Vrindavan the religious weekend getaway

Since childhood I am visiting Vrindavan, and never got bored of the place. It is a perfect weekend destination from Delhi. Many people visit Vrindavan on Saturday and Sunday. Most of the time, I too have visited Vrindavan in weekends. The place is crowded. There are cows, people walking all over the road with murmuring Hare Ram Hare Ram Ram Ram Hare Hare, Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare. There are locals, tourists, foreigners all singing the same tune. On the Delhi Mathura road turn left when you enter Mathura and Vrindavan the city of Lord Krishna comes. And the most beautiful and I must say the neatest temple of Vrindavan welcomes you Iskcon Temple which is maintained by a trust and the place where you can find maximum amount of foreigners’ devotee of Lord Krishna. The entire temple is in white marbles and the priest here also wear white dhotis. In the morning whenever I have visited I have always enjoyed the Arti. Every priest dances along with playing different music instruments like flute, dhol and many more. The Radha Krishna Murti is amazingly beautiful here. After praying we always go to the next stop which Bakabihari Mandir. The most important part here is all the temples exclusive of 2 or 3 temples get close at 1200pm and reopens in the evening around 4.00pm so every devotee here is in the rush to visit the famous temples before 12, which is the basic reason of rush and crowd in every temple.

Bakabihari Temple is the famous and the oldest of the temples. The sweets shops welcome you in front of the gate of the temple. There is not a big gate; it’s a small path entering inside the temple. This temple is famous for the statue of Bakabihari which is one of the avatar of Lord Krishna. There is a curtain in front of the statue, as it is said that Lord Krishna comes here once in a day, so after every 5minutes they place the curtain open and then close so that the devotees can also offer their prayer. This is the temple where priest takes lots of money for doing some rituals for the devotees. Which personally I don’t like, I still remember once a priest made us so angry as he was forcing us to give him some donation for doing a particular kind of ritual so that we can be happy. It was ridiculous. This temple gets lakhs of donations through its devotees.

Then offering our prayers it’s the time for Mathura’s famous kachori. We always enjoy the kachori whenever we visit Vrindavan. My favorite temple is the one where the raslila takes place in the night. It’s a park and in between the park is the small temple. It is said that Lord Krishna daily in the night along with Radha dance and perform Raslila in the ground. So nobody is allowed to stay inside the temple or the park after 8pm. Infact there are stories that few people who have tried to stay here in the night where not to be found the next day.

We have also visited the ghat where Lord Krishna has stolen the clothes of Gopi’s and hanged them on the tree. It’s in the place Imli Tala, and the ghat is the Yamuna Ghat. The tree is standing there proudly where Lord Krishna had put the Gopi’s clothes.

There are so many places in Vrindavan which are not known, only 3 places are famous and so all the devotees come and pay their offerings here. However we once stayed for 4 days in our Guruji’s temple and he took us to the tour of Vrindavan, and I must say I was the lucky one to see the places which are not famous and people are not aware about. Places like the river from where Lord Krishna’s father brought him in the basket from Mathura to Gokul, Mera’s temple, the place where Lord Krishna used to do Ras Lila and play with his friends known as Gokuls, the Govardhan Parvat, The fort where Lord Krishna’s parents were captured and he took birth and many to go. I think every person should visit these places rather of giving donations to the places where the priest are greedy, donate here.

Find Driving Direction from Delhi here…