India Travel
Puttaparthy
Deep in the southwest of the state, amid the arid rocky hills bordering Karnataka, a thriving community has grown up around the once insignificant village of PUTTAPARTHY, birthplace of spiritual leader Sai Baba, whose followers believe him to be the new incarnation of God. Centring on Prasanthi Nilayam, the ashram where Sai Baba resides from July to March, the town has schools, a university, a hospital and sports centre which offer up-to-date and free services to all. There’s even a small airport. The ashram itself is a huge complex with room for thousands, with canteens, shops, a museum and library, and a vast assembly hall where Sai Baba gives darshan twice daily (6.40am & 3pm). Queues start more than an hour before the appointed time, and a lottery decides who gets to sit near the front. The museum (daily l0 am-noon) contains a detailed, fascinating display on the major faiths with illustrations and quotations from their sacred texts, punctuated by Sai Baba’s comments.
Practicalities
Puttaparthy is most accessible from Bangalore in Karnataka (see p.1396). from where seven daily buses (4hr) run to the stand outside the ashram entrance. The town is also connected to Hyderabad and Chennai (1 nightly: 11 hr). Regular buses make the 42-kilometre run to Dharmavararn.
Related Properties from Gurgaon
Southern Andhra Pradesh
The further south you travel from the fertile lands watered by the great Krishna and Godavari rivers, the less hospitable the terrain becomes, especially in the rocky southwest of the state. For Hindus, the main attraction in southern Andhra Pradesh is the tenth-century Venkateshvara temple, outside Tirupati, the most popular Vishnu shrine in India, where several thousand pilgrims come each day to receive darshan. Puttaparthy, the home town of the spiritual leader Sai Baba, is the only other place in the region to attract significant numbers of visitors. Both Tirupati and Puttaparthy are closer to Bangalore in Karnataka and Chennai
Buses to and from Andhra Pradesh
Hyderabad to; Amaravati (2 daily; 7hr]; Bangalore (hourly; 13hr); Bidar (19 daily; 4hr); Chennai (1 daily; 16hr); Mumbai (8 daily; 17hr); Puttaparthy (3 daily; l0hr); Tirupati (7 daily; 12hr); Vijayapuri (10 daily; 4hr]; Vijayawada (every 15min; 6hr); Warangal (every 15-30min; 3hr). Tirupati to: Chennai (every 30min; 3hr30min-4hn: Kanchipuram (hourly; 3hr30min); Hyderabad (7 daily; 12hr); Mahabalipuram (3 daily; 5hr 30min; Puttaparthy (1 daily; 10hr). Vijayawada to: Amaravati (hourly; 2hr); Guntur (every 15min; 1hr-1hr30min): Hyderabad (every 15min; 6hri).
Flights to and from Andhra Pradesh
Hyderabad to: Ahmedabad (4 weekly: 1hr40min): Bangalore (2-3 daily; 1hr); Calcutta (1-2 daily; 2-3hr); Chennai (3-4 daily; 1hr-1hr 45min); Cochin (2 weekly; 2hr 40min); Delhi (3 daily; 2hr-2hr10min|; Mumbai (6-7 daily; 1 hr 15min-3hr); Tirupati (1-2 daily; 55min-1hr 20min); Vishakapatnam (2 daily; 1 hr-1 hr 30min). Puttaparthy to: Mumbai (2 weekly: 1 hr 20min). Vishakapatnam to: Bhubaneswar (4 weekly; 55min); Calcutta (4 weekly; 2hr 20min); Chennai (4 weekly; 1hr 5min); Delhi (4 weekly; 3hr 35min); Hyderabad (2 daily; 1 hr-1 hr 30min); Mumbai (1 daily; 2hr45min).
Shri Satya Sai Baba
Born Satyanarayana Raju on November 23,1926 in Puttaparthy, then an obscure village in the Madras Presidency. Satya is reported to have shown prodigious talents and unusual purity and compassion from an early age. His apparently supernatural abilities initially caused some concern to his family, who took him to Vedic doctors and eventually to be exorcized. Having been pronounced to be possessed by the divine rather than the diabolical, at the age of 14 he calmly announced that he was the new incarnation of Sai Baba, a saint from Shirdi in Maharashtra who died eight years before Satya was born. Gradually his
Andhra Pradesh
Although ANDHRA PRADESH occupies a great swathe of eastern India, stretching for more than 1200 km along the coast from Orissa to Tamil Nadu and reaching far inland from the fertile deltas of the Godavari and Krishna rivers to the semi-arid Deccan Plateau, it's not a place that receives many tourists. Most foreign travelers pass through en route to its more attractive neighbors, which is understandable as places of interest are few and far between. However, the sights that Andhra Pradesh does have to offer are absorbing and well enough connected to warrant at least a few stops on a