TamilNadu pilgrimage – main objective was the Navagraha
Total pilgrimage trip for 3 days…yes…we visited more than about 25 temples in 3 days.
This travelogue is going to be in parts as it will be too much to write all at once….
Let me start with the preparation for the trip.
The idea was to visit all the 9 navagraha temples which were in TamilNadu. There was a huge discussion if we should go on our own or take the package tours that were available. The package tours would take us on Thursday evening, cover a lot of places and bring us back on Monday morning. The cost also was very nominal (about 2000Rs per head)….it even made me wonder how he would take us to so many places with this nominal amount.
But the package tours were complete bus travels. We had to go all the way from Bangalore. This we felt would be quite hectic.
So the decision was that we plan our own tour.
The journey would be eased out by train travel instead of bus. So we booked train tickets for the to and fro journey through the internet between Bangalore and Kumbakonam (Mailaduthurai express).
We did a little research on the internet and found out some hotel names and phone numbers. We decided to go there and pick an accommodation.
A nice map with distances and all that was given at http://www.marskarthik.com/navagraha.html. This helped us a lot.
We just carried it along. We dint plan our routes before going.
We boarded the train on 18th evening at 6:50 PM at Bangalore city station. We included amma, appa, S, P and me. S had come directly from office. I was virtually in office as I was logged into office network answering queries till 5 minutes before I left home.
We left home by 5 and took a BMTC bus to majestic. Reached Majestic by 6:40 almost…thanks to the traffic.
Anyway.. the train started to move slowly at 7:05 PM. P’s mom i.e my MIL had made chappathis and aalu curry for all of us for dinner. We had packed it in aluminium foil and got it for our train journey.
The thought of food in the cover was making everyone hungry. We could resist no more after 8 PM. We opened the packets and had everything leaving out only 2 chappathis….which was good because amma needed it for early morning hunger next morning.
Now that we finished eating…we dint know what to do next…so by 9 we were all putting up our berths. As usual…everyone sent me up to my berth and then sat down discussing something…they always do this…everyone will feel sleepy and will want to sleep immediately. As soon as I get onto my berth…everyone’s sleep will vanish suddenly and they would get taking about something that I wouldn’t be able to follow completely because I am on the berth…
Finally one by one everyone got onto their berths. Appa was in the middle…right above amma’s berth…amma now felt that the berth was bending and that appa might fall off. So there was some testing and retesting done. We assured amma that she was safe and that appa was also safe. All of us put alarms in our mobiles and went off to sleep by 9:30PM…pretty soon…
We had done a good amount of research on the internet about the places to visit and the places to stay. Really…the internet is a boon…we had so much of info. We got details of most of the hotels and even the phone number and addresses of hotels. We also got a lot of reviews of the different hotels from various people’s blogs over the net. Thanks to all of them…we had ample info before getting to Kumbakonam.
You can get most of the info from
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Had a full reading…..Interesting read after a month…Have forgotten many already….Good it is blogged…Before we embark on the next trip we would read this again and remind mom of all the places already visited or else she would deny.
Appa
We too visited first time with the help of map found at
http://www.marskarthik.com/navagraha.html
This site also has the temple phone numbers so that you can call to find out the temple opening timings.
Trip was awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!