Hindustan Times
HYDERABAD, INDIA, April 9, 2004: Some people believe a pilgrimage is successful only if a person undergoes hardships during the journey. That is why many a Hindu pilgrims walk or pant all the way to reach hilltop shrines such as Vaishnodevi or Tirupati Balaji. A 58-year-old temple official at Tirupati has created what is considered a world record of trekking maximum number of times to any hill-top shrine. R. Appa Rao, joint executive officer of Tirumala Tirupati Devastahanam [TTD] has visited the temple at Tirumala Hills 108 times in four months. The temple is located on a hill 1,820 feet above sea level and one has to cross over two hills to reach there. The nine-km-trek during which one has to negotiate a total 3,550 steps takes Rao two hours on an average. “When I started it used to take three-and-a-half hours. Now it takes me maximum two hours,” he told HT. Rao completed 108 trips [108 is a sacred number] on Thursday evening , in the process logging in 972 kilometers of trekking.