Theme: ‘Spiritual Quest in India’
States and Union territories covered: 13
India is a diverse country in aspect of spiritual places with people following many different religions. So we came to a point that we should utilise this great opportunity to explore different spiritual places in the country. We will get to know the taste of every religion and even this will help us to get acquainted with different cultures in our country. We started our journey by visiting Siddhivinayak temple and Haji Ali dargah in Mumbai followed by Basilica of Bom Jesus church and the St. Cathedral church in Goa. We then visited Mysore Palace followed by some other local temples out there. We then went to Alleppey (Alappuzha) via Kochi and visited famous Ambalappuzha Sri Krishna Temple and were attracted by the local rituals, attire etc of the place. We also visited Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala, and went to famous Shree Padmanabhaswamy temple which is the richest temple in the world and is also famous for its treasure. Then we headed to Madurai, cultural capital of Tamil Nadu. We visited Meenakshi Amman temple and Koodal Azhagar temple there where we were dumbstruck by the architectural beauty. We headed to Bengaluru and visited Iskcon Sri Hare Krishna Temple. We got to know about Swami Prabhupada and the way they managed the crowd really impressed us as the temple was quite big in size. Then we visited Ghoom Monastery (Famous Buddhist Monastery of Darjeeling) and experienced the awesome culture of Buddhism there. In Siliguri, we explored buddhist pilgrimage sites where Lord Buddha got enlightenment under bodhi tree, i.e. Bodh Gaya. We then headed to Varanasi for visiting Kashi Vishwanath temple. Next we went to Amritsar where we visited famous Baba Harmindar Sahib also known as the Golden Temple which is a marvellous architectural piece. It was coming, it had to come one day when this terrific tour had to end. What a tour, simply amazing. It was a kind of emotional moment, when we had to part ways. A simple heartwarming hug from everyone and a final goodbye!!!
