Trip to Mallikarjun in Srisailam, Andhra Pradesh - Part 1

This post is about our recent trip to Mallikarjun which is one of the twelve Jyothirlingas of Lord Shiva situated at Srisailam in Andhra Pradesh state.

Let me also list down all the 2 jyothirlingas to avoid the confusion between various other Shiva temples and to assist you if you already started recalling them on your fingers.

S. No	List of 12 Jyotirlingas	Status if visited (Yes)
1	Rameshwar Jyotirlinga	Yes
2	Mallikarjun in Srisailam, Andhra Pradesh	Yes
3	Bhimashankar, Near Pune in Maharashtra
4	Trimbakeshwar in Nasik, Maharashtra	Yes
5	Grishneshwar, Near Aurangabad in Maharashtra	Yes
6	Mahakaleshwar in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh
7	Omakareshwar in Maheshwar, Madhya Pradesh
8	Nageshwar in Dwarka, Gujarat
9	Somanath in Gujarat
10	Vishweshwar Jyotirlinga, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh	Yes
11	Baidyanth in Jharkhand
12	Kedarnath in Uttaranchal

By the grace of god, I was lucky enough to visit the 5 jyotirlinga, however, only 3 are covered as travelogue in this blog. 

8^th August 2013

Our journey was started at 6:30 am in Toyota Innova from our flat near Kondapur, Hyderabad. We were 5 members, me, my wife and parents in law and brother in law. The weather was cloudy and perfect for the road trip. Our driver was kind of maniac and drove very fast. After driving at average speed of 120km/hr at 40 km long toll, he gave a glimpse of what is in store for us in the remaining part of journey. This speed was calculated by toll plaza only and was mentioned in the toll bill. 

Our first stoppage was at check post when we were about to enter the forest. We have already covered the 150 km and reached at the slopes of Nallamala hills. The next 70 km drive through the forest was very interesting, full of excitement of spotting the animals but apart from numerous monkeys on the road and Boards enlightening the visitor about the importance of flora and fauna, we didn’t find anything. It was, however, expected. The greenery, road, weather was perfect. It was one of the beautiful tracks that I have covered in my life. The complete track was covered with trees on both the sides and forming a sort of canopy providing us a shade. There was endless picturesque and a very good place to spend some time in lap of nature.  I want to cover this track slowly but the driver was driving at 100 km/hr beside the Policeman warning that killing any monkey will attract a fine of 5000 and any other species/animals will be dealt on case to case basis. There were some truly amazing views of the distant roads hidden amidst the mountains while ascending the valley. Road safari packages were also available which will take you inside the core of the forest, however, we were not here for any adventurous trip, and rather it was a spiritual trip.

 Click here to read part 2