Tirupati / Kanipakam / Aragonda

Although I have been to Tirupati and Kanipakam quite a few times, Aragonda is my first visit. I wanted to write about this trip as a reference post for people who are wanting to visit these places for the first time.

Tirupati is around 260 KM from Bangalore located in Chittor district. You need to take the Old Madras Road from Bangalore. After you leave Bangalore, there is Reliance A1 food outlet after ~140 KM from Haskote. You can take a break here to refresh yourself. From A1, after 20 KM, you will need to take a deviation towards your left for Tirupati (there is a direction board there). On this deviation, after around 5 KM, you will have a toll gate who would charge you Rs. 10 for the maintenance of that deviation road which will further continue for another 4 KM before it lands you to connect Kurnool road. You can argue and don't pay for it (I have been going on this road for last 4 years and every time he says that they would improve it and no one bothers, so this is my online protest for the owner, whom I am sure would not be reading this). After the toll gate, proceed for another 4 KM and you would connect to Kurnool road. Take left and continue. You can safely drive for another 20 KM and then you need to watch our for a right turn towards Tirupati. There are two railway crossings on this road, after you cross both, keep an eye for the right. From here, it is another 50 KM to Tirupati. I will not speak anything more here, as Tirupati is a famous place and if you search for accommodations in Google, you can find many..

In return, you can come back till the toll gate road and you would need to take right and proceed for around 8-9KM where you would see a right turn (sign board is available on the left of the road) towards Kanipakam. After you take left, it is another 2 KM before you reach the temple. Kanipakam is famous for the Vinayaka Temple. It is believed that the idol came out from a well and over a period of time, the idol came out of the well. You can still see half of the idol is still in water.

Come to the junction where you have taken left to Kanipakam. At this junction take right and proceed 11 KM to reach Aragonda. Aragonda is a bit bigger than a village, but not a town. What impressed me here is a unit of Apollo Hospitals. You can ask anyone after reaching the village limits for the Hanuman temple. It is believed that a piece of Sanjeevani Parvatam (Hill) has fallen here while Hanuman was carrying the same to Lanka to cure Lakshmana. They say that if you drink the water in the pond, all your diseases would be cured. I have few pictures of Aragonda on my Flickr account.

My timelines - left Bangalore on Sunday afternoon, reached Tirupati in the evening. The next day early morning had Darshan of the lord and started at 10:30 AM. After stopping at Kanipakam and Aragonda, reached Bangalore by 6 PM in the evening.