM.Then we went to a big hall to recite the mantra which got over by 5.We almost did it for one hour.From there we moved to our respective rooms.Few among 65 halted in Tirumala because they had plans to visit Kalahasti(1/2 an hour from Tirupati) the next day.We had to leave rooms by 7 but since it started raining, some of them left late and took bus lately to reach Tirupati.Luckly our bus reached there(Tirupati) just in time.Myself ,mom and 10  more ran to catch the train since it was already late and the train had just arrived.Amomg 52 who had to accompany us, 18 members missed the trian :( and had to catch bus to reach Bangalore.I had chapati's for dinner.We got down in Cantonment railway station at 6:45 and reached home at 8:00 AM on 5th.It was an awesome journey and very nice experience.I felt blessed after the darshana.