Padayatra 2020
Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic situation this year, after working out on many travel itineraries and scouting trips, we finalized on our pilgrimage dates, for the much planned year 2020 Tirupati Padayatra Pilgrimage.
We planned to start from Chennai on the Saturday, 12 December 2020 & have our Darshan on Tuesday, 15 December 2020 Evening 5:00 PM.
Accordingly we all booked our Darshan & Accommodation tickets as soon as the TTD Online Booking portal got opened on 30 November 2020.
So, with that priority task completed, we are ready for this year event.
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Day of the Padayatra
We all started, as per schedule on a cloudy day, for the Padayatra 2020 on Saturday, 12 December 2020. Due to the heavy rainfall during these past few days, we expected the same weather condition to continue. We all were prepared for rough weather with Rain Ponchos and extra bit of dry clothes.
The starting point is Naicker Chatiram Residence (3 km from Redhills). Some of them started walking from their home and reached here whereas some reached via other transport. There were few expected to join enroute.
We planned to have 2 vehicles for escort or service to stay along with us during the entire trip. Generally we have 1 car & 1 van but this time since no on-site cooking was planned, there was no Grocery van coming along with us, instead we planned for 2 cars to follow.
That lead to another complication of how the backpacks & bags of pilgrims will be transported. It was initially decided to load everything in one of the car but we found the car boot lock developed some issues so we decided to hire a Tata Ace transport in the last minute for carrying the bags & water cans.
A Note: All the starting and reaching time to a break point mentioned in this blog are average time when most of the team members gathers. There are micro groups & individuals who cover the same distance in a shorter timing or they start early or some start late. So there may be difference of 30 mins to 1 hour in the timings mentioned.
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Day - 1
Saturday, 12 December 2020
Around 10:30 AM to 11:00 AM most of the participants came to the starting point. In spite of this being official starting point many of the participants had already started walking and covered nearly 12 to 18 km for the day.
After everyone had gathered, we all had lunch by 12:30 PM. It was standard 'South Indian Thali' kind of menu and everyone had mouthful and heartful. About the food & sponsors, I will write it another blog, in detail.
We had the lunch and started from there around 1:30 PM, after worshiping in the temple at the Naicker Chatiram Residence. The weather had become humid from being cloudy in the morning.
The next scheduled pitstop was for the tea break around 4 to 4:30 PM next to Kannigaiper Village, few kilometers before Periyapalayam.
Most of the members reached there by the scheduled time, except for the few laggers who too reached there before 5:00 PM
The break point was just a shoulder on the road, where the car was parked with refreshments. As the members come in as groups, they had their refreshments of Tea & Biscuits and after a few minutes of relaxation, they started to move on.
The next scheduled destination was a village called Thandalam, which is next to the famous temple town of Periyapalayam. This is our night halt place where we call off the day, have dinner & stay for the night. It is around 2 to 2.5 hours of walk from this point.
From Periyapalam, it is roughly a 4 km distance to our final destination of the day. By the time we reached Thandalam, it already became dark.
The stay was arranged in a marriage hall called 'Lalitha Mahal' , for us to eat & sleep for the night.
The pilgrim members started relaxing after reaching the destination. There is no more walking for the day.
The dinner was served by 8:30 PM.
Usually food will be served on the leaf, so some set of members need to be doing the serving process at every supper point. However this time, we got dinner plates for all the pilgrims so the serving of the food become easy like a buffet.
Finally, we had our team meeting - getting introduced to the new members, discussing and explaining about changes in the schedule, difficulties faced during the arrangements etc. and with that we closed the day.
Here, a brief introduction about the padayatra team members. All the participating members are friends, colleagues & family members. Few are from the first group of padayatra team members from 1988 & 1989 and many others are those joined later with the old group or with the new group and still participating every year. For more information about this padayatra group, visit the post - 'Tirupathi Padayatra - History of this Pilgrimage Group'.
So, that was the day 1. The next day travel is from Thandalam to night destination at Palamangalam village, at the opposite end of Pichatur Lake.
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Day - 2
Sunday, 13 December 2020
The day starts around 2:30 AM. We have roughly around 40 km of walk for the day, split into early morning session, post breakfast session & post lunch session. Each session has an in-between break point and a destination point which gives us a much needed rest during the walk. Lets start the day.
All the pilgrims woke up around 2:00 AM and got ready for the day ahead. It is a long stretch of walk in this session, of around 15 km to the breakfast destination at Surutapalli, border town in Andhra Pradesh, with a scheduled tea break in-between, at the village Tharatchi.
After having a tea, we started our walk by 2:30 AM. Our next pitstop is at the village on the main road called Tharatchi, 9 km away.
After a brisk morning walk we all - either individually or as a small groups we reached the Tharatchi Village & halted near the bus stand for the tea break. Roughly around 4:00 AM tea & biscuits had arrived.
We had the refreshments and again started our pre-breakfast morning session walk to the next destination point, Surutapalli, Andhra Pradesh . It is a short session, roughly 6 or 7 km to the breakfast destination. During this leg of travel, we cross the Tamilnadu State border and enter into the Andhra Pradesh State, at the border town of Uthukottai. It is a big town which we come across after the Periyapalayam.
We reached Uthukottai around 5:30 AM and from there 1 KM to our breakfast destination of Surutapalli, village. This place is famous for the Surutapalli, Shivan Temple, attracting lot of pilgrims and devotees from both Tamilnadu and Andhra Pradesh.
We reached the SPB Mahal marriage choultry opposite to the Shivan Temple the place where our breakfast was arranged. After having a bath at the choultry we went to the temple and had darshan.
We came back and had some rest, by then the breakfast arrived. Had our breakfast, rested again for sometime before stepping on the road.
We started our walk around 9:00 AM.
Our pre-lunch session of walk is towards our next destination, Nagalapuram Village where our lunch is planned, which is around 10 KM from this place with a refreshment break in between at the Nandanam Village.
Though not scorching still the mercury started raising, making the walk difficult and tiring. Always or at least mostly, this is one the tiring stretch of walk. The destination sounds near but it always takes a considerable time of walk.
By 10:30 AM, at the bus stop along the roadside village Nandanam, we halted for a small refreshment break.
Service Members distributed 'Rose Milk' here, bought & brought from
Uthukottai, which made us feel refreshing after a tiring walk.
The lunch is at Sai Baba Temple which is located at the beginning of the village, immediately after the branching of the by-pass road. It is around 4 km from this place and will take another hour to reach.
We reached the Sai Baba temple at Nagalapuram,
around 12 noon. This place is our usual lunch spot for past many years of padayatra and it is a comfortable, open, airy place for a mid-day rest. As soon as we reach here, we lie down and take a nap on the cool marble floors of the temple verandah.
For the past many years, cooks coming along with us, used to prepare the lunch & dinner for the day at this place. But this time the food was arranged from an local catering person and who had supplied us with the Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner for the day.
From here we started around 2:30 PM for our last session of the day which is around 15 km, to the village called Palamangalam which is on the opposite end of the Pichatur lake. If the lake is dry or having less water, we will take the cart road which is inside the lake that will shortens the distance for nearly 3 km. However this time we do not see the luck in our favor due to the heavy monsoon rains, so we have to walk around lake this time.
We crossed the Vedanarayana Swamy Temple, Nagalapuram which is one of a largest temple structure in this part of the state which is resided by the lord Vishnu depicted in Matsaya Avatar.
We reached the
Pichatur Dam around 4:00 PM and continued our walk around the lake to reach our destination, Palamangalam.
We reached the Pichatur Dam around 4:00 PM and continued our walk around the dam to reach our destination. In between we had a small refreshment break enroute served with tea & biscuits at the Shivan Temple at the end of Pichatur Dam.
We reached the final destination for the day, Palamangalam Village by 6:00 PM and settled down for the night with a hot, tasty dinner.
Finally, we had our team meeting - discussing about next 2 days plans, feedback, suggestions etc. Suggestions are noted down which will be implemented during next year and the feedbacks will be attended. With that our day came to an end
So that was the Day 2. We have started by 2:30 AM from Thandalam, Tamilnadu and now reached the Palamangalam, Andhra Pradesh at 6:00 PM with breakfast at Surutapalli, Lunch at Nagalapuram, covering approximately 40 km for the day.
And we have a long day tomorrow. The next day travel is from this point, Palamangalam to night destination at Tiruchanur, which is like almost we reaching our final destination of Tirupati.
And to add, unexpectedly a situation had developed in our next day schedule due to which we were forced to prepone the timings and walking sessions. Usually we reach the last destination of temple town Tiruchanur in our own pace, visit temple for darshan any time before 9:00 PM or have a early morning 4:30 AM darshan. This time due to the COVID pandemic, the darshan timings in the temple got changed to strictly between 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Since the next day darshan starts only at 8:00 AM which is not possible for us as it will affect our Tirumala darshan timings, we need to have the darshan at Alamelumangapuram Padmavathi Temple tomorrow evening itself. Hence we need to start early and reach the destination before 4:00 PM so that we can have the darshan. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Day - 3
Monday, 14 December 2020
Once again the day starts around 2:30 AM. Since during the morning walk we can cover lot of kilometers we start the day early, well, just 2 hrs past midnight so that we will have a lesser distance for the remaining part of the day.
We have roughly around 43 km of walk for the day, via Puttur, Tadukku, Applayakunta and Tiruchanur and that too we need to reach before 4:00 PM.
Lets start the day !
We got ready & left the Night-Stay choultry by 2:30 AM. It was dark & cloudy night with no moon visible when we started. The dew in the air was making the weather chill.
The hot tea served at gate while starting was a stimulator & gave us a boot-start.
Our next break spot was to the morning refreshment point next to the 'Govindappa Naidu Kandriga Bridge' which we dearly call as 'Sridevi Tea Stall'. On its way, just a kilometer before Sridevi Tea Stall, we can come across a branching road to the hills on the left of the road, which leads to the famous tourist spot of Kone Falls, officially called as Kailasakona which happened to be the one & only waterfalls located near Chennai. Throughout the year this tourist location attracts lot of tourists but only for around 6 months there will be water flowing in this waterfalls.
Okay, getting back to our pilgrimage, our next break point 'Sridevi Tea Stall' is just 6 km away. Since we covered a larger distance yesterday evening during the post-lunch walk, now we enjoy a short distance. Otherwise, couple of years back we need to cover a 12 km stretch for the tea break and another 6 km to the breakfast which is 18 km for a morning walk.
We reached Sridevi Tea stall by 3:30 am and within 15 mins our service vehicle came with the tea Can & biscuits.
We had our refreshments and rest and again started our walk towards the breakfast destination at a Vinayagar Temple outside of the temple town, Narayanavanam.
Again, this is one of our regular spot for past many years during which we have seen this temple renovated from a small cramped stone structure with a stone paved flooring to now a modern roofed enclosure, having a very good clean toilets and baths, with ample floored space of dining.
The reason this is being mentioned here is - one of our major hardship during the pilgrimage is finding and getting a good place with clean toilets and bath when we start a day or end a day. In our early years, we used to adjust with lesser sanitation since nothing like that was available in our route. However in recent years, we started finding good places with clean toilets & bath for our stay. They were either newly built or our regular places got renovated because of the developments and lifestyle changes happening in the villages and towns. We are traveling in this road on padayatra pilgrimage for, say, more than for 30 years now and we are seeing lots and lots of changes enroute. Saying that, visit 'History of this Pilgrimage' post to know more about our group's Tirumala Padaytra Pilgrimage.
We reached the temple by 5:00 AM, covering our last pre-breakfast stretch of 6 km and waited for sometime for the temple caretakes to open the gates. We got into the temple, refreshed ourselves and 'zzzzzz' slept.
Breakfast arrived well before 6:00 AM, this time from Chennai, by one of our regular sponsorer. A point to mention, the distance between their residence and this point is more than 100 km which will take more than 2 hours of travel. They prepared the breakfast & reached here with a full breakfast menu items by the planned time.
On all days during the pilgrimage, since we wake up by 2:00 AM and do a good amount of morning session walk, we grow hungry by 5:00 AM itself. Hence the breakfast will be most awaited food of the day and we all will be waiting for it, like a starved pack of lions.
As soon as the breakfast arrived we devoured the hot & tasty food.
With the breakfast completed, we started by 6:30 AM itself for another long haul of walk to our next destination to our Lunch spot.
Most of the pilgrimage members in our group feels that, this & following stretch of walk session is the toughest of all because (1) it will be always scorching hot & tiring and (2) it is by-pass road without any shops or trees to rest. So we always want to quickly finish the breakfast here and reach the next point.
Our next destination is our Lunch spot at a Government Higher Secondary School, Seetharamapuram and this is a longest stretch of post-breakfast walking, in the entire trip, which is about 18 km with a refreshment in between. As I already said most of the members in our group feels this stretch of walk session is the toughest of all. Additionally, now we have the time constraint too.
From Narayanavanam, it is one straight road to Puttur town Railway level cross, crossing which you can enter the town. Just before that, the by-pass road branches in leftside of the highway under the Trunk Road bridge, which takes you directly to the outer of the Puttur town. Some members preferred the Puttur by-pass road & some walked via Puttur town main road. The distance is more or less the same or in fact town route may be a bit longer but walking via town will be entertaining whereas the by-pass road will be dry and scorching.
Due to hot weather, the usual refreshment here will be Tender Coconut, served few kilometers before the place Taduku. Everyone will be looking forward for this refreshment because the day temperature will become very hot by 8:00 AM itself, even during these coldest months.
Since there is no place to rest here, we replenished our fluids and quickly moved on. In another 2 km we reached the Taduku Railway station Road from where we took a detour towards Appalayakunta Road, a branching on the left side of the main road.
We covered 11 km since breakfast and reached the Taduku Railway Station Road around 8:30 AM and took our detour towards Appalayakunta Road. Since we were already dehydrated by then, bought a few soft drink bottles and moved on to find a place to rest a while.
We found a stone bench under a Tree canopy opposite to a Govenment School & took our much needed break and had our soft drinks.
After a 15 mins of rest we started our walk towards the our Lunch spot at Seetharamapuram, Government school, which was around 7 km from here.
After a tiring walk in a humid weather & winding, inclined road amidst of farm lands and Mango Orchids, we reached the lunch point by 10:30 AM where surprise awaited us.
Being COVID pandemic time, we did not expect the school to be functioning on that day and even during our Scouting trip, we met the school authorities and got the permission to rest there and have our lunch. But to our surprise the school was functioning and we did not have place to rest or eat.
We reached the school and settled down to rest in one of the vacant corridors in a non-functioning school block but the school authorities came and objected to our stay there. Then we explained to them that we have already got permission with the school principle few weeks back, then they agreed and we were allowed to have food and rest in a small corridor in one of the school block. That was actually a the terrible corner in the school campus and a worst place in this whole trip we rested & had food. "Sir, it was not fair".
Since the place was not good to rest and anyway we were running short of time, we had our food a midst dogs and monkeys & left from that place quickly by 12:00 noon.
We started our walk towards the Prasanna Venkateshwara Temple in Applayagunta which is 2.5 km from from this place.
We reached Appalayagunta temple, had our darshan quickly.
Immediately after darshan, we started towards Brahmanapattu village through the roads in between the fields. It is around 6 km from here & approximately in this hot, humid weather it will take 1.5 hours to reach that place.
Due to the seasonal rains the fields were water logged so we took the cart roads in between the fields to reach the main road at Brahmanapattu, instead of cutting across the fields. We reached there by 1:30 pm, sweating and tired.
We were desperately in need of a break with a chilled soft drink but the shops were not having shade to rest, so we bought few cool drinks and walked to a nearest tree shade and sat for a while.
After a 30 minutes of rest we started from there.
Now is our last session of walk for the day, towards temple town Tiruchanur which is 6 km away from here and we are well within our timings.
We reached
Tiruchanur aka
Alamelumangapuram town, around 3.30 pm and reached our night stay choultry by 3:45 pm. The choultry located very near to the temple entrance and so immediately we refreshed ourselves with a quick bath and started to temple to have our darshan.
Fortunately the temple was not much crowded so we had our darshan quickly, came out and had a nice coffee in a restaurant and returned to choultry. Nothing much to do now and also we have a long break in between before we start again next morning, well, leisurely after 6:00 AM. So time for a long awaited rest.
We all had our dinner around 7:30 PM in the restaurant opposite our choultry. Due to COVID lockdown restrictions all food outlets here were getting closed by 8:00PM.
The baggage transport van was relived from this point and from here all pilgrims should be carry their backpacks / baggage by themselves, going forward.
We had almost reached to the end of our pilgrimage. From this point mostly the schedule will be based on the individuals, according to their darshan timing, return plans etc. and it will be taken care by themselves. Morning breakfast alone we will be taking together, apart from that, this night will be our last night together.
So the usual group meeting was conducted & concluded with the suggestions and feedback session for next year pilgrimage. And with that we called off the day.
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Day - 4
Tuesday, 15 December 2020
Good Morning. It is around 5:30 AM and good to wake up in our usual timing then being a "Night Walkers"
After a hectic previous day, this day will be simple uneventful day and there are only 2 things and that will be - walking up the Tirumala footpath and having our darshan at Tirumala. The total distance up to the foothills will be just around 8 km & from their another 9 km of walk in the steep and flat footpath located in the hills of Tirumala.
We refreshed ourselves and started from the choultry to Tirupati town by 6:00 AM. It is 4 km from Tiruchanur and will take less than an hour to reach.
It was a swift walk of 45 mins covering 4 km.
Almost all of our members reached Tirupati well on time, around by 6:45 AM and went to our regular restaurant, Balaji Woodlands, which bang opposite to Tirupati Central Bus Stand.
But this time the restaurant was closed due to Pandemic and we settled in another restaurant 'Lakshmi Narayana Bhavan' next to it.
The breakfast was good and importantly, they it served quick, whereas in 'Balaji Woodlands' it will always be delayed.
This is our final breakfast together for this year pilgrimage and we all completed it.
After this point, we may not meet many of the members until next year pilgrimage except those going to darshan together. We exchanged our pleasantries and goodbyes here and moved on.
We started to the Alipiri (foothills of Tirumala) by 7:00 AM at our own paces.
It is a 3.5 km walk to the '
Alipiri Padahala Manadapam' which is a starting point of the footpath and it will take around 1 hour of walk in an inclined roads of this hill terrain.
We waited for few of the members to join us
The Footpath to Tirumala
The footpath to Tirumala is total of 7.5 km consisting of 3650 steps, distributed unevenly in flat & steep terrain. Also there is a stretch of footpath alongside the ghat road for some distance. The initial & final parts of the ascend is through series of steep steps, the starting ascend from the 'Padahala Mandapam', has 2050 steps through which you will reach a grand mandapam called 'Gaali Gopuram' & the final ascend called 'Muzhangaal Mudichu', immediately after the ghat road has a final flight of step.
There are few security & administrative check points through this entire walkway of footpath at various spots, for counting the pilgrims, frisking for contraband materials, providing free darshan tickets, authenticating the tickets etc. So the pilgrim has to go through these portals wherever they are installed.
The Ascend
The steps to the 'Gaali Gopuram' is the toughest part while climbing the hills due to its steep and continuous steps. The time taken to reach the 'Gaali Gopuram' is a test of the fitness & endurance of the individuals. Young, fit children and youths can cover this distance in 20 minutes whereas for some people it may take more than 1.5 hours or still more.
From here this blog will be mostly about our micro group of members because as I said before, members will reach the Tirumala at different times - mostly the schedule will be based on the individuals and when they reach the Tirumala, according to their darshan timing, return plans etc. and it will be taken care by themselves.
Our group started between 8:30 to 8:45 AM from here.
Climbing the steep steps towards 'Gaali Gopuram'
As we ascend, the weather becomes very humid & sultry. In spite of a chilled climate there will lot of sweating causing dehydration.
Though there might be shops throughout the steps, there might be a urgent need of hydration, so keep a water bottle or Glucose pack handy...
Reached the 'Gaali Gopuram' in slightly less than an hours time...
Though we have already booked our Darshan tickets, we collected our Free Darshan Ticket too at 'Gaali Gopuram' & went to have some rest for few minutes with a chilled 'Lemon, Salt & Soda' preparation which will restore our body salts.
After a 15 minutes of break, we started again. From here the path will not be steep neither there will be much steps, except for another 100 steps coming immediately and then the final steps at the end of the ascend. So its a 'cake walk' from here.
Lot of roof structures covering the footpath & its supporting pillars, side soil, got damaged due to the recent storm & torrential rains. You can see in pics they are getting restored...
Reached the Hanuman Statue point which is almost like midway...
After this place, somewhere before the road starts, there will be a security desk where the free darshan tickets collected at 'Gaali Gopuram' will be authenticated...
Reached the point where footpath connects to the ghat road (going downhill to
Tirupati Town) and from here the walk will be on the sidewalk of the road to the final ascend.
Reached the last flight of steps, called 'Muzhangaal Muduchi' which is beyond the Gopuram in the above picture.
Again, it is a steep ascend but a shorter version.
Stone carving artwork on the ceiling of the Gopuram
We started our ascend on the steps...
And this is the final step.
We crossed the final step just before 12:00 noon. From here we will go to the CRO (Central Reservation Office) near Tirumala Bus Stand to confirm our accommodation booking and from there to the room allocated to us.
At CRO...
At our allocated accommodation...We reached our rooms around 1:30 PM. The darshan is at 5:00 PM, so we have ample time to have our lunch, rest, refresh & start for the darshan.
With that, Tirupati Padayatra 2020 has come to an end. As said before we may not be meeting many members until next year, except those we see during the darshan.
Those who stayed together or in the nearby rooms and blocks, had our lunch, refreshed & went to the darshan. At darshan queue we met few others from our Padayatra group and few friends came in car directly to Tirumala and joined us for darshan.
We all had a nice, wonderful, peaceful darshan this time.
Here, this write-up comes to an end.
At this point I would like to sincerely thank all the members of the group, service members including cooks, assistants, drivers etc., of course the organizers and sponsors, everyone playing different roles every year, for making this Padayatra a successfully continuing event year after year without any break, since 1988.
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Below are some of the pictures taken during our padayatra & at Tirumala.
Thank you all !
Stay Safe & Stay Well.
Tirumala Tirupathi Padayatra (ALF) Trust®
Disclaimer: In this blog write-up, if any specific or important event is missed or incorrectly mentioned or if any detailing, place or person is incorrectly portrayed, it might have happened inadvertently without any prejudice. I sincerely request the concerned to email me the details so that it shall be validated and corrected immediately. Thank you
Copyright Notice: Contents, Images and pictures in this write-up are owned by the Tirumala Tirupathi Padayatra (ALF) Trust, a registered body. Any unauthorized use of the above material either in full or in parts thereof will subject to legal action under copyright infringement.
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