Seshadri's Musings

  Continuing from last time… The hotel was providing complimentary breakfast from 8 to 9am.  So, we thought we will visit the famous Kanaka Durga temple before breakfast and then continue with the rest of the journey.  Reached the temple by 730am.  Had a nice darshan.  Since there was a crowd there, enquired about quick-darshan options.  They had Rs 100, Rs 300 and Rs 500 option.  Expected wait time being 30mintes, 5 minutes and 0 minutes.  Opted for Rs 300 tickets for the three of us 😊 !  There was no waiting time and we were able to get a good darshan.  Paying extra Rs 200 per head would have just kept us some 5-6 feet nearer to the deity 😊 ! Reached hotel by 815am, had breakfast, checked-out of the hotel and then headed to the final Narasimhar temple in our itinerary – Mangalagiri (Panakala Narasimhar Swamy) temple, which was about 20-25 minutes away.  Sri Mangala Giri Narasimha is located in Vijayawada in Andra Pradesh. ...

Continuing from last time… On checking with Google maps, I found that we will reach Mattapally only by 130pm.  By that time the temple would be closed.  So, we will only be able to have the darshan at 4pm.  We had one more temple to visit and then reach Vijayawada.  In the meantime, the Vijayawada hotel called me and asked as to when I was checking in.  I had already paid 50% of the tariff and the balance was to be paid after checking in or checking out.  I told him that we should be there by 7 or 8pm and we will definitely be coming 😊 !! I found another 3-4 kms stretch of kuchcha road in between.  However, there were no bushes on both sides.  I had to check twice with people coming from opposite direction whether I was on right track to Mattapally or not 😊 !!  Finally reached Mattapally at 215pm.  Mr Phani had said that there was a brahman bhojanalaya there where we could have food.  We went to the bhojanalaya and had food. I...

I am dividing this blog into three parts as it became too large 😊 !  I wanted to add more stuff about the temple so that you too would enjoy reading this and would want to visit these places once 😊 !! Last year itself my wife had told me of these 5 Sri Narasimhar temples that are present in Andhra-Telangana region.  All these places have self-manifested deities of Sri Narasimhar perumal. Sri Rajyalakshmi devi is the consort of Sri Narasimhar in all the temples. The places being Wadapally, Kethavaram, Mattapalli, Vedadri and Mangalagiri.  I had checked out the places in Google maps and estimated that this could be done in 2 days. Last month, we decided that we will undertake this trip after my daughter’s board exams. Plan was to reach Vijayawada by overnight train and seeing these places from there.  2-day trip and return back to Hyderabad by night train on the second day.  I checked with few people if they are interested to accompany us; only those who can...

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