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The Vaishnodevi Experience 2023

My first trip to Vaishnodevi was unimpressive. Climbing was hard, and it only served to highlight how badly out of shape I was, while my in-laws managed to cope so much better. Further, I hadn’t quite realized that the cave experience wouldn’t be the same as I had imagined, since the original cave was only opened at certain times a year, and that we only entered a newly created tunnel, one far easier to access, and hence more manageable with the crowds that thronged the mountain shrine. The resulting experience at the shrine, for barely a fraction of a second, hardly compared to what I had expected / imagined / heard about. So, for me, Vaishnodevi was like any other temple, nothing to write home about, something that was reflected (though not explicitly mentioned) in the blog post I wrote then.
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A Long Vacation Comes to an End

Its been one hectic summer vacation. Over the period of one month, we traversed over 5000 Km as we spent our holidays travelling and making the most of the longest vacation of the year!

We started our tour with a visit to Tiruppur, where Samhith made the most of his time with his aunt. While there, we managed to sneak in a visit to the Dhyanalinga Temple near Coimbatore.



From there, we headed towards Madurai,
where Shankar joined us, and we spent our 9th wedding anniversary visiting the Madurai Meenakshi Temple.........



and also our family deity temple at Nainar Kovil.



We then headed towards Chennai, where we just had time to drop in on our relatives before we headed out towards the temple town of Kancheepuram.....



and then to Pondicherry, where we spent a couple of restful days.


While returning to Chennai, we spent our time at Mahabalipuram, adding one more place to Samhith's list of World Heritage Sites...



It was time to get back to Mumbai, which we did by hopping on to a summer special train which took its own sweet time, stopping at any and every station which came our way.... We stayed at home for just a couple of days before it was time to head out again... this time towards the west.... First to Mount Abu....



then to the temple of Ambaji in Gujarat....



and then towards Udaipur....



We finished our tour with a visit to the Chittorgarh Fort, and finally headed back to Mumbai by bus!



What a tour it has been! There is much to write, and it is going to keep me busy for months to come!

Meanwhile, I induced Samhith to finally make a scrap book by buying him a handmade paper scrap book at Auroville, and he actually managed to put some things together during the trip itself... On his instructions, I am not going to put it up here, but on his blog. Please do click here and check it out!

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