Journey To Tirupathi - concluding - 31.10.06

The downpour made matters worse and our mood turned gloomy. We were very tired of the long and irksome journey and to add to the problem our driver did not know how to proceed. Finally we made him stop at a roadside tea-stall and got the requisite information to reach Tirumala.

The final leg of the journey began and we made the climb to the top and it was far from uneventfull. Suddenly our driver decided that he wanted to show off some skills. Mom and dad were very terrified now as he plunged into one turn after another. The bends in the road were like any other on a Ghat section, almost U-turns. He was using the steering wheel like a weapon and with total disregard for the opposite traffic just took one turn after another. We almost collided with an oncoming APSRTC bus. Any ways i did ot realise all this because my attention was drawn by the lights of The Tirumala temple which were visible on the hill top. It looked even more marvellous due to the cloud cover.


Finally we reached Tirumala at 12:25 a.m, and woke up our local contact, who i must say did not sound a bit flustered, at 12:30 a.m, an employee of the bank for which my dad works and managed to get the entry passes to the Temple complex. (We were later told by the Branch Manager that this happesall the time andthat the contact is used to the routine). The contact then directed us to the Guest house, where we would be put up for the next 2 days and left.

We finally got into the guest house and immediately sighed in relief, but we still had to wake up early and be in the temple complex by 5:30 a.m. We managed to lie down and i do not remember what happened for the next 3 hours or so.

Our driver was left to fend for himself as we were in no mood to think about anything else.