From Siddhatek, it took us more than a shaky and jerk-filled 1 hour to reach Morgaon. By 3:30 we had parked our footwear at a stand without reading the sign first and were searching for the place where the unending queue would end.
Tip: When at Morgaon, if you happen to encounter a nice stand for safekeeping your footwear right besides the Mandir entrance, then first search for signboards associated with it. When we proceeded to deposit our footwear at one such place, a lady inconspicuously sitting on the ground some distance away from the stand highlighted that it was paid - 2 rs per footwear. Awesome. When, on the way back, we collected our footwear and I gave her a 5 rs coin and waited for change, she ignored me. Then seeing that I wasn't about to move on any time soon, she gave me a Who-are-you-mister? look. To which I replied back with a Keep-the-change look which was hiding a wtf behind it and moved on. If in doubt, buy some flowers and durva for 10 rs from a vendor and deposit your footwear with them...
The queue was long. It took us 2 hours of maze-running at snail's pace to take the darshan. Turned out, since Monday was a holiday, there was a huge crowd at all the temples starting today.
Tip: Avoid going for Ashtavinayak tour on an extended weekend.
The Moreshwar temple is supposed to be one of the oldest amongst the Ashtavinayak temples. At the entrance there is a very old and very huge statue of a Nandi. Also, on the floor is a huge engraved turtle that largely goes unnoticed. Some people bend and touch its feet. Some unknowingly step on it. The entrance archway is made of huge black stones and looks ancient, while the rest of the walls of the huge courtyard are modern.
The queue will go round almost 3/4th of the entire courtyard along the walls before taking a u turn and coming back to the side entrance of the mandir. The main entrance is blocked, or rather, it is no longer an entrance at all.
Along the walls you will notice various old idols rare to be found in any other mandir. Most of them are various avatars of Lord Ganesh, with a placard saying what each form is called.
The dome of the mandir is artfully decorated with effigies if animals and idols of Ganapati in various poses.
The Darshan was quite rushed, though we are allowed to take a close Darshan of the Moreshwar Ganapati Bappa.
After the Darshan the tour guide organized an aarti with one of the poojaris.
The restrooms are to the right as soon as you exit and descend the main staircase. They are not really clean and its advisable to wear footwear before going.
We assembled back at the bus by 5:30 pm. We were running late. We may not be able to cover both of the last 2 stops - Jejuri and Prati-Balaji. We would have to skip one... Finally, considering the rumours of long queues at Jejuri (it being a long weekend), we all unanimously agreed to go ahead to Prati-Balaji temple located near Pune.
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