Kashmir to Kanyakumari - Trip to South Tamilnadu (March to April 2014)

Our 6-day vacation this time happened with both set of parents, and it started in Kanyakumari. My last blog was our trip to J&K, so this start gave us the feeling of complete end-to-end satisfaction - Kashmir to Kanyakumari!!! (inspired by Chennai Express)

We left day 0 evening by overnight train (Chennai - Trivandrum Exp) to reach Nagercoil the following morning, eagerly looking forward to visiting the arupadai veedu temples.

Our daughter found one of the typical bloopers at one of the railway station catering units when we were at the Cantonment station when we were ready to leave Bangalore. Find the blooper in the picture below...

Day 1: Kanyakumari

As we approached Nagercoil by train, we discover what we've heard at work... that wind-power is well-established in south Tamilnadu. This part of India is in fact the "land of windfarms."

We checked in at the Sparsa in Kanyakumari, barely 700m from the Gandhi Mandapam, 1km from the boarding point for the ferry to Vivekananda Rock and the Tiruvalluvar statue & about 700m from Cape Comorin, so-called "Land's End". Here's Uma with the parents lounging at the reception of the hotel as we complete the check-in process, clicked by Ranju. Welcomed with necklaces made of sea-shells.

It is a very elegantly decorated, minimalistic property facing the largely calm Indian Ocean without too much of a spray onto the road. The Kanyakumari city stretch right on the coast is built on a big elevation of at least 20' from the ocean, and was real beautiful. The picture below was clicked when we took our first walk out of the hotel. The Indian ocean forms the background as we step out of the hotel premises. 

 

The beach in front of the hotel is paved with tiles, and the afternoon sea breeze gives our hair a flutter.

We await a buggy (in the afternoon after lunch) that'll take us to the Vivekananda rock and then we plan to visit the Bhagavathi temple before getting back in time for the sunset, which we planned to go the Cape Comorin viewpoint to get a glimpse of. After a 20-30min wait, the buggy finally arrives and we head out to the rock. This buggy service is free of charge and an environment friendly way to take the tourists around the beach area.

The Vivekananda Rock and Tiruvalluvar statue are a ferry ride away from the coast, set on rocks about 500m into the sea. The ferry ride was eventless and quick, once everyone wore their jackets and got in. Here's a picture of the ferry that brings a new set of arrivals to the Vivekananda Rock from land's end in Kanyakumari.

Here's a side-view of the rock. It was the middle of the day, and thanks to the cool winds, we're spared the heat on the rock in summer. 

After the visit to the Vivekananda rock, it was time to visit the Tiruvalluvar statue (see the people in this long-shot as we approach the statue by sea for an idea of its size) and then scale it by foot using stairs built inside the statue.

 

Here's a view of the rock as we step on to the statue. As can be estimated, we travel about 50m by sea using the ferry to reach the statue from the rock.

A few pics to remind everyone of the sheer size of the statue. First up, a view of the city of Kanyakumari from the statue, next a picture of the visitors to the statue. A view of the toes must give you an idea of its size. Also a fine picture of father-daughter duos (Ramesh-Ranju, Uma-and her dad).

After visiting the Vivekananda rock and the Tiruvalluvar statue, we then visited the famous Kanyakumari Bhagavathi temple, where legend has it that Shakthi took birth and killed Banasura, who had a boon that he can only be killed by an adolescent virgin girl. Before visiting the temple, we stopped at a juice shop while we awaited the etching of names of kids on small sozhi's (small conchs) to make individualized key-holders at a local shop where we also picked up memorabilia for the household and friends (starfishes and big conchs).

As a young girl, Shakthi was devoted to Shiva and the lord decided to marry her. Sage Narada, knowing well that only an unmarried woman could destroy Bana, took the form of a cock and made the sound to announce sunrise. Shiva's marriage party returned to their hometown thinking that the muhurtham, set for the Brahma muhurtham, had passed. Shakthi waited for a long while for Shiva to come marry her, and turned into a sanyasin and stayed at land's end forever. Sometime later, Bana came to visit her and lure her to be interested in him. The infuriated Bhagavathi (Bhadrakali) destroyed Bana. This is the legend of Kanyakumari, and the Bhagavathi temple was constructed at the same site. The Ambal that we had a darshan was no Bhadrakali, she was a very very beautiful little girl.

By the time we got done with the temple visit, the sun was getting ready to set. After a few enquiries, we heard that the Gandhi Mandapam nearby was a vantage point, and it was pointless to attempt to get to the Cape Comorin sunset point. While the younger gang rushed to the mandapam, we learnt that the sun had in fact set. Too bad!!!

When we missed the sunset, we were very disappointed. But, we didn't estimate what we had in wait for us the following morning. After another wait, and discreet enquiries with local auto-fellows for a ride back to the hotel, the buggy finally showed up and we got back to our hotel just as it started to get dark. 

Ranju was thrilled with the lawns in front of the hotel with a catamaran. We clicked some pictures , then played with RR's ball for a while in the lawns before we retired to the room after a very enjoyable day.

We had a quiet family dinner at the restaurant at Sparsa, and then retired for an early start the following day. We set our alarms for 5:00am so we head out to the vantage point for sunrise by at least 5:45am. 

Day 2: Kanyakumari, Tiruchendur

We reached the vantage point, about 600m away, in 3 batches - then climbed the stairs and finally reached the viewpoint by about 6:00am. Here's the sun painting the sky a pink streak at 6:20am, the second picture shows the sun making its first appearance 5mins later. What a sight!!!

We got back a highly satisfied and energized bunch after the sunrise back to Sparsa. It was time to freshen up, finish breakfast and head out to Tiruchendur by road. 

A brief aside on local transportation and hotel bookings...

Our strategy for transportation and hotel bookings is worth sharing, so here I go. I had long been impressed by Fast Track taxi's service in Chennai, so I had decided to write down the contact numbers for Fast Track's franchisees at each of our stops (Nagercoil/Kanyakumari, Madurai and Kumbakonam) before we left Chennai. 

I called these numbers and confirmed their rates for full-day packages for AC Innova / Tavera at each location. Typically, I'd call the previous day evening to book a taxi for the day, be it before I went to bed in a train or at a hotel. This strategy worked out very well for this trip, and we had a hitch-free rest of the trip, thanks to Fast Track. 

As for hotel bookings, we're the types that always booked hotels either directly from the hotel website OR used a package operator to do that on our behalf after we specified our requirements. This time, we decided to try out a new strategy. As always, I called up the hotel and specified our needs / requirements, found their best price offer for rooms that met our requirements, then made them hold the price up to a particular cutoff point. 

Once all hotel enquiries were completed, we got online and checked out the prices online for the same properties for the same rooms. It turns out we got very good rates from TravelGuru for one of our hotel stays (they were offering a discount, plus additional discount for using my credit card), so we decided to pursue calling them to request a particular room type at a second property, which their website stated as not available (the hotel also told us that the room was unavailable). TravelGuru came through for us a day later, and we again got a better rate for the room vs what the hotel had advertised and was willing to offer when we spoke to them again. Thanks, TravelGuru!!! The 3rd hotel offered the best price vs the online portals, so we booked directly with the hotel. I'll highly recommend this approach, as the hotels treat guests the same independent of where the booking was made from. I must also commend the hotel staff at the 3 properties we stayed at for taking care of our needs very well in anticipation of our visit that I had spelt out, and also during our visit, patiently and with care. 

Back to the trip...

As we headed out from Kanyakumari via Nagercoil to Tiruchendur, we drove past the land of windfarms. Made us really proud and happy to see the local generation of renewable energy. Here's one such that I clicked on our way back from Tiruchendur to Kanyakumari.

We had a very nice darsanam at Tiruchendur, the 5th of the arupadai veedugal. At Tiruchendur, Lord Muruga is present as Subramanya Swami, sendhilAndavar, soorasamhAra moorthi and as Shanmughar. As Shanmughar, he has Valli to his left and DevAnai to his right, i.e., he's valli, devAnai sametha Shanmughar. The Tiruchendur temple is also the site of a Panchalingam. Dakshinamoorthy is important here as it is considered a Guru sthalam (important since June 13th is a guru peyarchchi this year). Here's a picture of us at the temple as we complete our darsanam and get ready to head out back to Kanyakumari. We had lunch at a local eatery before we headed back to Kanyakumari.

When we got back to Sparsa, there was time enough for us to complete lunch, take a short break and then head back towards Nagercoil, which is the site of the famous Sucheendiram temple. This is the ThAnumAlayan (or SthAnumAlayan) sthalam. Legend has it that Lord Indira was cursed by sage Gowthama along with Ahalyai. He's supposed to have meditated and appeased the trinity, who appeared as SthAnu-mAl-ayan in a single form to relieve him off his curse.  The main deity has Brahma as the face, above which Shiva appears as a forehead with chandrabindhu and perched above that as a serpent (nAgar) is Vishnu (hence, the name "NAgar-kovil" aka "Nagercoil" for the city).  

Once, Chera King mArthAnda varma came to visit this temple, and his big toe hit something hard on the sand outside. When the king's men dug up that spot, they found an 18' tall Anjaneya deity. A specialty of this Anjaneya is that his tail is perched atop his head. Legend has it that this is the Anjaneya after his tail is set on fire by RAvaNA's men. Legend has it that he puts his tail up to contain the heat while he's seen with his head down saluting Seetha-mA before he heads back to meet RAmA and the vAnara army, back in India. For this reason, Anjaneya is seen as a very ShAntha swaroopi. We performed a vennaikkAppu (chest-shield (kAaapu) made of butter (vennai)) pooja for Anjaneya swamy, and then headed to the Nagercoil station to board the train from Nagercoil to Madurai.

At the temple, there are several pillars built as 7 pillars each carved out from a single stone, which act as sapthaswarAs when they're banged on. Another unique deity is a GaneshA deity with female chest named vigneshwari.

We boarded the return leg of the same train we took to come to Nagercoil (Anantapuri Exp) to travel to Madurai. This train leaves Nagercoil around 6:10pm, and reaches Madurai at about 11:00pm. We had a lot of fun during this train journey playing 'Famous Personality' and 'Laughing gas' games. Laughing gas was about who stays serious longer as we belt out lame jokes. Uma and her amma lost this badly as they would blurt out giggles for the lamest joke. I guess it is in the genes. We had dinner in the train, and boarded our taxis after a 15-min wait at Madurai junction station to reach our hotel property, Hotel Heritage Madurai, which is located in Kochadai. Apparently, this is a Madura Coats Officers' guest house from the British times that's been converted into a hotel property. By the time we checked in and hit the bed, it was close to midnight. 

Day 3: Madurai, Pazhani

We were up a little bit late since we were late to bed the earlier day, and had a nice buffet breakfast at the hotel property before we headed out for the day. Here's a picture of the cottage that has the suite we stayed in that I clicked when we headed out for breakfast the next day.

We decided to travel to Palani this day as we had planned to leave from Madurai the following evening for our next stop in Trichy. It was a very nice road-trip from Madurai to Palani, where we parked the taxi at the foothills of the temple at the cable-car station that I had enquired about prior to our trip. It was a short wait for us before we boarded our cable car to go atop the Palani hill to visit the DhandAyudha pANi temple. After visiting the main deity, we then visit the Bhohar samAdhi cave at this temple. Bhoha rishi consecrated the deity, which is a nava pAshAna moorthi (made with 9 (nava) herbs (pAshAnA)). Here's a picture of us resting after our temple visit by the side of the samAdhi cave. 

We took the time to complete a reading of Kanda sashti kavacham before we headed down from the hill by cable car. After reaching the foothills, we then headed to the 3rd veedu, ThirAvinankudi. Here, the lord is present as kuzhandhai velAyudha moorthi swami. The paal (milk) abhishekam (bathing of the lord) here is a specialty. Lakshmi, KAmadhenu, Indira, Chandran and Agni have all sought his blessings to obtain pApa vimochanam (release from the suffering for sins). The lord here appears as a kuzhandhai (child) hugging his peacock mount. We had lunch at a local eatery and then headed back to our hotel in Madurai.

Back at the hotel, our daughter and I had a swim and played our own version of water polo in the small pool in our suite while we ordered in hot bajjis and pakoras for high-tea for everyone.

That evening, we took local transportation to visit the Meenakshi amman temple, and then visited the Pothy's shop in the business district. While Meenakshi amman is the ruler of Madurai, her lord is ChokkanAdhar. This also happens to be the Budha sthalam (budhan is planet Mercury), and it was special that they visited this sthalam on Wednesday (budhan kizhamai). That their visit coincided with the Vasantha navarAthri (coincides with rAma navami) is another specialty.

The day ended with a nice, late family dinner that we ordered in to our room.

Day 4: Madurai (Pazhamudhir cholai, Thirupparankunram)

This day was slated for our trips to Pazhamudhir cholai and Thirupparankunram, two of the arupadai veedugaL in the vicinity of Madurai. The day started with a drive to Pazhamudhir cholai, which is the site of the 6th of the arupadai veedus. We had snAnam (sprinkling of water) at the Noopura gangai sunai (natural spring) atop the Pazhamudhir cholai mountain followed by a visit to the Raakaayee Amman temple atop the mountain. Like many of the murugan sthalams atop mountains, this place is full of monkeys, and it was important that we don't interfere with their way of living and ignored their presence throughout our visit. We then visited the 6th veedu temple, where the lord appears as a swayambu (naturally-formed) vel (spear). 

This is the site of the Avvai paati "sutta pazham veNumA, sudAdha pazham veNumA" eposide. The JAmoon tree where this incident is said to have occurred is marked by a small Ganesha idol. The main temple is in the vicinity of this JAmoon tree. Housed in the temple are shrines for perumAL, vinAyakar, subrahmanya swami, the holy spear and Durgai amman.

After visiting this quaint little sthalam, we reached the kallazhagar temple when we drove downhill. This temple houses the deity of SundararAja perumAL. He's seen with his cohorts Sreedevi and Boodevi, and the temple does not have a separate shrine for Sreedevi.

Here's a picture of a model of the temple found inside the temple premises. 

We then drove back to our hotel to have a late breakfast at the hotel, but were too late for the buffet, which had closed by the time we reached the hotel. We therefore headed out immediately to the Thirupparankunram temple, the 1st of the arupadai veedus so we could get back in time for a detailed, but late lunch at the hotel.

At Thirupparankunram, we first visit DakshinAmoorthi swami on our climb up to the main deity's shrine. After this, we climb up to visit the main deity who's none other than DevAnai sametha Subrahmanya swami. Legend has it that Lord Indira, king of the devas, gave away his daughter DevAnai in marriage to Lord Subrahmanya, the conqueror of the asura Soorapadman, who had imprisoned all the devAs and made them do menial tasks as his servants in his kingdom. This veedu is the site of that wedding. Vishnu, Lakshmi, MeenAkshi, Sundaresar, Indira, GaneshA all can be seen participating in the wedding, and are all present in the main shrine. Sages vyAsA and parAsarA can also be seen on either side of the main deity's shrine as we climb up as they were the ones who performed the wedding. On the climb down from the main deity's shrine, we see all the panchabhootha lingams (five elements: vAyu - air, agni - fire, jalA - water, AkAshA - ether and prithvi - earth; vAyu lingam at kALahasthi, agni lingam at TiruvannAmalai, jala lingam at ThiruvANaikkAval, AkAsha lingam at Chidambaram and prithvi lingam at kAnchipuram) along with their consorts (kALahasthi - Sree Kalahasteeswara and consort Gnana PrasoonAmba Devi; tiruvannAmalai - Sree AnnAmalaiyar and consort UnnAmalai amman; ThirvANaikkAval - Sree Jambukeshwarar and consort AkilAndeshwari amman; Chidambaram - NatarAjA swAmi and consort SivakAmi amman; KAnchipuram - Sree EkAmbareswarar and consort EkAmbreswari amman). Shani bhagavAn (planet Saturn) can be seen in the same line as the pancha bootha lingams.

We went straight from Thirupparankunram temple to the Thirumalai NAyakkan mahAl (palace), where we found a lot of interesting historical artefacts from the more recent NAyak rulers' times that were partly destroyed during several conflicts probably internally or with the British. Although the palace is not very well-maintained, the original architecture and beauty is wonderful and shines through, so has to be appreciated.

Amongst the many artefacts on display at the Nayak palace, we found this Saraswati statue without her usual veena in hand.

On return from the Mahal, we happened to pass by KAkathope Street, site of our ancestral home. Here's a view of the now-commercialized, originally residential street filled with distant relatives of ours. Appa was very excited to be passing through this place and at the same time anxious that he should not be spotted by any of his relatives, cos we had no plans of visiting them this time.

On return to the hotel, we had a late but detailed lunch at the buffet at the hotel, where we ordered the famous Madurai cool drink "Jigar dhandA" for dessert. Here's a pic of enjoyment and satisfaction, especially for our daughter.

We wrapped up the Madurai leg of our visit with our lunch session followed by a short siesta session before we boarded the train to Trichy late in the afternoon, with the Swami malai SwaminAtha swami temple our destination to complete our tour of South Tamilnadu. The 4.5-hr train trip to Trichy was time for us to play a few games including AnthAkshari to while our time away. We finished our dinner aboard the train, and reached Trichy on time. By the time we were checked in to our hotel rooms, it was time for bed after giving finishing touches to the night's dinner with desserts of our choice.

Day 5: Trichy, Swamimalai

We headed out to Swamimalai from our hotel in Trichy after breakfast around 8:00am. Our drive was a bit tedious because of the relatively poor condition of the taxi (an oldish Tavera provided by the local franchisee Bharathi Travels in Trichy) and the relatively poor conditions of the inner roads as well. The tediousness of the trip vanished quickly once we reached Swamimalai at about 10:30am. This is the sthalam where Lord Muruga teaches his father the meaning of the praNava mantram. At the kshetram, we first climb up the hilltop to visit SwAminAtha swAmi before we climb down to visit the Shiva deity (Sundareswarar) along with his consort (MeenAkshi) at the foothill. Looks like the temple was undergoing some renovation works and painting when we visited.

We finished lunch at the Maami's mess near the temple, and then headed back to Trichy. We retired for the day after a visit to Srirangam temple, where we were unable to get a darshan of the lord of Srirangam because of some occasion going on at the temple premises that meant that curtains were drawn on the main deity for a very long period of time. We went to a restaurant at a hotel near the central bus stand for dinner and then got back to pack up and hit the bed early because of an early start (5:00am checkout) the following morning.

Day 6: Trichy to Chennai

We boarded the Pallavan Express from Trichy at 6:30am, making it quite comfortably from our hotel near the Chatram bus stand. The train journey was comfortable, and we arrived on time at Chennai Egmore station just past noon. We boarded the promptly waiting Fast Track taxi and got back home.

What was particularly liked by all quarters about the trip was the mixture of satisfaction everyone gained from the visit that covered the temples of south Tamilnadu, we also got a good immersion in the culture as well. The trip was also very enjoyable, as it mixed in a sense of vacation along with the kshetrAdam.

The following weekend we headed to Thiruttani from Chennai and completed our Arupadai veedu trip with Thiruttani (see pic below):

Vetri vel muruganukku - Araharohara !!!