Vellore - Golden Temple and Jalakanteswara Temple

In the month of November, 2014 we planned to visit  Golden Temple which is in Vellore,TamilNadu, so we got our tickets booked in Lalbagh express for Saturday. We started from Bangalore on Saturday morning. We reached Katpadi at 11:00 am. If you are  planning to travel by train, remember you need to get down at Katpadi railway station. We got down at Katpadi and caught an auto rickshaw to Sripuram,Vellore. The autowala charged around Rs 200 - 250 to Sripuram. There are buses also available near the Katpadi Railway station.


We reached Sripuram at 12 pm. As it is not allowed to carry Cameras, Mobiles and baggage into the temple premises we deposited the same at the counter outside the temple. We bought special darshan tickets as we do not know how much time the free darshan may take and we need to catch a train back to Bangalore in the evening. The special darshan tickets cost around Rs 250/- for adults and for kids is free. The main deity Lakshmi Narayani Devi is located in main temple. The main temple is surrounded with star shaped structure which is similar to Srichakra. The main temple is covered with Gold covering completely.

We were allowed to sit infront of the Goddess, which is allowed only for seva ticket. There are many other sevas also. We can donate money for Annadanam and other sevas also.

The prasadam is also available there. We can buy many things like Rose water, sarees, gold, silver items, ayurvedic medicines, etc.

We finished our darshan and came outside. We had food at the Annadanam centre. As part of shopping inside the temple we bought some pickles.

From there we took a rickshaw and we went to the Jalakantswara temple, which is situated in the Vellore fort. As we had still time for catching the train back to Bangalore, we decided to visit the temple. The autowala charged around Rs 150/-. Please note the temple opens around 4 pm in afernoon.  

The Vellore fort is surrounded with three sides water. On entering the temple we can see a pushkarini on the right hand side and a mandapam on the left. On entering the main temple, we could take the darshan of Lord Vinayaka, and as we move on to our left, we can see Lord Venkatesha, Lord Subramanya with his both wives Srivalli and Devasena. Walking forward we can see Adi Sankar and Veerabadra.

We can also see well on the right side of main temple. Lord shandeswar, Kalabhairava, Navagraha can also be seen one after another. The main deity of the temple is Lord Siva.

After taking darshan, we came outside and sat for sometimes in the kalyana mantapa. There we can find lot of monkeys.

We returned back to Katpadi railway station by an auto. The autowala charged around Rs 150/-. There are number of trains to Bangalore, but we had reserved our tickets on the Lalbagh express.

Overall the journey was very satisfactory.

Lepakshi and Veerapuram

Trip in April, 2014: The summer holidays began for the kids. We planned to go to our native place...but our plan got postponed. So we were excited to go to some interesting place for a day trip. We surfed the internet and we picked one place "Lepakshi". It is a small village in Ananthpur district in Andhra Pradesh.

Lepakshi is around 120 km from Bangalore and we hit the road around 10 am in the morning after our breakfast.

It is advisable to start early to avoid the sun. On the way we had refreshing coconut water and we wanted to have lunch at Kamat. However as we were not feeling hungry we decided to continue. We reached Kodikonda checkpost and we saw a board showing us to take left to proceed to Lepakshi. The distance to Lepakshi was mentioned 15 km and the road looked like a village road. Hence we looked around for options for lunch and fortunately were able to identify Harita resort  of AP Tourism. We had nice lunch (Andhra meals) there and continued our journey.

On the way we saw a junction which leads to Veerapuram where we can view Painted Storks which migrate from Siberia to Veerapuram during Dec - July every year.

We were excited to visit the place and birds but we decided to visit the place on return from Lepakshi. After travelling some kms we saw some big stones on a hill on the left hand side. We guessed that we are nearing to Lepakshi. The scenery was good.

Soon we reached the Nandi. This is said to be the largest monolithic Nandi statue in India. The Nandi is on the main road.

The temple is 200 m away from Nandi. See the entrance of the temple below.

The main deity here is Veerabhadra. The temple is said to be built by Virupakshanna, under the Vijayanagar kings. 

Carvings on stone referring to Srikalahasti temple, which means Srikalahasti temple existed when Lepakshi temple was being constructed.

The artist seems to have carved out Lord Ganesha for worship before starting the work.

It is said due to misunderstanding king ordered for the temple' builder to be blinded. Here this Virupakshanna removed his eyes and threw on the wall. The blood marks can be seen even today.

Sita amma padam: Foot print of Sita can be found here. the foot print was indeed very big, just compare the shadow with the foot print to understand how big it is.

Then we came across the carving of a plate, which was used by artist. Indeed it looks like people of those times were well built and had good appetite.

Then we came across the open air kalyana mandapam which conveys the marriage of Lord shiva and Parvati in the form of carvings

The artist were waiting for their mother to prepare for lunch and meanwhile they carved out Shiva lingam and serpant from single stone. 

In all we spent couple of hours at the Nandi and temple together and then started our journey back as we also wanted to see the painted stork.

Here are some photos of the painted stork. 

After spending around 1 hr at Veerapuram we proceeded back to Bangalore. On the way bay we had dinner at Kamat and the food was great as always.