Ujjain - The Holy city

Ujjain is one of the most sacred Hindu places. It is also one of the sites for the famous Kumbh Mela which is held every year. We wanted to visit Ujjain since a very long time along with my parents. We searched about all the places to see there on the internet and found that it was quite an interesting place not only as a religious city but also because of its historical importance.

We planned a one day trip to Ujjain from Bhopal. Our visit was planned in the first week of October. The best time to visit Ujjain is from October to February. It’s very important to take care of this aspect as Ujjain is quite a hot place. The journey to Ujjain was planned via train from Bhopal (one can take the road route also, but train is just a little bit more convenient). We booked our tickets in the Bhopal-Indore intercity which was supposed to leave at 11 PM and reach Ujjain by 4 PM, but the train left at 12:30 PM. Surprisingly we reached 15 min before time. We wanted to see the morning aarti at the Mahakaleshwar temple so on reaching Ujjain we quickly went to a near by hotel to freshen up and then we hired an auto to the temple.

Mahakaleshwar temple

Outside the temple one can purchase flowers and milk to be used inside the temple. There was a clock room outside the temple where we had to deposit our luggage; we kept the camera with us. On reaching the temple check post, trough a long winding maze of railings, the policeman told us that camera is not allowed inside. So my husband had to come back to the cloakroom to keep the camera. The worst thing was that the path leading to the temple is full of bird droppings, and one has to walk over them….bare foot!! As it was very early in morning, around 4:45 AM so the place was more or less empty. Inside the temple there was again a long inter-winding path of railings, with very few people there. The size of the place gave us an idea of how crowded the place can be during peak tourist times. We had to wait at the temple entrance in a queue with approx 10 people in front of us. A number of TV sets were spread through the hall where we waited and the morning aarti was telecasted live on it. We had to wait there for a very long time and we were getting tired standing, so decided to sit. By this time the queue had grown quite long behind us. After almost an hour we were allowed to get inside the main temple. The shivling was decorated elaborately during the aarti ceremony. It was first bathed completely in ash (bhasm) and then garlanded with various jewels and other garments. The forehead of the shivling was smeared in sandalwood paste. The entire process was mesmerizing. The police and temple caretakers don’t allow people to stand by the shivling for a long time and keep hustling them out. We came out of the main temple into the complex which contained various smaller temples of other deities.

By the time we came out of the Mahakaleshwar temple the sun was up in the sky and it was a bright morning. We now planned out our day to visit the rest of the places. We booked an auto from outside the temple for the city tour. All auto owners have a card with the list of tourist places printed on them. It was bit disappointing as it had only temples listed but as per our search we had in mind a couple of historic places too. We had unfortunately forgotten the list that we had made out earlier and also didn’t remember any of the names that we wanted to visit. We finally agreed to go by the list provided by the auto driver.

Sandipani ashram
Anyway we started with our tour and the first spot was the Krishna Temple, which has a silver idol of Krishna. Our next stop was Sandipani ashram which is said to be the place where Krishna and Balram had their education. Inside the ashram a small open structure contained some large paintings depicting scenes from the Mahabharata. A large but empty pond was inside the complex called Gomti kund. The atmosphere was very peaceful and after spending some time there we headed to our next destination - the Maha-mangleshwar Mandir.

Maha-mangleshwar Mandir
This temple is quite famous and the driver informed us that it’s a must visit for people having a Manglik Dosh in their kundli. Our driver cum guide told us that Ashwarya Rai, Sonia Gandhi and even our president Ms. Pratibha Patil had come here. The temple is surrounded by some lush green fields.

The Banyan Tree and Kalidas Temple
After visiting the temple we went to a very interesting place made famous by the stories of Vikram and Betal. This small riverside place contained the banyan tree which is rumored to be the same tree on which Betal – the ghost spent its life hanging upside down. There are many other stories associated with the tree one of which is from the Mugal period. According to legends the one of the Mugal emperors ordered the tree to be enclosed inside an iron wall to curb the Hindu sentiments. The roots of the banyan tree cut through the iron walls towards the river. The Mugal emperor astounded by the fact ordered the iron wall to be brought down. Next to the tree was Kalidas temple, it is said that at this very place Kalidas was blessed by Goddess Saraswati.

Gupt Gufa

The next destination was the most interesting place of our tour. There are a couple of underground tunnels in the complex, saying goes that they reach the patal lok. Inside one of them, King Vikramaditya’s brother meditated for 14 years. We entered one of the tunnels and it was pitch dark inside. We used the mobile light to guide ourselves. The air inside was bit suffocating due to the ash particles and reduced air flow. One of the tunnels is said to connect all the char dhams. Though there are no proofs of any of the stories associated with the place. On the way back from that place, one of the priest showed us a Ganesh idol, on which if you press a coin and say “please take it”, then the coin will stick to the trunk and not fall. I tried it and it worked, but not every time.

Ram Ghat

Then we headed towards the Ram Ghat. This is the place where the Kumbh mela takes place. Few tourists were still bathing, but we didn’t find the water in good condition so we just satisfied ourselves with dipping our feet in the holy water.

Singhsan Bhattisi
We were quite enthusiastic about seeing the Singhsan Bhattisi, the famous throne of King Vikramaditya, but the driver informed us that the chair is lost and in its place a cement replica had been constructed. It was a huge disappointment to us. Our next stop was Harsiddhi temple, nothing special there just another temple. Then we moved on to a place called char dham.

Char Dham Temple
It is a recently constructed place which contains the reconstruction of the temples from the char dhams all in one place. A tunnel has been constructed though which one can pass and have a look at the various phases of Krishna lila, created by some life size moving idols.

Bade Ganesh

The last place that we visited was called Bade Ganesh. This temple has a huge idol of Ganesh and is near the Maha-kaleshwar temple. It was around 2pm by the time our tour came to an end in the sacred city. The auto dropped us near the bus stand. The railway station is near the bus stand. We went for lunch in a restaurant nearby. It was around 3pm by the time we completed our lunch, but as there was no suitable bus or train at that time so we hired a taxi to return to Bhopal. The taxi charged us Rs1600 and it took us 4 hours to reach Bhopal.

Our one day trip went well but we missed out on a couple of places like a fort and an observatory. Both of them are said to be in very poor condition and any visitor rarely goes there.