Golden Temple

OK, time to updates after a long time, not long, very long long time.

Background:

So recently Sunil bought a new Car, the Elite i20. This is the Sports version which has

1.2 Ltr Petrol engine

ABS, Airbags, Steering mounted Music system, Reverse Camera and Sensors but no Alloy wheels.

We were mulling about going on a long drive from last two weeks but were not able to decide.

This Sunday we decided to take this Elite car for a long spin.

The big question was in the peak summer when temperature is hovering around 38 degrees; it’s very difficult to decide the destination. The options I had in mind were Yellagiri, Lepakshi and Mysore.

Now Yellagiri’s main attraction is the lake which we can’t enjoy in the scorching heat. Staying there till late evening is not an option.

Mysore and Lepakshi we have already visited so I thought of going a new place. Since this was the first ride of a new car, taking it to a Mandir was also on mind and that gave two options of Kotilingeswara and Golden Temple.

As we too have not been to Golden temple we decide to go to Golden temple Vellore.

Destination:

Date: 24th April 2016

Place: Golden Temple, Shripur, Vellore

Distance: 204 kms

More details about this temple can be seen here and here.

The Route as per Google is as below

map

 

The Drive:

We decided to start early but not the regular early so the time fixed was 7 AM.

Got up at 6 and we were ready by 7.10 AM. I took my USB from Jumbo because I found earlier that Sunil didn’t have good collection in his USB.

We were on road 7.30 AM and took the NH7. The road is as usual fantastic and we raced towards our destination real quick. As none of us had breakfast, around 8.30 we started feeling hungry. I knew there are two good food joints on the way and around 9 AM we reached the restaurant Shri Krishna Inn where we found massive crowd. There was no chance we could get a sight of food even in one hour so we decided to fill the fuel tank from adjacent HP bunk and move ahead. Within 10 mins drive we got another joint in form of A2B.

The story was same here and there was huge crowd but now our hunger was at its peak so we decided to eat whatever we could get there quickly.

After having a good nice south Indian breakfast we started our journey again.

Without many events we reached Krishnagiri and right before taking the left turn Shweta asked me to let her drive. She took the steering and we took the left towards Chennai and somehow Here map pushed us inside the town and a struggle of navigating the town traffic started for her. Soon we joined the AH45.

Shweta drove for next two hours and we reached Vellore town around 1:00 PM. I took the steering from her since we left the AH and took a single road. It was not that she could not drive there but remember it’s just fifteen days old i20 Elite.

We parked in the premium parking inside the Main temple. They charge Rs. 50 for 4 hours there. There are very trees in the parking so everyone tries to park below a tree to save their cars.

The temple management people dropped a bomb on Sunil that they don’t allow shorts, bermudas etc and he can enter the temple in his shorts. At the same time they also provided the solution that he can take a Mundu on rent. Sunil happily took one on rent.

The shoe keepers force people to buy polethene bags to keep the shoes which I found quite interesting as in Bangalore govt has made a rule to stop Poly bag uses.

Same as all the temples, this temple too has various Archanas starting from free Darshan to Archana in some Lakhs. For people like us there are two options, 108 Rs and 250 Rs.

In 250, it was told that we can sit in front of goddess and an Archana will be performed, remembering Tirupati darshan, sitting in front of Goddess was a very good option for us. So we took Rs. 250 ticket.

We were told that there is a free option as well but it will require a walk of 3.5 kms. In that heat 35 meters was like a marathon hence we didn’t even think about it.

We directly entered the temple campus from the same place and then “The Walk” started. The walking path is made of stones and wherever it was exposed to direct sun it was burning. They had put Jute mats all over the place but that also is not a very good option given that it was also heating and causing more problems to walk.

We reached inside the temple and the first site of the temple was breath taking. The whole building is covered with gold. I think there would be very rare temples like this.

We again by passed some of the crowd because of the power our ticket had and entered the main temple. We sat in front of the goddess and prayed for about 2 mins and the Pujari did Arati for us. Then we were asked to proceed while leaving we were given Prasad and picture of goddess too.

While coming back we found many shops inside the campus, they were selling all type of things there starting from Patanjali product, Sarees, Manure, Stones to Pepsi. This whole route was again burning.

We also had fabulous food inside the temple. The Sambhar and Rice I had here is one of the best I ever had. It was an amazing food experience. They are so well organized and feed people with lots of love.

We immediately headed back to Bangalore as there was not much to do after the Darshan. 2:30 PM

We got confused while returning so took a bit longer route to hit the AH45.

I drove till the café and decided to take a coffee break as I needed it badly. We had some light snacks and started our journey. 4:10 PM to 4:40 PM

Shweta took from here and drove till Hosur.

We reached home at 7.00 PM. We both drove almost fifty fifty and average speed was 80 km/hr.

Once again the major pinch to the pocket was the tolls; thank god it was not my pocket this time. Sunil spent 450+ Rs for all the tolls. Good thing was we returned same day and the two ways toll was cheaper.

Overall experience of i20 was amazing. The steering is very light and it required adjustments from our side as our Jumbo has slightly heavier steering, especially on higher speeds. Braking is amazing in i20 Elite.

We found the pickup a bit sedate but anyways we didn’t try to push it to limits as I drove between 80 and 90 KMPH. Probably we will know more about the racing abilities of this car in future trips.

I find the horn a bit oddly placed due to the music system controls on the steering wheel.

The back seats are very comfortable and spacious.

Overall a very well spent day and best thing was we reached home perfectly in time.