Trip to Madurai – Rameshwaram – Part 6
Continued from http://allyouwannaknow.net/aroundtheworld/2009/06/12/trip-to-madurai-rameshwaram-part-5/
The first in the list of agenda items was the temple with Ramar Padham (ord Rama’s feet). Here we could go to the top of the temple (which itself is on an elevated place) and see the complete island. Nice view. …
We dint spend too much time as our actual destination finally was Danushkodi…so after a quick temple visit and one round of tender coconut…we started to the next place.
On the way was a Anjaneyar temple which was just a flying visit.
After this was the Kothanda Ramar temple….this temple is supposed to have been submerged in sand during the various natural calamities..what is present right now is the newly built (not very new….but not really of Rama Sita time).
Here there was a helipad….and then we could walk towards the beach….small area which opened into the sea..we just gave it a flying visit.
then we headed towards Danushkodi….The sea was beautiful and quite ferocious….
At a point we had to get off our vahicle and take a truck that was meant to take people to Danushkodi….this was a four wheel drive which could cruise thru sand.
One huge pack of people were stuffed in (80Rs per person I guess) and taken in the long drive on the sea of sand to the point where the seas met. the scene is beautiful ….breath taking.
But we were given very less time there….15 minutes…that was it.
We were then bundled into the truck again….this time the truck just moved a few inches forward and then….God knows what happened…it just dint go further. The driver and his helper refused to state what exactly the problem was. it took about 30 minutes for them to fix the problem….
by this time someone was vomiting with sea sickness…someone was dusting sand all over others in the truck…someone was looking at the watch as they had to take a train and they were getting delayed…
finally….the truck was somehow working and we moved on to the Danushkodi town. This is the place which is said to have been the place from where the bridge was built by the monkeys to reach Lanka. This place is currently in ruins only.
There was a Tsunami that occured in 1964 that took down this whole place and it was never restored.
There were a few small stalls selling some jewellery and cool drinks….we felt bad for the stall owners and decided to purchase something from there so that it would help them….
we spend so much money otherwise….for the people in these kind of places…tourists are their only source of living…so I got a cute pearl earing..
Here too we dint get too much time….we were driven back to the place where our vehicle was. We were also running late on our schedule….we had to drive back to Madurai to take our train…so we decided to skip the beach fun and went back to the hotel.
There we were treated with another sad buffet for lunch.
After this we packed and left to Madurai.
on the way back we stopped at 2 spots…one was Ramar theertham and sita theertham….basically ponds….
in Ramar theertham we got to see a stone that floats. it is extremely heavy…but it floats on water.
there was also a lamp that is supposed to have been burning from years together without going off…
Next was Nambunayaki temple….This was the temple of goddess nambunayaki
What was the greatest part???…it was that we did not have confirmed tickets. We kept checking through the new mobile service that was activated. but the ticktes on the waiting list dint seem to move at all. at 5:30PM ….after all the prayers and pushing God:)) we finally got confirmed ticktes….but in different boggies
We were back at Madurai at 5:45PM. we stopped at a kutti hotel and had some snacks…..paniyaram was the highlight.
it was nothing but appam….we ordered quite a few of it.
After all this we went to the station and boarded the train. We had separate set of seats. Prashanth and I were in one boggie and amma, appa and Sangu were in another boggie. We just sat together for sometie and then said good night.
next morning was the end of the trip….train was a little delayed…office was waiting for us….and so we rushed out of the station without even having time to say bye to each other.
