Great temple to have a Darshan. Review on Pandharpur

Travel: On Sunday morning we have started from Pune around 7:30am for Pandharpur Vittobha

darshan by Car. It is our first visit to Pandharpur. Route which we have chosen is Solapur high way. It is through Hadapsar->Indapur->Tembhurni.We would have start little early to avoid busy traffic of Sugarcane tractors. After5 km from Temburni on high way, we took right turn for Pandharpur local road. Thisroad is about 38 km to reach Pandharpur. Around 10km stretch road condition is bad and rest is OK and less traffic. We have reached to Temple premises around12:30 am.

After reaching: Once we reached near to temple, we are searching for parking place. There we caught by one broker who claims to be a Temple guide by asking us to very small amount. My honest suggestion is don’t come into these broker/guides/pandits/Poojari’s pooja trap. So called guide/broker shown us a parking place it is just on left side of road. You can park anywhere on road where you feel comfortable in parking. Don’t forgot to leave your mobiles, electronic items and handbags in your car. It is not allowed to temple premises. Also leave your Footwear to if you are comfortable in walking with barefoot for a few meters. Else you can drop at any shops near to temple.

Temple Darshan:

There are three types of darshan. Dharma darshan which allow you touch holy feet’s of God.Normally it will take 2~3 hours. Mukh darshan which allow you to see the God from three meters away. It will take 15~30minutes of time. Special/VIP darshanwhich costs you to Rs51/-.It will take 30 minutes~1 hours.It will connect directly at main door with Dharma darshan.[it is difficult to find to get special entrance tickets]. Temple is clean and well maintained.

Brokers and Temple Pandits will try to fool you by saying different stories and explaining Darshanmay take around 4~5 hours.It will 10 minutes only If you perform a pooja like RajaBhog and Tulasi pooja which actually costs Rs51/- . They used to say God’s prasad, and cloth will be given and pooja will be performed in main temple. Actually every one can have it in Dharmadarshan too. They try to charge you anywhere around 500~1500/- depending on your valet worth. So don’t listen to any pandits, Poojaris, brokers etc.

Before entering into temple buy a required Pooja items and cloth if you want place it on holy feet of Vittobha and take back to home. Directly go to temple office and ask for special darshan which they called as a VIP which cost you Rs51/- per head .It will be directly connected to darshan Q line. In the Q line also you can find many pandits asking you to perform a Pooja.[Rate will come down to Rs 300~500/-]. After entering into main temple, there you will find 4~5 poojaris, they ask you to wait for few minutes and say some stories and saying that they will give you a God’s cloth and prasad by demanding any where between Rs500~1000/-. Don’t pay anything to any one and simply touch the holy feel of god and present all Pooja items on his feet and come back peacefully. If you are valet is heavy enough, donate in temple office by getting the receipt. From there you will be directed to Rukminin temple. There also same story. Ask you to drop some money in a box to get a Goddess Blousepeace and Kumkum. Buy a Laddu Prasad pocketsfor Rs 5/-. Each pocket will have a two laddus.

Overall we had a good darshan by paying the Rs50/- X4=200 @temple office and little bit cheated by broker/guide. Temple is very good and well maintained and you will enjoy the darshan if you are trapped by Brokers.

Where to eat: After Darshan we come out of the temple andour broker is ready at there. Then we have asked him to show me a good hotel to have a lunch. He shown a Hotel Renuka and said that it is an excellent hotel in Pandharpur. This hotel is very bad and we cannot sit inside for few minutes.They do not understand word “cleaning”. From there we come out and got into our car and searching for a hotel where we can sit for few minutes and can eat something. We found “Hotel Gold tea special” just near to ICICI Bank. Comparatively it is good in quality and clean enough.

After Lunch we have visited a Kaikad Maharaj Math. It is not so great but it is worth enough to visit if you are physically fit to walk and climb up and down stairs for 45 minutes.

Return: We have started back to Pune @ 4:30pm. This time we have chosen different rout. It isthrough Phalton->Saswad->Pune. Road is wide enough and traffic is less but road is not good enough. So I think best route is Pune->Hadpsar->Indapur->TurnRight towards Akluj->Pandharpur.

Jai Pandharnath! JaiPandharnath! Jai Pandharnath!