This was our last day in Uttar Pradesh and our next destination was Dharamshala but we took stop over in Ambala. Total distance from Agra to Dharamshala is approximately 700 km which one can cover in a day but I wanted to visit Mathura so we decided to take a night halt.
After breakfast at Coral and doing the painful thing that is packing we left Agra at around 8 am. We must have driven for 10 km and got a call from Suraj ji (owner of Coral home stay) that I left my earpods so we had to take u turn. If you are a married woman and your husband is driving then you would know what I must have gone through in that back journey :)
I was keen on driving on Yamuna expressway and indeed it's a beautiful road. Unlike Mumbai-Pune expressway where there are very less exits here there are many and they have toll booth at every exit so overall it's well managed.
We reached Vrindavan by 10 am. We had couple of hours with us so we decided to visit only 3 places Prem temple, Iskcon temple and famous Banke Bihari temple. We parked our car near Prem temple. Mask was compulsory in this temple and it wasn't that crowded rather it was well managed. Spotless clean and architecture is worth checking. People visit this temple in the evening to see lighting. After spending some time there , we took auto to Iskcon temple. Later we realised , Iskcon temple is at walking distance from Prem temple. Like any other Iskcon temple you would see lot of foreigners here and to my surprise there was no security, no social distancing, no check on mask. For a moment I forgot there is something called as Corona. I was very very disappointed that institution like Iskcon can be so lenient about COVID norms. But I guess more disappointed was on my way. So we didn't spend much time in Iskcon and quickly escaped from there. Infact we couldn't even take proper darshan of deities as it was way to crowded.
After Iskcon our next and last stop was Banke Bihari temple, this is the oldest temple. We took auto from Iskon to Banke Bihari. Mistake one that we did we didn't do much research about this place. Auto would drop in main square and from there you need to walk from small lanes. You would see lots of small shops selling Kanhaji poshakh (clothes), mithali, puja related things. But I was way to crowded, we were just going with crowd and suddenly people stared approaching us saying to they would take us to temple via shortcut and show us other important temples. I don't know how but we agreed to it, may be because of rush we wanted to take quick darshan and resume our journey and that was mistake 2. That man took us from tiny lanes , it was like a "Chakravyuh". We reached temple from back gate and was suffocating crowded. Mistake 3, I could not see deities at all what I could see pool of people. It was very unpleasant experience. I didn't have courage to wait there even for second longer and we straight away stepped out , rather we didn't do anything but people made sure by pushing us we are stepping out. But "fun" part was not over yet. Person who took us from shortcut asked us to an auto to see another temple. We asked him if it's a crowded temple we don't want to visit but he said no. That temple is baby krishna bhagwan and it's must see. He took us to some temple is tiny lane and we got a hint ,it's a scam. Pujari gave us some gyan and pressurized us to donate for Puja. We firmly said NO and left that temple. There are 300+ temples in Vrindavan so be aware of scam like this.
Finally when you are in Mathura , you gotta try Mathura pedha so we went to brijwasi but unfortunately pedha's were over so we went to adjusant shop Royal sweets and not only bought pedha but enjoyed lassi and buttermilk. That was the best thing of our Vrindavan short trip.
After saying bye to Vrindavan, we headed back to Yamuna expressway. Like always , google aunty misguided us when we wanted to connect to Northern Peripheral Road, we took localites help. I was more keen on driving on Asia's oldest and longest road "Grand Trunk Road". Moment you enter Haryana , you would notice those big liquor shops , since we were running short of time we couldn't explore those though we badly wanted. GT road is a busy road so driving is not a great fun here. We reached Ambala around 8. We wanted. To experience highway night halt so we booked Clearks in in Jaggi center. It's a okish place,only advantage is there are many food joints and shops around as well as some games so you can spend some good time.
