Please Read previous parts of this blog series in the below link:
Day 5
We left for ayodhya at 5.30 am from the hotel in varanasi after check out . Our darshan has been booked for 1.30 pm to 3 pm slot. We thought to reach early to explore ayodhya. The road is excellent except for small patches. Reached ayodhya at 10.30 am. As usual vehicles were stopped far away similar to prayagraj for crowd management. We had to park our car at a far away designated ground. Then we took a toto and reached a particular point till where he was ready to go. Again from there we had to hire another toto who left us near ayodhya railway station. From the station we started to walk towards ram mandir. On the way we had our breakfast in a restaurant and continued to walk. When we reached near mandir Marg we saw thousands of people thronging the street. All of us were made to walk for almost 1.5 to 2km and then had to make a u-Turn and walk on the other side for another 1.5 to 2 km to reach mandir entry. We had booked our passes for sugam darshan online 15 days back. Inspite of that they made us to walk along with the whole crowd till we reached gate. From gate people with passes were allowed through special entry. Only few people less than 50 were walking comfortably at our own pace through the VIP pass entry. We deposited all our mobiles and even car key in the lockers available at no cost. Also there was a designated place for our shoes too at no cost. Even wheel chair ramps are present and many elderly people were being taken by wheel chairs to visit mandir. Even wheel chairs are if free of cost and had to be booked along with sugam darshan pass. Lots of construction work is still going on. But we have to visit in person to appreciate its grandeur. Finally we had darshan of Ram Lalla. It's a beautiful idol and you won't feel like taking your eyes off. Finally we collected our free prasad and collected our belongings. We were surprised to see a Mandir in south Indian architecture. We couldn't explore ayodhya as planned due to heavy crowd every where. No big hotels are available for stay near mandir. Dharamshala's are available. Several new home atays are coming up. So we decided to stay at Sultanpur which is 2 h away from Ayodhya and it is enroute to Mumbai. Again we hired a toto and reached our parking and left for sultanpur at 3.30 pm where we had booked our stay at a hotel named The four seasons. We reached our hotel at 6 pm . The hotel was ok for a night's stay. They don't have a restaurant. But you can get limited menu. We rested for the dayand were looking forward to start our return journey.
Note:
If you are planning to visit ayodhya book sugam darshan passes or Arthi passes 15 days before from their website https://online.srjbtkshetra.org/#/login. The booking opens at midnight 12 and generally it finishes off within 30-45 min of opening. You need to have Aadhar numbers, photo of primary pilgrim to upload while booking. Due to Kumbhmela I had to try for 3 consecutive days and finally on 3rd day I got my booking for 7 th February 2025. I planned the whole itinerary after booking darshan pass. If you visit without Darshan pass you may have to be in Queue for hours with pass your darshan will be completed in 30 min maximum and without crowd. The distance we walked to reach is due to Kumbhmela crowd. Otherwise you need not walk so much.
Day: 5 Sultanpur to Seoni
Started our journey at 5.30 am from sultanpur. We tried to purchase water bottle from the hotel and we were told all the bottles exhausted due to massive crowd. Google maps showed that we will reach seoni by 4 pm. We estimated that with rest we may reach by 5 pm to 5.30 pm. But when we touched prayagraj borders there was barricade and we were diverted by the police into the city inspite of us telling them we don't need to go to mela but travel towards nagpur. They were in no mood to listen. We got several diversions thanks to police and google maps and we were in mela area for almost 3 h driving. Ultimately it took 4-4.5 h for us to come and join highway NH30. There was excessive jam everywhere. There was almost 10 km traffic jam in the outskirts of prayagraj. Also what we found was almost in many tolls even in Madhya Pradesh the vehicles were stalled. Due to the jam some great mahanta pilgrims brilliantly thought to come to the other side of the highway and drive in wrong direction only to create jam and chaos in the other side too. We could not get food till sleemanabad in any good hotel as everything is sold out. Finally we had food at Midway Treat, Sleemanabad. We were surviving on snacks the whole day. The thali we had at sleemanabad is our first meal of our day. We then resumed our journey and reached hotel at 00.30 hours. So my husband had to drive almost 19 h. This may be the first time he drove this much continuously. I was really worried about safety of our journey till we reached the hotel as tiredness is one of the main reasons known to cause accidents. We both were finding sleepy too. He had to wash his face , have tea and keep himself awake to drive. Finally we checked in in Annadham inn and crashed into our bed.
Day 6: Seoni to Mumbai
Eagerly waiting to reach our nest. I think ultimately everyone yearns to go back to our comfort zone which is nothing but our own homes. Wherever you wander but ultimately we want to come back. Thus our journey back home started at 8 am after breakfast in our hotel. We decided to start late as no good options for food in samruddhi mahamarg as I mentioned earlier so we want to have our breakfast and then leave. We took small breaks and a hour if break in Igatpuri at Spicedella restaurant in the hotel The fern to have some late lunch.We reached our home comfortably at 8.30 pm.
With this part my Mahakumbh series of blog is coming to an end. Thank you to all readers for encouraging me to write more. Meet you all in another blog soon. Thank you till then.
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