Part 1: The Journey to the Holy City of Vrindavan

The train left Kolkata station on time and soon we found ourselves chatting with our co-passengers. Train journey is always exciting as it gives the option to experience the changes of nature as the train moves on. The lush greenery of West Bengal was taken over by the hills and jungle of Jharkhand, followed by rural Bihar and then the sugarcane and wheat fields of UP.

Finally, we reached Mathura station around 12-30 PM, delayed by more than 3 hours. We had already booked Anand Krishna Van as our address for next few days. The hotel is very close to Vrindavan Iskcon.

Travelling from Mathura to Vrindavan

At Mathura Junction station, there were auto rickshaws and within 20 minutes, we reached Vrindavan. The locality of Vrindavan, where we booked our hotel, was relatively clean and had good hotels and wide roads unlike old Vrindavan which is quite crowded.

We checked in the hotel, and we were offered a room with balcony. The best part of the room was the balcony which was overlooking a small temple inside the hotel campus. In Vrindavan, almost every hotel has a temple inside.

As I went to the balcony, I was surprised to see so many parrots here and there. Coming from a metro city like Kolkata, where we only get to see crow and sparrows, it was like a dream.

We got fresh, had our lunch at the hotel dining and by then it was 3 PM. We went out of the hotel and thought of visiting Sri Sri Krishna Balaram temple (ISKCON).

An evening at ISKCON Krishna Balaram temple

The temple was just a walking distance of 500 m from our hotel. The gate was closed as it is usual at any temple, and we had to wait till 4 PM. Camera and mobile were allowed inside, on those days though videography of deity was not allowed. I am not sure if it is same now.

Inside the temple complex, there was a temple for Srila Prabhupada on the left towards our way to main temple. The main temple is not too high, but the simplicity made us peaceful. There was a small courtyard with a tree and rounded seat around its trunk. Everyone was chanting Hare Krishna.

The temple had 3 sections – Krishna Balaram temple, Chaitanya-Nityananda temple and Radha-Krishna temple. The decoration of deity was superb as it is always for any ISKCON temple. They know the best use of flowers.

There was a small area on the right of the Radha Krishna temple for the worship of Tulsi devi. The walls were painted with the mythological stories from the childhood of Lord Shri Krishna from Bhagabad.

We spent the entire evening there watching evening aarti. The temple complex had a tourism center and a guest house. We booked cab and guide from the tourism center. The prabhuji at the tourism center, was very helpful and on hearing that we were first time visitor, he helped us make a tour plan.

The car was scheduled to reach our hotel the next morning at 8AM. We bought some cakes from snacks store within ISKCON temple. We were very excited about the next day. Something we never thought of seeing will be in front of our eyes. The thought of visiting the places of Lord Shri Krishna kept us awake almost till 2 AM.

Part 2: An entire day at Gokul-Raval