Trip to Lord Ram’s Birth Place (Ayodhya)

I was at home and about to go on my bed when my mother called and requested me to take my bhabhi (sister-in-law) to her hometown Faizabad as her father was not well and it was not safe to travel alone in night. My elder brother was not around and being a youngest all the work comes on my head. We were living in small town in Uttar Pradesh named Basti and my sister-in-law was from Faizabad, just 2 hrs. drive from our place. Initially I said no but on request of my sister-in-law I accepted and we started for Faizabad. I took the car to petrol pump first and got the tank full, ideally doing up-down from basti to faizabad normally cost 600/- rupees petrol which is I believe worth if you are going once in a month.

We started somewhere around 10.30 pm and around 1:15 pm we were at sister-in-law’s place. Reaching there I asked formally about my sister-in-law’s father health and in 15 min. I hit the bed whereas my sister-in-law was busy taking to her dad and mom. Morning 9.30 I was ready to go back to basti but my sister-in-law insisted me to stay back and she said that she will join me if I can wait till dinner. Thinking how she will come back, I accepted but I don’t like staying at her place so I thought of spending my day roaming around.

The best place to see around was Ayodhya although I have been to Ayodhya couple of times but all from business prospective and never looked around, so I thought of seeing around the places. I started for Ayodhya, Ayodhya was just 5-6 kms away from faizabad. I reached Ayodhya in 15 mins. and my first stop was Lord Ram’s birth place. If you are in Ayodhya there are many ways to see the places around, you will get a guide, hire a car, or a vikram (tempo with 7 seater) or rickshaw. There is no point taking a guide, if you are smart enough and if you give extra money to risckshaw wala the he will become your guide and take you to all the places, reaching there you can ask the priest about the history of that place and they will happily tell.

Reaching Ram Krishna birth place which is also known as ramjanam bhomi, the main gate opens twice a day, in morning and in evening. In morning it is opened till 11.30 so I got a chance and moved inside, inside there is a tight security and you are not allowed to go near the temple. You can see the temple from the distance of 10 meters. Seeing the ancient things like dream coming true and I enjoyed that moment, inside when people thought of re-constructing it Babri masjid issue came in and they stopped the construction but you can see the pillars, statues they have build. Once the issue is over it will take no time to re-construct it, okay when initially they started constructing they digged the first hole and then the issue began, so it was left as-is and you can see near that bricks from all over the world are there and people are making there donations, offering by putting money inside that hole. I also made some offering, and after seeing that place I moved to my next destinations like kanak temple, if you visit that temple and see the statues there you will feel like any moment they can be alive and will speak, such finest sculptures, it was good feeling. After watching that I saw other places like Mani Hill, Suraj kund and sita kund, hanuman garhi, and a very famous ghats named ram ghat, janki ghat, laskman ghat, guptar ghat. It was all together exciting to see the birth place of lord ram.

On the road side you will see plenty of shops where you can get holy books, things made of brass for worship, cassettes, cds, dvds. At last I visited a very famous museum named Ramkatha, ticket was 10/- per person. Inside I saw so many things of ancient times that I can’t express in words. Thanks to Indian government for taking care of those things which depicts the life style of Lord Shri Ram. I was so excited while seeing the places and museum that I forgot that I didn’t had my lunch.

Coming out from the museum, I felt like having some food and for food the best place to eat is from road side dhabas which offer good hygienic food and one will really enjoy that so did I, the food was not costly it. One can get a thali is 30/- which will be full of chapattis, rice, curd, sabzi, dal, salad of cucumber and onion.

After the full day of enjoyment I went back to faizabad and took my sister-in-law and started back for basti. On the way back I was telling my sister-in-law about the places I saw, she said if I plan for a 2-3 days trip there are lot of other places in Ayodhya and in outskirts of Ayodhya to see and she will show me those as well provided I will stay at her place, I suddenly starred at her and started laughing and so do she….