Last weekend I traveled to Shirdi by SVR Tours. My friend bought a ticket for three of us, Boarding at 7:30 pm on Saturday 23-Oct-2010. We started on Saturday from my Home in heavy rain and reached SVR Office KPHB(Near Remedy Hospital) by 7:45 pm.
We boarded the bus without any confusion, bus number clearly written on the ticket. For movie freaks there was a decent movie played in the bus(Adhurs) though some people complained about sound.. one can mange to sleep in spite of a movie being played. Also we were given mineral water, so don’t worry about packing a water bottle.
Since it was raining initial speed was slow and with weekend traffic of Hyderabad the bus manged to cross the outskirts in good time. By 10:00 pm bus stopped( also its a virtual movie interval!) at a Dhabha/Local restaurant in Zaheerabad. Anticipating a delicious dinner we stepped out of the bus. We ordered for routine dal fry and roti. Food didn’t arrive by 10:30 pm , we are frustrated and ready to eat anything served.
Finally food arrived at 10:30 pm, it felt pathetic even though we are very very hungry!!. Then Final recipe arrived Bill!!!! shocked to see tad high prices than any decent restaurant in Hyderabad
So please plan to have food /parcel, don’t be fooled by a cool Dhaba food.
With a disappointed dinner, Bus started again at 11 pm and. Night journey was comfortable even though we were seated in last rows. We reached Shirdi by 7:45am in the morning. We were provided
a decent accommodation(costing meager Rs 300 bucks) in SVR Hotel, 2KM away from Temple. We refreshed ourselves and got good room service like coffee, mineral water etc. After having head bath with good hot water. After learning a lesson last night we decided not to take risk, had a decent break fast at SVR restaurant and headed for Sai Darshan, the SVR arranged a local Auto/Seven seater to go to the temple.
Since this was my first visit to SHirdi I was under the impression that it was not commercialized like Tirupati etc. But we didn’t realise that we are being cheated when a guy declaring himself as SVR guide took us to his advantage and took us to a local shop for depositing Mobile and Chappal. He demanded an exorbitant Rs 120 bucks for a Coconut, Prasad. We determined to not get cheated and took back our belongingd and went straight to temple.there were very good facilities to deposit our belongings. We started in Q for Sai Darshan, once we reached the top floor I realized darshan is about to be over at 10:30 am we saw Baba and felt happy but we undertood it was Mukh darshan. Then we headed to Main Q determined to have full darshan. It took good 3 hour to reach near Baba and it was good clear view and all of us prayed with respect.
After taking prasad we headed back to hotel room and took some rest, finally we refreshed ourselves at 6:30 pm took some parcels (to avoid being cheated at Dhaba). Bus started at 7:30 pm, stopped at 9:30 pm at a decent Dhaba we had our food (Idly which we took as parcel from SVR Hotel). Boarded back into bus and watched amazing thriller by Balayya (Simha). I was surprised to see the bus stop at JNTU stop at 6:30 am and felt happy to be back..
overall it was a decent trip, good darshan and fun talk with friends. SVR tour was hassle free and organized.