I along with my family had a great pilgrim holiday trip to Shridi this year. Shirdi is a town in the Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra. We stayed at Shraddha holiday inn at Shridi. We did advanced booking in Shraddha with the help of the website www.holidayrentals.co.in.
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Shirdi Temple[/caption]
The main aim of our visit to Shirdi was Sri Sai Baba Samadhi Mandir darshan. We visited the Samadhi Mandir twice. You can visit the Mandir either through online booking or through the regular queue. As we booked for darshan prior to our visit through online booking, we had to enter the Mandir through the Shani gate. It took only 20 minutes for us to reach near Baba’s Samadhi. We also got Laddu Bhoondhi as prasad. Here we could also see the Lendi Baug, a small garden believed to be made by Sai Baba himself.
Our next visit was to Shri Saibaba Sansthan Temple. This is a very holy place in Shirdi. We got a great chance to attend one of the four aratis conducted in the temple.
We also visited the Dixit Wada Museum. The museum is situated in the centre of the temple. Here we could see most of the items used by the Baba and rare black and white photographs of Sai Baba.
Then we went to the Baba's Chavadi after Madhyan Aarti. Baba's Chavadi is a little away from the main temple. It is here that Sri Sai Baba used to sleep alternate days. Among the places we visited there at Shirdi, my favorite place was Dwarkamai Masjid. This is the place where Baba lived for about 60 years. Now this Masjid is maintained by the Govt. I could feel the presence of Baba in the calm environment of the Masjid. We also saw the 'chulha' in which Babaji used to cook food for poor and needy people.
Khandoba Mandir is the other place we visited in Shirdi. Khandoba is supposed to be the guru of Sai Baba. Millions of Sai devotees visit this place every year. There we also visited Nana Walli's Samadhi. Here in this Samadhi the routine life of Sai Baba is displayed. These are the main places we visited in Shirdi. The days we spent in Shirdi were really special.