Saket-Kashi-Prayag Yatra — 5 Days

Day 1 begins at the Delhi platform. You board the morning train from New Delhi or Hazrat Nizamuddin to Lucknow — we book the seat at the time of confirmation, 3AC or sleeper as you choose. At Lucknow station our cab and driver are waiting; from there it is a 2.5-hour drive east into Awadh, into Ayodhya. We check into a 3-star hotel within walking distance of the Saryu, rest a short while, and walk up to Hanuman Garhi by evening — the 76-step climb to the hill shrine of Bajrangbali. The darshan here is held to be the gatekeeping darshan of Ayodhya; one bows to Hanuman first, before any other shrine. Back at the hotel, an early dinner; tomorrow morning is Ram Janmabhoomi.

The heart of the yatra. Early breakfast at the hotel, then Ram Janmabhoomi for the morning darshan — general darshan is free and unslotted, so there is nothing to book — we reach at the opening hour, when the line moves fastest. The darshan of Ramlalla at the new mandir, the parikrama of the inner courtyard, the prasad. Out by mid-morning, we walk to Kanak Bhawan — the palace Kaikeyi gifted to Sita Mata on her wedding day, the only Ayodhya temple where Sita-Ram are worshipped together as raja-rani (king and queen, not avatara). The murti is small, dressed in real-cloth garments changed every few hours; the bhava is domestic, not heroic.</p><p>After Kanak Bhawan, Nageshwarnath — the Shiva linga Kush, the elder son of Sri Ram, is held to have installed when he ruled Ayodhya. The temple is small, the priests are old-Ayodhya brahmins, the darshan is quiet. Late afternoon at the hotel for rest, then walk down to the Saryu about 45 minutes before the evening Saryu Aarti — around 5:00 PM in winter, 6:00 PM in summer at Ram Ki Paidi or Naya Ghat — the lamps on the river, the bell, the conch, the river into which Sri Ram took jal samadhi at Gupt Ghat.

An early breakfast, then we leave Ayodhya by 7:00 AM and drive south-east through the Awadh plains — past Sultanpur, past Pratapgarh — to Prayagraj. The road is paved, the country is flat, the journey is about 167 km and 4–5 hours with one chai stop. We reach by early afternoon, check into a 3-star hotel near Civil Lines or the Sangam, and after a short rest we drive to Triveni Sangam — the meeting of the Ganga (clear, green), the Yamuna (darker, slower), and the unseen Saraswati that the puranas hold to flow beneath. Our boat operator is waiting; we have worked with him for two seasons now. The boat takes us out into the sangam waters for the snan — a dip from the boat or from the platform, three handfuls of jal as tarpan for ancestors, and back to the bank.</p><p>After the boat, Akshayavat — the immortal banyan tree inside the Allahabad Fort that the puranas describe as the tree that survives the pralaya. The ASI opens the underground chamber to pilgrims at fixed hours. Back at the hotel for dinner; tomorrow we drive to Kashi.

A short driving day. After breakfast we leave Prayagraj at 9:00 AM, drive east along the Ganga to Varanasi (125 km, 3 hours), and reach by early afternoon. The 3-star hotel we have chosen is within walking distance of Dashashwamedh Ghat — no auto ride at sunset, no rickshaw at 4 AM tomorrow. After lunch and a short rest, we walk down through the lanes — past the kachori-sabzi stalls, past the Banarasi paan shops, past the silk-weavers' alleys — and reach Dashashwamedh 45–60 minutes before the aarti — about 5:00 PM from October to March, about 6:00 PM from April to September. Our coordinator has reserved seating on the ghat — the seven priests, the seven brass lamps, the conch and the bell, the river that has carried this rite for at least 2,500 years. We sit, not stand at the back behind the crowd. After aarti, dinner at a Banarasi thali place near the ghat, then back to the hotel.

Pre-dawn at Kashi. We are at Assi Ghat by 5:30 AM — the southernmost of the major ghats, where the Assi stream meets the Ganga. The boat takes us slow downstream, the sun rising over the eastern bank as we pass each ghat in turn: Tulsi Ghat where Tulsidas wrote the Ramcharitmanas, Harishchandra Ghat the second cremation ground, Dashashwamedh where last night's aarti was, Manikarnika the great cremation ghat where the fire is held to have burned without break since Sri Vishnu first lit it. Eighty-some ghats in one slow hour. Back at Dashashwamedh by 7:00 AM, we walk through the lanes to Kashi Vishwanath. Our coordinator walks you through the corridor — the new Vishwanath Dham approach, the security check, the Jyotirlinga itself in the inner garbhagriha. There is no free pre-bookable darshan window here; if you want a shorter line, a Sugam Darshan ticket (₹250–300) can be booked online at shrikashivishwanath.org. The darshan is short, the queue is moving; this is a Jyotirlinga, not a sit-and-watch shrine.</p><p>After Vishwanath, breakfast at a Banarasi kachori place — pure veg, generations old. Then a short cab to Sankat Mochan — the Hanuman temple Goswami Tulsidas is held to have founded in the 16th century, on the spot where he had darshan of Hanuman ji. The murti is small, the temple is leafy, the bhava is calm. From Sankat Mochan we return to the hotel, check out, and the cab drops you at Varanasi airport (Lal Bahadur Shastri, 25 km, 1 hour) for the afternoon flight, or at Varanasi Junction / Banaras station for the train onward. The three dhams done. The Ganga, the Saryu, the Sangam — touched. The blessing carried.