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.
Have you played the game ‘Temple Run’? I haven’t. I only know of it thanks to my son. However, it was the name which struck me, when I began writing about all the temples I visited during our #summertrip to Tirunelveli. Over a period of three days, we visited almost 40 temples, and the planning, organization and execution of the feat involved a whole lot of research work, and timing it just right. It was way more adventurous, and fun, than the game can ever be, at least for me!