I'm writing about my trip to famous Balaji temple in
Birmingham (a.k.a Tividale Balaji Temple)
One of my friend want to come with family and we wanted this
trip short also economical. So we planned week early and found that cheapest
tickets available from £6.00
Chiltern Railways operates regular services from London
Marylebone to Birmingham and we booked tickets from their website.
A week before and the cost came to £6.00 oneway, but
condition is that we need to catch the same train we booked and not any towards
Birmingham. Also they do have offseason price of £27.00 where you can return
any time on weekends within month (Something like open return in weekends).
Our train timing was 7:00 am in the morning from London
Marylebone station, this is station is walkable distance from Baker street.
We have trip started at 5:30am from Ilford station and we cached
the 5:32 train towards Liverpool through National Express operated by Greater
Angilia, it was end of September and whether was good & helpful (not so
cold and less winds) and we get down at Liverpool street (LST) around 5:50am
From LST we took Metropolitan train towards Wembley/Amesham/Uxbridge
and we get down at Baker Street (10 minutes), walked from Baker street to Marylebone stations (approx.
8-12 minutes)
Marylebone is one of the oldest railway station and worth
seeing the architecture. So it was
worthy reaching 40 minutes before and we explored the station. Since it's so
early in the morning we want to drink hot coffee but we couldn't find Starbucks
so we skipped it. One of my friend suggested nice idea of bringing coffee or
tea in flask it will save money ;-)
The train started sharply at 7:00am and the scenery was good
as we didn't explorer north of London before. The train as Laptop/Mobile
charging and free Wi-Fi (you need to register in their website and you can do
it on the train itself). But we were feeling sleepy so didn't browse, the train
was fast and silent but you feel ear congestion (similar to inside the plane) because
of the speed. Around 8:15am ticket inspector came and made us awake, after that
we didn't sleep again.
Our last station was Birmingham snow station which is also
near to Birmingham Moor street station, when we saw BullRing shopping complex
at Moor Street we get down.
Bullring shopping complex is worth to visit very, you will
enjoy it. We reached at 8:54 at Birmingham Moor Street and went to the shopping
complex just 1 minute walk. It contains lot of shops similar to Westfield in Stratford
but it's bigger than that. We took some photos with Bull (similar to New York)
which is located at Level 3. While coming down we saw the Starbucks and had
good coffee.
So we spent almost 90 minutes and now the time to go temple.
We need to catch Route No.87 towards Dudley and get down at Meadows Sports
college from there it's just 2-3 minutes walkable distance to temple. We
couldn't find the 87 bus stop and when we enquired with other Indian's they
gave couple of options catch 80 and get down at capehill and catch 87 to reach
temple. When we were standing we saw Route 120 which was going to Dudley so
when we enquired the driver he mentioned to get down at Dudley and catch 87. We
did that but it was very long route.
The daily pass is £4.00 and you can travel as many times in
day and any bus. There is also family/group pass which costs £8.00 either 3
elders or 2 elders & 4 kids can travel. So we opted for group pass.
It was almost 50 minutes to Dudley and then we get down
cross the road and took 87 (once in every minutes) and get down a meadow
schools, at last we reached temple.
The temple is in huge place and you can find Lord Ganesh
Temple on Left, Subramania Swamy on Right, and in centre the huge Balaji
temple. Also Lord Shiva, Iyyapan Temple & Navagrah temple also located
there. Also it seems they do perform tonsure.
We visited Lord Balaji temple and it was so good, also Padamavthy
temple & Hanuman temple located inside the main temple. After darshan and
few minutes rest we took prasadam (similar to Tirupati laddu) and we were
looking for lunch. After getting down and on backside there is big tent and
free anadanam or prasadam was given. They give hot kesari, Rice, hot sambar and
aloo kari (Potato dish). We had good but fast lunch as we need to catch the
train back to London at 3:15 from Birmingham Moor street.
We came out and took the Route 87 and it took almost 1:00
hour to reach the Birmingham Moor Street (huge traffic in city centre) but we
reach 15 minutes before. At 3:15 we started from the Birmingham Moor Street and
reached London Marylebone at 5:22 (which is on-time). From there again went to Baker
Street and reached home.
Synopsis
- Ilford to Liverpool Street (Zone 4 to 1) – National Express
- Liverpool Street to Baker Street by Metropolitan train
- Baker Street to Marylebone Station (by walk)
- Marylebone station to Birmingham Moor Street (regular service operated by Chiltern railways)
- Birmingham Moor Street to Tividale via Bus Route 120 & 87 or you can take 87 directly
- Get down at Meadow schools and walk to temple
- Return directly 87 towards Birmingham.
- In average we spent 20 Quids for travelling (12 to & fro for Birmingham and 8 for Zone 1-4)
Websites -
Temple - http://www.venkateswara.org.uk/
Train - http://www.chilternrailways.co.uk/
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