OM SAI RAM

Shirdi is a sacred place where each and every person of this nation do visit for blessings. There is no  disciple who doesn't know about shirdi.

Distance to shirdi from Bangalore is around 1000kms. It takes nearly 18 hrs to reach there via rail or road. Till 2015, there were no direct flights to shirdi, but in 2015, our president Mr.Ramnath Kovid inaugarated an international airport in shirdi. This facility was given from spicejet airlines.  Now it will take hardly an hour to reach Shirdi from bangalore. You will get complete details of flight timings, its schedule day and date wise are available in its site. You can book roundtrip to and from shirdi. Airport was quiet big, airbus facility was available from the boarding gate till flight. As other airports, wheelchair facility is also available for senior citizens.
      Roads were quite good, as our booked room were very near to airport at just 20 mins journey. Every hotels and accommodation places name start with Sai itself,.  Maximum of hotels/stays are walkable from the Sai mandir. Mandir has 4 gates, everywhere security people will be there to maintain proper queue system and discipline. Once if you exit from gate 4 then have to enter from other entrance gates itself, with scanning and screening again, security will never allow you to enter from the same gate. And its not a quite small walk from one gate to another. So always make sure never even by mistake, you step out of the gate.

      Once you enter inside the gate, we have to take a long walk to reach mandir. there we get to see all the places where sai has lived in. "Gurusthan, Dikshithvada, dwarakamai, samadhi mandir and chavadi also. Next to gurusthan, towards its right, museum is built where, we get to see all the belongings and products, items used by Sai. For general darshan, there will be a long queue to move, but online booking also available in advance from the mandir website, https://www.sai.org.in/  here, we can book number of tickets under one account, mentioning how many males, females and kids will be accomodated.  While booking tickets make sure, you always keep id proof handy as website will ask for 1st person id details.  During darshan  also, same booking person need to carry given id originals and the printout of the booked ticket copy personally, making sure you are intime or an hour early in the queue. Once inside the gate, you will be having time to breath and decide from where to start.

No waterbottles are allowed inside except womens single handbag. Mobile phones or any gadgets are not allowed inside mandir. Near gate mobile locker facility are provided.  There everymembers phone will be kept in a single bag and respective person will ask for one of the contact number to write over the bag, while on return he will ask the same contact number, if mention right you can collect back all your deposited mobiles. Else if wrong number mentioned and token also lost then have to forget all your deposited gadgets. Same way, footwear locker is also available at every nearby places around.
      For senior citizens, if id proof is provided, they will be having free darshan ticket and one person can accompany with them. Kids below 12 years have free of ticket to darshan. Many sevas and aarthis is available in there site in prescribed timings. We can directly do abhisheka for baba not in mandir but in an open area above a building where inside they will be having satyanarayana pooja.  Dwarakamai, chavadi and everything is nearby once we comeout of main mandir.
Everywhere inside the gate, cold and normal drinking water will be available. The feel and experience inside is completely different, we can realize some sort of happiness from within. Never forget to touch the samadhi by hand and never come out without touching by forehead. There they will never allow to stand for long, so never close your eyes and have full darshan of baba image in your mind with eyes wide open. Once we are near the mandir, there is a big building called Sai complex, there are so many shops in that building, where we get to see and even can buy also, many sizes of Sai vigrahas/statues, and even like any other complex it has cloth (saree ) shops, and many more. With this writeup am attaching a small video of sai complex and around place.
      There is big hall or a seating area constructed and inaugarated in the year 2018 as that was the 100th samadhi year of sri Sai. This is located exactly opposite of the sai complex.
       In that building, there are shops recognised by the mandir, where we get maalas (flower garlands), flowers, and other items which we can offer to Sainath. There are also many shops and counters where we get sai prasadam, agarbhathi's and dhoopams. At each gate, we can find counters of prasdam, its not only in one place. But inside oodhis are available limitedly in small packets which are given in queue. There, fruits like guava, green and black grapes, pomogranate are grown and sold by the local people. These fruits are really  very delicious and mouth watering. Never forget to have and taste it.                                                              WE were blessed to visit there twice in a year, and all the info i mentioned is based on my own experience when been there,. Latest will be updated when it comes to our knowledge.

OM SAI RAM.