My nearly three-month loop trip around India with Dragoman was divided into five separate trips which could be done as individual two or three week trips or combined into something longer. The first focused on main sights in northern India, the second on Rajasthan state, and the third on the beaches and temples of southern India. The fourth leg from Chennai to Kolkata was somewhat different in the sense of focusing more on cultures ad the hill tribes of Odisha state rather than on visits to better known places. Most of the two weeks involved getting well off the beaten path.

Our first stop out of Chennai was a town named Tirupati, an inland town in southern Andhra Pradesh state . Tirupati and the nearby temple at Tirumala are places I don't think I had ever read about before so it was a pleasant trip surprise.

The temple at Tirumala is said to be the world's most visited pilgrimage site with around 35 million visitors each year. Do the math and that comes to nearly 100,000 visitors per day. Some days, of course, see more pilgrims than others and on some jam-packed festival days there are around 500,000 pilgrims visiting. The temple is also said to the India's best endowed financially, something displayed by the perfectly paved roads up and down the mountain to the temple and the spic and span grounds and mini-city that's grown up around the temple to house and serve the needs of the pilgrims. The temple complex is also said to have a staff of 20,000.

The temple at Tirumala is dedicated to Lord Venkateshwara, an avatar of the god Vishnu. Among his powers is to grant any wish made before his idol in the temple's inner sanctum . Many devotees (both male and female) shave their heads and donate their hair to charity during their visit; with 200 barbers it must be the world's biggest barber shop.

We rode 15 miles 3,000 feet or so up the mountain from Tirupati in two taxis, although the majority of pilgrims walk the steps stopping at numerous shrines along the way. On top there was a huge complex of dormitories for pilgrims around the temple and an almost stadiumlike complex of fences and cages gradually funneling pilgrims to inner sanctuary but designed to prevent stampedes in such huge crowds.

Tirumala is another place where photography is not permitted so the only pictures I have are of the temple complex from the distance after we got back to the Jeeps. On the other hand, Tirumala is one of rather few temples where non-Hindus are allowed into the inner sanctuary where the idols are kept. After taking off our shoes and paying for darshan (devotional visit) we sat in one of the cage areas for a while until we were able to join one of the queues snaking through fences and waiting in the crowd .

 Apparently it wasn't a particularly busy day and it took us less than two hours to make it to the inner sanctuary. There we all had to sign a form they made Tim mostly fill out saying we renounced our prior religions and declared our faith in Lord Vishnu (so I guess I'm officially a Hindu now). With only one entrance to the inner sanctum, inbound and outbound traffic alternated, all crushed against each other while waiting and then running in or out in a mad stampede. Packed together to the point of it being hard to breath I allowed myself to be pushed with the crowd through the corrals and into the sanctuary, the small idol of Lord Ventekashwara watching me from afar with his glowing red eyes. I quickly made my wish in the few seconds I could see him as the crowd carried me past. After some more time in sardinelike state and a mad rush out of the sanctuary, I finally felt like I could breath again. Oh, and everyone who visits the temple gets a nut-flavored sweet on the way out.