Kris's Travelogue: Srisailam trip

Started at 9 AM on a Sunday morning from Hyderabad in a hired Innova. Reached Srisailam at 1:30 PM, took ORR and drove non-stop apart from making entries at 2 check post, till we reached the view points near Srisailam dam. One can spot lot of monkeys on the way and we can we people slowing the vehicles and dropping food which is not a good idea. Request you folks not to continue the trend. Travellers should be careful not to run down the monkeys specially baby monkeys.

Visited the first landmark temple of Srisailam which is 2 km from the main temple. Had a quick darsanam of Sri Sakshi Ganapati and proceeded to Srisailam. Checked in APTDC Haritha resort (pre-booked online) and proceeded to first darsanam of Sri Mallikarjuna Swamy Jyothirlinga and Maha Sakthi Bhramaramba Devi at 2:00 PM.

It is customary to visit the temple immediately after reaching Srisailam which is called Dhooli Darsanam. In spite of being a Sunday and Vaikunta Ekadasi, we had a considerably quick darsanam and came out in 1 hr which included darshans of Mallikarjuna Swamy, Vruddha Mallikarjuna Swamy, Sri Rama pratishta Sahasra Lingam, Triphala Vruksham, Sri Veerabhadra Swamy, Pandava pratishta Siva Lingas, Sita pratishta Sahasra Lingam, Sri Bhramarambha Devi, which are all in the same temple compound. The temple is usually closed at 3 PM and will be opened again at 5:30 PM.

day view of main gopuram

night view

The restaurant in Haritha offers buffet lunch from 12:45 PM to 3 PM and dinner from 7:30 PM to 10 PM. The food is decent, served hot and is priced at 70/-. It was 3:15 by the time we reached the resort and the restaurant was closed. Luckily, we had packed food to be on safer side and had it for lunch. We planned to visit Ishta Kameswari temple but was informed that the temple has been closed for few days. After relaxing for a while we proceeded to Patalaganga rope way which is about 1.5 km from the resort but could not get into as it was too crowded and same was the case with Srisaila Sikharam.

We had booked tickets online for rudra abhisekham and kumkuma pooja few days before the trip. The ticketing counter usually opens at 6:30 PM where we exchanged our online vouchers to get printed tickets. There is a counter to get pooja material with these tickets which was closed for most of the time due to their inability to handle huge crowd thronging the counters for abhisekham tickets. Finally we managed to get the pooja material at 9 PM, after making few rounds and struggling in the crowded line for 30 mins.

Haritha resort is well maintained resort and is strongly recommended for everyone who is seeking accomodation in Srisailam. The only drawback is, hot water is available only from 4 AM to 6 AM. Since we had abhisekham at 7 AM, we managed to get ready by 6 AM and reached temple by 6:30 AM. Since it was a Monday, the temple was too crowded. We had to wait for almost 2 hours for our 1 minute chance to be the presence of Sri Mallikarjuna Swamy. However, we rejoiced every second of the opportunity to perform Abhishekam. We can touch the Siva Lingam and even do a pranamam by touching the forehead to the idol. After the Abhishekam, we visited other temples in the complex and performed Kumkuma pooja to Sri Bhramaramba Devi.

Outside the temple, there were few ladies who charge 100/- and give us an opportunity to do Annadanam to 10 sadhus there. It was their way of making money but we liked the idea and offered food to few of them.

We returned to the resort, had lunch and proceeded to rope way at Patalaganga. Other noticable places in Srisailam are Phaladaara and Panchadaara, Hatakeswaram, , Sikhara darshanam, Chenchu Lakshmi tribal museum. There are few beautiful images of lord Siva near the Nandi circle. Tribal museum is adjacent to one of the idols. Harita resort is very close to Nandi circle. A sign board indicating the direction to post office can be seen immediately after crossing the Nandi circle.

Patalaganga rope way is a short 5 minute passage to get down to Patalaganga. Alternate route is to get down about 400 steps. There is an option to go on a boat ride to enjoy the beauty of Krishna river.

View of patalaganga from boat, people take holy dip in the water. The water in this region is very deep and there were several announcements cautioning tourists to the follow the instructions and not enter the water apart from the designated points.

Phaladhaara Panchadhaara, and Hatakeeswam are 2 points which are about 4 km from the main temple and 2 km from Saakshi Ganapati temple. One has to climb down about 145 steps to reach Phaaladhaara and Panchadhaara to see the water coming out of the rocky hill. I tasted the water but could not differentiate the taste.