TSTDCS: Warangal Kakatiya Heritage Tour Review

TSTDC: Warangal Kakatiya Heritage Tour Review

This is one of the weekend package tour from Telangana State Tourism development corporation. Tour starts from Yatri niwas in Secunderabad at 07:00 am in the morning. 

Yadagiri-gutta Temple:

The first stop is the Yadagiri-gutta temple. You reach there by about 09:00 am. You can have breakfast (Idly, Vada etc) at the Haritha Hotel. The prices are reasonable and the quality good.

The shrine is a bit crowded over weekends. There are two options to skips the queue. There is Rs 150 per head ticket and I think a Rs 512 per couple ticket. This is a shrine for Lord Narshimha. This is a local temple so you may only find signages in telugu. Photography inside the temple is prohibited and they may take your camera to check and delete any photographs.

The place is being renovated to make is a major tourist spot like Tirupathi in Andhra Pradesh.

The next stop is the Kalpuka Jain temple. There is a dress code here. Avoid wearing black clothes and shorts.

The town of Pembathi is famous for its sheet metal handicrafts. You could view the stuff in few shops which come on the way.

Reach Warangal and check-in to the comfortable AC room of Haritha Warangal and relax for about 2 hrs. You can have dinner in restaurant in the hotel. Both buffet and ala carte options are available.

Next head to the famous thousand pillars temple, bhadrakali temple and the Warangal fort. Optionally enjoy the sound and light show at the Warangal fort which gives a glimpse of the history of the Kakatiya kingdom.

APTDC Shirdi Package Tour Review

Overall Rating: 3/5

There are a number of packages run by APTDC for Shirdi. This specific review pertains to the Sleeper Coach 3 day package, although much of points would be applicable for the other tours as well.

Bus Rating: 4/5

The Sleeper coach is nice and relatively well maintained. It is normal bus though from Veera though and not a Volvo or a Mercedes. The biggest glitch with the coach was it did not have any entertainment amenities like a personal LCD which several sleeper coaches have to offer.

Another important thing to note is that the bus has pick points from Ameerpet, KPHB(Ganesh Marbles) and somewhere in Miyapur as well although the APTDC website does not mention this. You can take the driver's contact number and coordinate the same.

On-Route Experience: 2/5

While going from HYD-Shirdi the Bus stops at Harita hotels for dinner which is a decent place when compared to what is normally available on the highway.

One of the biggest pains during the bus journey is finding a suitable place to attend to nature's call. The loo at Harita resort is by far the best one at which the bus will make a stopover.

The other place that it stops later and during the return journey leave a lot to be desired. Most of the other venues wereawfully dirty and some did not even have water available. Most of the APTDC buses from the other packages as well will make the stopver at the same venues.

On complaining the conductor says that these stop over points are designated by the APTDC management so he does not have much flexibility.

Another, minor irritant was these guys stopping the bus to pick unscheduled passengers if the bus happens to be empty. Creates some delay and undue noise.

Hotel: 2/5

They have a tie up with a hotel called Sai Ujjwal. What I will mention next is something very important in case you 4 or more members are traveling. Do not book your tickets together. If you do, you will get a single 4-bedroom room whereas the money that you end up paying does not reduce. Now this can create an awkward and unexpected situation. And if you request for two separate room the hotel guy will ask for extra money and does not entertain your request.

Instead make two separate booking of 2 people each. That way you will get multiple rooms. It avoids any awkward situations, saves money and time. Time as now you will have multiple bathroom which is the bottleneck in the race to get ready. The earlier you get ready the sooner you can get into the Q and save time therefore.

Darshan: 5/5

You will have to manage the darshan on you own and there are no tokens required. Avoid taking cellphones and bags etc. Although they did not stop people who were carrying these to our surprise but may be they start enforcing it if there is rush. You can deposit your footwear near the Entry Gate # 2.

The best part about the Darshan was, that the devotees are allowed inside the premises in batches. You will be made to sit on the floor and while the priest will perform all the rites and then the aarti. You can watch this directly or over the big LCD TV's placed in the halls. Subsequently you can seek the blessings from close quarters as you are made to leave the premises.

You can collect UDI( holy ash) from the counters outside. You can also visit the Museum where a number of Baba's personal belongings are kept.

The one's more religiously inclined should also visit the Dwarkamai Complex. This is the place where Baba used to stay and cook food.

Food: 4/5

You should be done with the darshan by 1:30 to 2 at max. You can have food at any of the nearby stalls and there is ample variety available and then headback to the hotel. The bus leaves sharp at 4:30pm for Hyderabad.

APTDC Tirupati Package Tour

There are two tours offered by AP Tourism for Tirupati from Hyderabad. A four day tour which starts from Hyderabad on Friday and a three day tour which starts from Hyderabad on Mon, Tues, Wed or Thursday. We traveled using the three day tour.  You can make your bookings through the designated travel agents or the APTDC offices. You can also book the seats online by going to this website.

Package Details

Since the website does not provide very good details on the package inclusions probably these details would be useful.

They are using new Mercedez Air Conditioned buses for the tours so on a lighter note you can say that you have taken a ride on the Mercedez. However these buses are similar to Volvo semi sleepers in terms of comfort.

The first pick up point is in front of the Vishwanath Theatre near JNTU circle at 6 pm. From there the bus goes to Yatri Niwas in Secunderabad and then to the last pick up point at CRO in Basheerbagh. It reaches Basheerbagh by 8 pm. The bus waits for you even if you are late by a few minutes. However, its advisable not to take chances and cause discomfort to fellow passengers. Also if you delay the journey you would reach late at Tirupati and will meet more crowd there. Also you might miss some of the other temple darshans which are part of the package as the schedule is pretty hectic.

The bus would stop at around 10 pm for dinner on its way to Tirupati. You would reach Tirupati town by 7:30 am and they would take you to Sreeniwas Guest House there. You will be given a room to freshen up and have break fast. The breakfast is served on the first floor of the guest house and is not complimentary. You will have around one and half hours to do this and this time is sufficient.

The guides have difficulty in conversing in languages specially Hindi so please be patient with them. Take help of your fellow passengers or request the guide for further instructions. The guides are helpful otherwise.

He will ask you to leave most of your belongings at the guest house, even you chappals. Do not leave your chappals as you will have places in the temple where you can leave them. Regarding other belongings its your call but I would advise you to leave them. This is because you would have to go through a number of security checkpoints if you are carrying bags etc. Also do not carry any electronic items if you can. These are not allowed inside the temple and in case you do wish to carry these you will have to leave it with the guide or you need to deposit it at the designated counters. However, given the rush that is there it would be harrassment.

The Sheeghra Darshan token which comes for Rs 300  is part of this three day package.  The four days package has the Rs 50 token as part of the package. Your guide will arrange for this and you need not worry about it. In spite of the token please be prepared for a 3-5 hour wait for getting the glimpse of the Lord.

Two ladoos are part of the prasadam as part of the every full ticket/token. Incase you wish to buy more ladoos you can ask your guide to do so. This would save a lot of time for you and would not cause discomfort to other passengers as well. There is a long queue for getting the token to buy additional ladoos and then there is a separate queue to get the laddo. The guide gets the complimentary ladoo for you and can easily procure additional ladoos as he waits outside while you are in the queue for the darshan. You should be able to complete the darshan by 3:30 to 4 pm.

One the main darshan is complete you would head back to the guest house and would only get around 30 mins to wind up and leave. So if you happen to come out early from the darshan of Lord utilize the time to have lunch at the stalls near the Lord Venkateshwara temple.

You will have to checkout from the Guest house by 5 and this time you will board your Mercedez bus which will take you to the Padmavati temple. The tokens for darshan here are not complimentary. You can buy a Rs 40 token which will get you complimentary ladoo and the queue would be smaller or you could by the Rs 10 token as well. Again electronic items are not allowed in the temple premises.

You should be done by 7pm and then the bus would leave for Hyderabad. It would again make a stop for dinner at around 9:30 to 10 pm. You would reach Hyderabad by 5:30 to 6 am in the morning. The bus first makes a stop at CRO, then Yatri Niwas and then at JNTU.