Shivapadam Cottages

Shilpa Bansal 9 months ago

Everything about Isha Foundation is great except for the confusion when you visit for the first time. The formalities at the welcome point is long and no clear idea about how you reach your cottage and the bus used to be jam packed with people each ride. Ours was Shivapadam 4 which is quite some distance from main temple.

If planning to visit the Dhyanlingam and Adiyogi, stay at Nalanda or the nearby cottages. It is a nightmare if you are visiting with old members of the family.

Vikram H.S 10 months ago

Very complicated process of getting the cottage allocated. First timers will definitely feel the pain if traveling from long distance. I stayed at Shivapadam4, posting for heads-up.

Had to submit request then upload documents and then get you get confirmation email. Till here is all fine

You cannot directly go to cottage, you need to go to welcome center and it’s listed in the email confirmation, however there is no clear direction board where the welcome center is? That’s the first challenge

Secondly, as soon as you enter. We were asked to take our luggage from vehicle and get the car parked which is at 0.5km and walk back.. after driving for 8hrs this was painful…

Next challenge, the board which has direction to parking is not the one where we need to park, and there is no direction board where we should park. Once you park, you are locked and if you take your vehicle out there should be another tiring process.. I didn’t dare to do that.

Now I came back and had to put my name in wait list to make payment… if they would have told earlier I would have atleast put my name and gone to park.. waited for almost 30min, then payment was done. They moved to another counter..

Now it took another 10min to get a wrist band… they could have done it while taking payment..

After this had to wait for shuttle which is every 30-40min based to traffic in the road… once they take you to cottage now you need to check in there. Had booked AC room.. was given key and AC remote. Please note you need to drop keys before you leave even to visit the Isha center..

Once I entered room, it was neat and clean 5star for it. But, AC remote wasn’t working I had to go back to get a replacement.. it was getting auto turned off after sometime… Service was polite but weren’t of great help…

Morning, there was no cold water and when complained all we got was no response.

Finally, we wanted to leave early however we could only start by 7, because the first shuttle service was at 6:30am… so if you are planning to leave before 7, look for alternative..

My 2cents,
if you are a follower for isha programs, you might be okay with all these process…
If you are a visitor only/first timer/traveling from long distance/want to leave early, you may not like all these process, I would recommend staying out side…

I felt lot of people visit here as tourist place than spiritual one… I hardly saw anybody praying at adiyogi, everyone was with phones clicking pictures…

They need more improvement on direction boards, maps.. I would probably not stay here if I every visited again…

Kirubhakaran s 11 months ago

These cottages are useful to experience the spiritual centre Isha Yoga center.

Best place to stay and experience the power of Dhyanalinga, Linga Bhairavi temple and also the world's largest bust structure of AdiYogi.

2 times healthy food is provided for free. Free yoga sessions are conducted daily near Dhyanalinga. Daily 7 pm there is a laser show on AdiYogi depicting the lore of AdiYogi.

The entire place is filled with Energy and the possibility to live in a ashram space with dedicated and lively people is a boon .