Visit to Akshardham by Garima and Alexandra

Day 4 : Visit to the Akshardham temple 
Alexandra and I woke up to a day full of fun and knowledge gaining after a really long sleep because we were really tired after the Agra trip.
We reached the third largest Hindu temple in the world, the Akshardham temple, in the afternoon. Majestically and precisely carved, we were taken aback by the beauty of the temple. The temple has been made by Pramukh Swami Maharaj in the honour of Swaminarayan god.
Along the welcome pathway were the Ten Gates, representing the ten directions and symbolising freedom of thought as “ Let noble thoughts come to us from all sides.” Then we came across the Mayur dwar (peacock gates) which pay tribute to the joy and beauty that peacocks contribute to nature.
Soon, we visited the exhibition halls in there. They are based on the concept of self-sculpting. After an exhibition, we watched a 40 minute long movie which was about Neelkanth (Swaminarayan’s name when he was young) . For seven years, Neelkanth, arduously travelled from the Himalayas in the north to the bristling shores of Kanyakumari in the south.

Then, we went for the cultural boat ride which shows more than 10,000 years of India’s ancient culture and contributions to the world. Soon, we saw the super amazing water show which depicted the importance of being down to earth and treating everyone equally when in power.

In the end, we got a very peaceful darshan of Swaminarayan bhagwan (god) because the crowd was very less at the time we visited the main temple. Soon, we had our dinner at the food court and we purchased souvenirs for us. We made memories for life.