It was a long time since i had visited Tirupati.I thought of giving some of my inputs so that it might be helpful when you are planning to visit.
We boarded the bus to Tirupathi on Friday night at 10.30 from Double road (lalbagh).
You will find many bus options to reach Tirupathi.The bus reached around 4.30 a.m.
We had decided to reach Tirumala by walk crossing the seven hills.
The place from where the climb to Tirumala starts is called Allipiri.
Many buses and autos ply between the main bus stand and Allipiri.
We had boarded an auto and he charged 40 bucks for it.
We started our ascent at around 4.50 a.m.
The initial climb is a bit steep and you can find eat outs and restrooms very often.
After crossing around 2000 steps is the place where they take a photo of yours and give you a slip which you will need to produce when you enter the queue and the pilgrims who have reached from stairs need to join the queue called as ‘Divyadarshanam’.
After getting our tokens we took a break and had a light breakfast and resumed our journey.
Then you will find Hanuman temple.After that the path is almost flat.
For a few kms you need to walk along the road and the final ascent is very steep where we need to climb around 2000 to 2500 steps.
We reached Tirumala at 8.30 a.m.For an average climber it might take around 4 hrs to 6 hrs.
We had booked a room already in Tirumala.We freshened up and had our brunch and headed towards the temple.
We had to carry our luggage along with us as we had got our room only for few hours.
You will find many luggage and mobile baggage counters before entering the queue.
However some queues are meant only for certain tickets.
For e.g : In a counter only Rs 50 ,Rs 300 ticket holders could deposit their luggage and mobiles.
But there was too much rush.So we were lucky enough to find a counter which wasn’t much crowded.
After depositing our luggage we headed towards the queue and it was already two and we had our bus back to Bangalore from Tirupathi at 11.30 p.m.
The queue was moving fast initially and then we reached the huge rooms where we had been locked for 2 long hours and as soon as the gates opened people rushed towards the gate which would have resulted in stampede.Somehow we were again back in the queue which was moving at snail’s pace.
Finally we entered the main door of the temple where the temple staffs were busy pushing everyone to move the queue faster.
Atlast we finished our darshan and we came out of the temple by 6.30 p.m.Got a few laddus from the Laddu counter which is a few metres walk from the temple.
2 laddus are given per ticket,if someone wants to buy more.There is a laddu coupon counter where only 100 Rs coupon(4 Laddus) is issued per person.
We decided to have dinner at Tirupathi.We quickly collected our luggage from the luggage counter and boarded the Tirumala Tirupathi bus at 8 p.m and the ticket cost was 40 Rs.
We reached Tirupathi Bus stand at 9.30 p.m.We found a decent hotel near the bus stand for dinner.The food was average.
We were at the bus stop by 11.p.m.The bus started from Tirupathi at 11:40 p.m. and it’s expected time to reach Bangalore was 5.30 but to our surprise we were at Bangalore bus stand at 4:30 a.m.
It is advisable to book a room in advance.Although,there are loads of guest houses in Tirumala,sometimes you may not get any rooms.
Travel Expenditure :
Ticket Cost : 410*2 = 820
Food + Snacks : 300
Transportation + Miscellaneous : 250
Total : 1370 Rs.