This year it was a meet up….our generation decided to have a family meeting…..and so we were there.

Ticket availability from Bangalore to Chennai and back is not an easy thing to get. When we make last minute plans….it is the next to impossible thing. We managed to get tickets such that we spend one full day in Chennai.

Go on Friday night and come back by shatabdhi on Sunday morning… (which by the way is an awesome train…will come to that later) 

We (Hubby, sis and I) were at Chennai central sipping aavin paal (milk of a very famous Chennai brand)……ya… that’s right….it is only our generation…. So no elders of the family…. 

We walked out of the station where we were chased around by auto and cab drivers asking us if we wanted their service. We had already decided to take the local bus. We were not sure which bus stop we had to go to. After some round about roaming….we finally managed to find the bus stop where we could take a bus to Saligrmam…that’s where periamma’s house is.

We had to take 17E and get down at the last bus stop. We spotted the busin 10 minutes….quite empty.settled down and bought tickets for 6Rs each….pretty cheap….so with Bangalore standards we decided that the journey would be short….who would take you in a bus for more than 20 minutes for 6 rs? 

But we were wrong…..we travelled for about 40 minutes (not much traffic)….went through most of the areas in Chennai (saidapettai….T nagar….etc etc) and finally reached our stop. 3 things different from Bangalore ….public buses are very cheap….there are very few speed breakers on the road….and …the buses really rock ( I mean…rock your body…..no shock absorbers and windows have no glasses….)

We got down and had a few discussions about which way to walk….then decided to try a route (as we were not sure anyways)…and successfully reached our destination.

Spent some time with cousins and their wives talking….eating periamma’s idli, adai, kesari, chutney and coffee….ufff…that was a lot of breakfast….especially considering we were supposed to go for a lunch outside in the afternoon…. 

We got dressed and were joined by 2 other cousins….at 12 we left to Tnagar. That was another bus ride….from saligramam to some in between stop and then to Tnagar pondi bazaar (the bus 12B dint stop where we wanted and had to walk back). 

At 1:00 PM….in the hottest city Chennai…we met our other part of the family….(this was after a lot of co-ordination over the mobile phones….god knows what we would have done without this invention)…at the famous Saravan bhavan. 

It was one of my cousin’s treat for his Bday. We went to the Rangoli restaurant in Saravana bhavan…gujarathi thali…unlimited for 250 bucks a thali.

It is always fun to sit with a huge family across the table and enjoy a meal cracking jokes and passing comments….

We had 3 brothers and their wives, one sister with hubby and son, 3 other sisters  (not yet married), my sis, hubby and myself…it was great

Still one of our brother’s was missing….was at school and would join us in the evening. 

The dish names were funny….we had multiple servings (as we wanted to make full use of the unlimited tag ) 

When we finished…we were stuffed…. 

After that was photo session….we posed in different directions…. 

Next was a walk to next Periamma’s house in tnagar. Had a nice resting time playing some cards….

Tried talking to paati (she is too old and bed ridden….felt bad seeing her in that state) 

Evening was planned for the beach….again after a lot of mobile phone co-ordination we managed to get into an awfully crowded bus where my cousin’s wived not only managed seats for themselves but also for us….sooper.

Had some telephone chats with aunt and uncle whom I could not meet in person. 

It was a long tiring journey to the beach…..Marina beach….

The tsunami sure dint scare the people off….. the crowd was too much…

We managed to get some place to sit down. Played in the water for a while….had some eatable stuff…talked about old days:)….thats the best thing in life I feel.. 

Evening had 2 extra participants….my brother and my cousin’s daughter. 

We were tired…..took the bus (2 actually….first to koyampedu…from there to beach)…went back to saaligramam by 10:45 PM.

After that bath (sticky beach sand and sweat really needs a bath) was dinner with some curd rice , chappathi and kootu. 

Next discussion was about if the plan to go to the theme park was on or not….

Of course , we the trio from Bangalore were not a part as we were to leave home by 5:00AM for our train… 

But we were there…giving valuable suggestions:)… 

By 12:00Am we were off to bed. Next morning was a quick get ready with a little cornflakes and tea. We were at the station by 5:30AM. 

My first trip in shatabdhi. I loved it….

Comfortable seats….lot of leg space…completely air conditioned….food comes to your seat like in a flight…very clean….huge windows….luggage racks and hooks for bags…newspaper supply….nice good restrooms (something unusual in Indian context)…and sooper fast.

The only bad feeling was that we had booked this ticket in tatkal which cost us quite an extra amount….still… I loved it…

We were back in Bangalore by 10:40AM (train dint stop at cantonment…which we had not checked before….dad had to drive down from cantonment to city station when we called right after we crossed the station without a stop). 

That was the end of a wonderful family meet….it was worth the tiredness….hope we do it more often…and try and plan it the hot season rather than in the hottest…

Tweet This Post

Tweet This Post

This is quite some time ago…and so I don’t remember all details about the travel itself… but I did make a note of the places that we visited. So I am trying to put that down …. I hope my memory is good enough.. 

Amma figured out that Venkatachalapathi had always been our kula deivam…however, Tirupathi was not our ancestral place of worship….it was Rangasamudram….a small village in Tamilnadu.

So we decided to make a trip to this place and do some pooja there. We figured out with great difficulty about the temple at this place and left Bangalore to get there.

 Rangasamudram is a small village near Ambasamudram….

 We had to go to Madurai from Bangalore (by train). Then take a taxi and go to Rangasamudram via thirunalveli and ambasamudram.

Ambasamudram is one of the greenest places I have seen….let me come to that.

 Since the ‘via’ route was filled with temples….we visited quite  a few of them..

 We visited pillayarpatti first….a Ganesha temple…with a nice sized Ganesha…temple was not very crowded… I also remember lighting some lamps there.

You can find more details http://www.karaikudi.com/pillayarpatti.htm
http://www.templenet.com/Tamilnadu/karppill.html

 next visit was supposed to be kunnakudi…but the driver said it would be too crowded there due to the pangunni uttaram festival…so we skipped that.
We headed to bhairavapatti…don’t remember much about this temple…

 We came back to Madurai and visited the Madurai meenakshi amman
I have written a lot about this temple at http://www.allyouwannaknow.net/aroundtheworld/2009/08/30/madurai-memory-pieces-from-a-long-time-ago/

 Next was thirupurakundram visit. More details about this temple and its history is at http://www.blogcatalog.com/search.frame.php?term=thiruparankundram+temple&id=4f3688e8691da0bc333fea7ca722f966

 Next day I guess….we went to Thirunalveli…to the nellaiappar temple….this temple I remember vividly. A huge temple…maintained very neatly…except for the smelly bats….really really huge temple with no crowd. Felt really peaceful. But we could not spend too much time there.

 We then headed to Rangasamudram….crossing the Tamarabarani river. on the way was Ambasamudram. This is another town. a town full of lush greenery. We have been there once when appa had to go there officially…many many years ago…but i dont relaly remember much….this time we just got to pass trough the place and it was amazing. farmland everywhere. if anyone knows the tamil movie dum dum dum…..it was shot in Ambasamudram. we proceeded to Rangasamudram

 Rangasamudram is a small village (which we almost missed) wth hardly any people living there anymore. The temple priest and his family were there however….we met them…got the pooja done…they seemed to know my grandfather ….(not sure if they really knew whom they were talking about)…
They were telling us how things used to happen in olden days…it was  a typical agraharam….
Nice place…
We left the place after the pooja and lunch and headed back to Madurai and then back to Bangalore..

 After this amma and appa have visited this place a couple of times….it is a calm place…and we get to see God very close…not like Tirupathi…where we need to push and pull for one glimpse.
Also feels good to see the priest and his family….they live only with the money given to them for performing the poojas.

Nothing can beat the serenity of the place….I feel good to have discovered that we don’t have to go to Thirupathi anymore:)….we can actually feel peace when we see God instead of all the shoving and pushing……

Tweet This Post

I found a blog which is beautifully describing this town http://romasharma.com/2009/07/chennapatna-toy-factory/

 We were told that there is a temple of lord Aprameya and his consort Anandavalli Thayar. The temple also has a shrine for ambegal Krishna, i.e crawling baby Krishna (thavazhum Krishna).
Details of the temple can be found on their official webste at http://doddamallurtemple.net/

 We knew that it would take us atleast an hour to reach the other end of Bangalore itself…..that too if we leave early in the morning. Once the traffic kicks in….we cannot just say how long it would take.

On a nice Saturday morning, we started at 7:30AM. We had packed tomato rice for breakfast….of course hubby had one round of Dosa before leaving ….

 We decided to take the nice road…..we got onto the nice road in the middle of Bannerghatta road. Nice drive. Looked like roads in US (of course the feel was a little bumpy….but that’s ok). Except for the state transport lorries…the road really looked good. We also stopped at a place to take some Pics.
We were speeding at 100 Kms/hr and it really dint feel so….the feel was so good that we missed the exit to the mysore state highway….we were heading to Tumkur. We had to go so far…pay toll twice….and come back to get onto the mysore road.

 Because of this delay…we had not yet stopped for breakfast…. Finally when we were onto the mysore road we stopped and ate our tomato rice…
Next was a short search for easing nature’s calls…..Thanks to Indian oil petrol bunk which had a decent enough place and also had huge sign boards indicating that they had toilets.

 Next we drove directly to dodda mallur.
It was on the main road itself. We crossed the chennapatna main bus stop, police station and all that….then came a bridge…after that on our left side was an arch indicating a temple complex. We turned into it and there the temple was….it was 10:30AM …

 Lot of hawkers selling flowers etc etc….forcing us to buy stuff.I bought one tulsi garland and some stuff for the archnai.

Once we entered the temple…we were told that the butter decoration (benne alankara) was happening for lord Krishna and we had to wait for an hour and half. So…first we visited the Aprameya shrine and then the anandavalli thayar. Then we sat in front of Krishna’s Shrine waiting for it to open. They opened up after about 20 minutes.
They started distribution of Archana tickets for 4 Rs each. We got it.

 We were told to sit down again. There was going to be abhishekam and then…people who had got small silver cradles with Krishna in it could give it and they would be placed in the shrine. Some people also had the thulabaram to be done…..this is a ritual where…one can donate anything…like rice…sugar or gold ….on an equal weight of their child or themselves.
There would be a huge balance arranged. The people would place their child on one side of the balance for weighing. On the other side they are ideally supposed to put in the item that they plan to donate so that the weight of the child equals the item of donation.

 Of course…in tis temple… they weighed the child using weights and then maybe they would just donate the money for purchasing equal amounts of rice.
All this was over by 12:30PM

We waited for all this to finish….then came our turn for the archanai…we did this. Then we again waited for the sastrigal (poojari…or the person responsible for performing the offering to God) to take our garland and the other suff that I had purchased.

After all this was over…they served prasadam….it was almost lunch being served on the leaves. As hubby could not sit down for the lunch we left and decided to have our food somewhere else.
We had also planned to visit a hanuman temple which was supposed to be in the same vicinity called the hanumatharaya gudi. But since it was almost 1:00PM when we left…we were quiet sure that the temple would closed. So we headed towards Bangalore.

 We stopped at Kamath hotel for lunch on the way back….hybby had one nice round of the Karnataka meals with joladha rotti …I had some curd rice fruit salad and fruit juice.
We were right next to the Janapadha loka…the world of folklore. We paid an entrance fee of Rs 10 each and went in. there are some museum displays of stuff that was used in olden days by the folklore staying in Karnataka….

What was more impressive was the greenery….nice space for picnic…a lake…geese in it…small olden temple in the midst of trees….i loved it.
We took a few pics and drove right back to Bangalore…

 A nice time off after a long time…..

Tweet This Post

This is about our trip to Madurai. It was many years ago……it must be more than 11 years now. Wanted to put down the pieces of memory that has stuck in my head.

Daddy worked with Madura coats then and he had one of his offices in Madurai. He used to be a frequent traveler there. In fact, at the beginning of his career he was in Madurai for many months as he was posted there.
Madura coats was not a very well known name. So daddy used to tell me that he was a part of the company that manufactured the Ameto threads. I used to feel too proud of it…. I had no idea what he did….somehow it used to make me feel that he actually made the threads himself. Amma used to do a lot of stitching at home…and she always used Ameto thread. I don’t know if my friends in school remember…but I remember that in 3^rd or 4^th standard I used to tell them proudly that my dad was with Ameto threads.
daddy has also told me that the brands peter England and all were associated with him…but somehow that never made me feel as great as Ameto threads….its only now that I realize it should have been the other way…..I feel funny now.

Madura coats had a club named Madura club which was about 15 minutes from the main city. This was the place where managers got to stay with families when they visited Madurai. Madura club also had a portion where the managers in Madurai had their houses….they stayed there permanentaly.

This place was like a resort and if you got into it….you would never know that you were in madurai….it looked like a European set up.

We have been to this place twice or thrice …. I am not sure…..

This is a description of once when we stayed there for the longest….

Daddy had to go to Madurai on an official visit…for a week I guess…or 4 days ….
we decided to go with him. Accomodations were arranged at the Madura club.

It was planned that we would have an ambassador with a driver to take us around the city while daddy was at office. As soon as we were there we had a choice between 2 rooms and chose the bigger one:)

The place was empty except for one of daddy’s colleagues in another room. We knew him also and amma was also happy to see his wife there. It was great. The first day we walked around the club and the greenery filled areas where all manager’s houses were. Sooper….beautiful colony.

At night we went to the drive in which was within the colony. They would air movies on Fridays and Saturdays or so…
One of daddy’s close friend’s daughter was in the hostel there as she used to study in the Vikasa school (meant for children of people working at Madura coats). We had a brief talk with her.

I was not feeling too well when we got there. so we decided that I would stay in the room on the first day. Amma and Sangu decided to visit Madurai meenakshi amman temple as I had already seen it and would not miss out on anything.
To know some details of the temple itself you could read http://allyouwannaknow.net/aroundtheworld/2009/06/05/trip-to-madurai-rameshwaram-part-3/

Lunch was a special for us as daddy’s colleague had left and we were the only guests at the club.
We had amma’s favourite casatta icecream….she said that was the best she ever had…

Then was an attack at the swimming pool….it used to be great…. No one around…just us….We me and my sister enjoyed it….

Next was a trip arranged to a temple in Ambasamudram. This is a smaller town where daddy’s another office was situated. It is a beautiful green place. We had lunch packed from the Madura club. We reached there… I don’t remember the temple very well….but I do remember that we had lunch there and came back

Then we found out the daddy’s another colleague was moving in to one of the rooms with his wife. He was another nice jovial person. He started coming with us for lunches and dinners till our stay there….it was great….we have laughed so hard at his jokes….
daddy had great friends when he was at Madura coats…. I miss them… and I think he misses them too:(

Next 2 days we spent the day time in the club ….just walking around (not sure why).
in the evening we went to Thirumalai nagar mahal. This was supposed to be a place where the king Thirumailai Nayak  lived. The original structure is supposed to have been 4 times the size of the current structure.
We were taken to this place in the eveing saying that the sound and light show in the evening is great here.
It was a funny show to me:)…but entertaining. They would put on lights and have sounds on a surround sound system while narrating the stories of Sillapathigaram
A more interesting fact was that the ‘kannalane’ song of the movie ‘Bombay’ was shot in this mahal.

After this we went to a shop where amma was told that you get great Madurai cotton sarees….but she was disappointed as there was nothing to her expectation……and so dint buy anything there ( I remember that the shop was in a dingy alley on the first floor or so…. I wonder why amma was so keen on that shop)

Next evening was a trip to meenakshi bazaar. This is something I vividly remember. There was this one person (I guess he worked as a sub ordinate to daddy or so…) who accompanied us. I am guessing he worked in the bazaar on commission…that is he takes customers to shops and he gets some commission on  they buy.
What is the meenakshi bazaar…it’s the flee market:)…I dint know that. When I asked…I was told it is like Burma Bazaar in Chennai… so I thought it is some hi fi market which was first build in Chennai and now adopted in Madurai and that only these two places had such a hi fi market with all imported stuff. I remember having felt momentarily hurt that Bangalore did not have one.
I was not util recently that I got to know that national market exists in Bangalore… how sad could I get:)

We went to this market….this guy who came along was a nice person. Daddy had to buy something in particular… so he asked us to go through the other shops with that guy. This was a time when mobiles had not invaded our planet….so we were told not to get lost in the crown and stay together….those days were really nice…..We never did get lost inspite of not having mobiles…

We did not find anything very interesting to buy. Then we came to a watch shop. I decided that I wanted a golden coloured watch…delicate looking….first thing I did was asked about the price.
Yes…that’s how it was….amma always taught us that no matter how much money we had…we should not waste it on something that was unnecessary or not worth it….I stand by it even today and I am proud.
We did that when we bought anything…although daddy had never said NO to anything….irrespective of the price or the financial situation we were in…
And I should say…. Sangu was better at not buying unnecessary stuff than me…. I used to get tempted more easily….I am much better now tho…

So…back to the watch…amma wanted Sangu also to buy one such watch for herself…but she dint want it.sangu has never been interested in such stuff…but she disappointed amma..
If I actually think of it…amma was as much a kid as us…she was much more excited in seeing the shops…and she was a great bargainer….my cousins used to say…”she would almost get the stuff for free”

Next stop was at a walkman store…I don’t know why I needed a walkman…but yes, I got one…a decent sony walkman because daddy felt it should be branded otherwise it may not work fine.

After that shopping we were back at the club.

Next day was not doing anything…we were leaving I guess…the swimming pool was empty and Sangu, daddy and amma were not interested….so I went swimming alone. I remember this pool very well because this was the only place where I jumped off the diving board….of course not from the top…from the lowest one…but that was an achievement to me.
I did not dive… I was supposed to go hands and head first…but I somehow always ended up jumping rather than diving.
Amma used to dive from the top board…she is great….
I am not so… I am a ….Scared cow is what Prashanth would call me…So jumping off the lowest board was the most daring thing I could do…and I did it…made me feel great about myself…

What still stands in my mind is the memory of the club….the beautiful greenery…the serenity….the peace and calmness…
I heard the club no more exists…it has been sold out to some resort or something of that sorts

That was kind of the end of the trip…atleast that all is what I remember.

Tweet This Post

The next day was a day to laze around in the morning.
Got up late…went for swimming…..came back pounding with hunger….and so we looted the breakfast buffet……
after that was some TV watching….some more sleeping and lunch.

At about 4 Pm we started off to the beaches. There are 3 crescent shaped beaches which are connected to one another….we could walk from one beach to another…

First we walked past the leela beach….we decided to first visit the light house beach and then come back here…
we walked some distance….then it seemed like we were wasting time…so we took an auto and reached the light house beach…
this place was very crowded….full of shops and beach side hotels, bars….

we walked staright to the light house….
we could go up the light house and have a nice view of the scenery from the top.we got ourselves tickets….again my camera went into hibernation as we needed to pay to use each camera.
It was a nice windy top…..beautiful scenary…
We stood there for sometime….some small talk with the man incharge there led to him revealing his whole family story…..oh man….we just kept saying mmm…hmm…ooo….and he kept talking…
Someone who knows me wont beleive that I was quiet and someone else was talking….

once we got down we were at the hawa beach also known as the light house beach….
the clouds started showering glory again…this time we had umbrellas….but it was not very exciting to stand there holding umbrella and not do anything else….so we decided to get back to the leela beach.

We took an auto again…but we could not move more than a few inches…there was a steep uphill road and we had to stop….
No No…u got it wrong…it was not because of the overload in the auto…but the overload in an Alto in front…

the car is not moving…no one is getting out….once somehow people got that car in front…there was maruti omni which had squeezed its way in…..and it was emitting fumes like as though hell was on fire….
someone on the road noticed it and told them that the clutch was burning….
People were asked to get down…..and there came a mini mela out of there….it reminded me of the the Getz ad….they would show how so many people could fit into it…..
Whew!!! I have no idea how they managed to sit in…

after all these vehicles were pushed we finally got to our beach…the leela beach was the one behind our hotel…

we decided to stay there and watch the sun set…
again some blessing from the cloud….we got a little wet….
we then walked to the beach …clicked some snaps…and then walked to the rocky area that we had been to on the first day…
here it was not crowded and we got to sit on the rocks to watch the sunset………but the beautiful clouds came in to block the view right on time.

We still felt it was nice…we took a lot of snaps of the sea…clouds …..beauty everywhere…

after the sunset we walked back to the resort…..had nice dinner again some tv watching …..

This was ultimate relaxing…..I loved it…..Dont even remember when I did it last before this….

The last day was also full of relaxing…swimming, table tennis…..eating…taking pictures…..tv watching…..watching the rain….

finally the next day we packed and left Kovalam by the Kochuveli express. We had asked the resort guys to hire an auto for us…..we settled the bill and got to the Kochuveli station….did some buying of chips and all that….
got into the train……
I started trying all sorts of photography options on Sangu’s camera with advice given by Prashanth and the photography magazine that we had carried….I got some amazing pictures of the evening sky…
then it was dinner and sleep time.

we reached bangalore cantonment station by 8:30 AM the next day….

A nice relaxing vacation was over…..now it was time to get back to routine…..

Tweet This Post

We were again ready after breakfast by 9Am and got into the same Indica that came over the previous day also. It was a shorter drive as we were going to stay within Kerala. Our first stop was at Janardhana Swamy temple. We had climb some steep steps and reach the top. Again the shirt for men was not allowed.
We went in….a typical Kerala temple. After visiting all the shrines we came back to the car and proceeded to Varkala beach/Papnasam beach/Cliff edge beach…..
The cliff beach had a cliff edge from where you could see the beach…and then we can walk down from the cliff to actually got o the beach and play in the water.
It was a nice beach….not much of a crowd…..only thing was that these beaches had black sand and the sea waves were splashing mud all over. This is first time I had seen waves coming with so much mud in it….slushy waves…

We spent about 45 minutes playing in the beach. Then we walked around the place drying ourselves and taking snaps.

We went back to the car with a pile of mud on us.
He drove us after this to Sivagiri Ashram…..we had no idea what was in it as we dint find people around whom we could ask (of course using our great Malayalam skills)…..we also found every single board written in Malayalam. We just went around the place…walked for a few minutes and then got back into the car.

We were on our way back to Kovalam…we stopped on the way for lunch and had some rotis and the little bit vegetarian stuff that the hotel could offer us.

We were back at the hotel by 3PM.
After this we just had bath and relaxed. I had washed a lot of clothes and was playing a kind of musical chair with the clothes trying to put them at the appropriate place for drying.

After a little bit of snacks and tea in the evening we played some carom board and then table tennis…..then some movie watching….it was nice…it had been very long since I had really spent time without thinking about office.

That was the end of the third day at Kovalam

Tweet This Post

We had gatered lot of details about Kanyakumari and places to visit from the internet. some of the useful links are http://www.kanyakumari.com/vivekananda.html
http://www.kanyakumari.com/

We reached Kanyakumari by 1:30 and went straight to the steamer place which would take us to the Vivekananda rock. We were charged 10Rs for parking and 20Rs eac for the steamer boat. We waited in a queue (which had seating arrangements) to get into the steamer……as we waited we were listening to bharathiyar songs being played at the place…..odi vilayadu papa….
The steamer was huge and we saw it come loaded with people. We thought to ourselves that we must get the window seat if we wanted to take any snaps.
Our batch seemed to have less people luckily. So we dint have to fight for the window seat. We took umpty number of pictures of the Tiruvalluvar statue and the Vivekanada temple from the boat….we also got lots of shots of the black clouds…the waves….it was great…

We got down at the rock and got entry tickets. There were 2 temples …one at the bottom, which I think was Vivekananda’s Samadhi (was it??…..not sure really) and on top was a hall which had a nice big statue of Vivekananda.
There was a person here eager to tell us the story (which we hardly understood)…he also pointed out to some nice architecture done on the pillars (which we would have missed if not for him). He also told us that when the tsunami occurred recently….all the people who were inside this hall were saved. Although the waves were higher and hence covered the Thiruvalluvar statue, the people in this hall were saved….if that is true….it is really great.
He told us about the sun dial and all that…so we gave him some money and he went away happily.

Behind the hall was a sun dial and a sunrise calendar. And then there was the sea……it was a great view….we took a lot of snaps there.
I had to attend to nature’s call and found a restroom…..it was extremely clean…. I was surprised.

Then we went back and waited for the steamer to take us back. The Thiruvalluvar statue was closed for some reason….so the steamer took us directly back to the Indian main land.

After this we went for lunch with the driver to hotel Saravana and had meals. The temple was supposed to open only at 4:00 PM. We decided to wait. We went to the beach which was really a tiny place. That was the actual tip of India. We could see the waves coming in different directions….this was the point where the Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean and the Arabian sea were meeting…
Of course….to be truthful…. I could not make out the difference in the water colour. Supposedly you can make out 3 distinct colours of water and mud…..we dint find both. Amma had asked me to get the mud from Kanyakumari as it is supposed to be smooth and shining…. I dint find any such mud. I anyway filled one paper cone with some mud that I found as a sample. We played in the beach fro sometime and then went around the shops. We then waited in a park….
Finally the temple opened at 4:05PM. Here also men were not allowed with shirts. Also, we had to deposit our cameras before getting into the temple.
We quickly covered the temple.
The goddess here is said to have such a bright nice ring that it could light up the whole place. I did see the bright nose ring…..but the temple was still kind of dark….donno why the ring is not lighting up the place these days….or maybe I have heard something wrong.

What we missed was the Padmanabha swamy temple….we have to wear saree and veshti to go to this temple. This is a rule. I did not have a saree.
Later we got to know that we could rent a mundu for 5Rs and wear it on top of the dress that we are already wearing. This would give us permission to enter into the temple. However …we cant do anything now

That was the end of our trip. We got back into the car and went back to Kovalam. We were a little sticky from the beach sand. So we had a bath….then went for dinner…and then booked our trip for the next day at the reception….next day was at Varkala beach which was about 61Kms from Kovalam.

Tweet This Post

Suchindram is a place where the temple housing Bramha, Vishnu and Shiva together is present. This supposedly called the Sthanumalayan temple.

Alittle bit about the temple. there are supposed to be 2 stories related to this place. Firstly,
Indra got relieved of a curse at the place of the main linga in the temple. The term “Suchi” in Suchindrum is believed to have derived from the Sanskrit meaning that stands for “purify”.Accordingly Lord Indra is supposed to visit the temple for performing “Ardhajama Pooja” or prayer.
Why Indra was cursed…..this was because he lokked at a Rishi’s wife with not so good intensions:)

Another story that goes here is…
Once Narada told the 3 devis…Saraswathi, Lakshmi and Parvathi that there was this rishi Atri’s wife Anasuya who was a great Pathi vratha and that nobody could beat her in her love, affection, obedience and respect for her husband.
This triggered a jealousy among the goddesses and they forced their husbands to go down to earth and test Anasuya.
So Bramha , Vishnu and Shiva came down to earth as Brahmins asking for alms. They approached Anasuya.
According to her rituous ways she laid leaves to serve food to them. But they insisted that she serves them without any clothes on her.
She was in a dilema. She cannot refuse food to brahmins….but also she cannot serve three men without wearing clothes.
She closed her eyes…prayed…and with complete faith on her devoyion to her husband she sprinkled water on the three men and turned them into babies. She then fed them well.
when her husband came home…she told him all that had happened. The 3 devis then came down and tried to take their husbands. But they were unable to identify which of the babies was whose husband…
Finally the rishi turned them back to men.
this story took place in Gnyanaranya which is now called Suchindram after the Indra incident.

We reached this place at 12:40PM. We were not allowed to carry mobiles or cameras inside. So we left everything in the car. Men have to take off their shirt while going into this temple.
We were told that the temple would close at 1:00PM. So we walked in as fast as possible.
I have never been to a famous temple that is not crowded….that too in Tamilnadu….this was the first…
It was nice. First was Vinayagar having Parvathi devi (his mother) on his lap. To enter this shrine we have to go through the navagraha which is carved on the roof.
Next was the golden shrine where we could see three faces and one body which represented Brahma, Vishnu and Shivan.
After this we went to check out the famous pillars. There was an old preist who promised to show us how the sounds came from the pillars if we paid him Rs 10. We paid him and he told us that the pillars were made from a single stone and were inter connected. If we kept our ear on one of them and banged the other pillars there was a sound echo inside the stone pillars and different sounds were generated.
The sounds were supposed to be the seven notes of carnatic music S R G M P D N…of of course I could not make out the sounds so distinctly….but yes, there were different sounds and melodious.
Similarly another set of pillars were there which sounded like kathakali music.

After this was the subrahmamnya shrine and then was the huge anjaneya.

We finished this and came out quite quickly as there was not much crowd and it was nice…

Next destination was Kanyakumari.

Tweet This Post

We had to leave for Kanyakumari at 9AM. So we were up and ready by 8:15AM. We went in for breakfast which was a buffet. We had breakfast and filled our water bottles. The indica and our pleasantly smiling driver was waiting for us. We hoped in and were on our way to Kanyakumari.
We were dozing away a little …we were woken up just before the Nayathangara bridge to pay a toll of Rs 3…..after this, in some time we entered NH47.

The driver showed us the Kerala-Tamilnadu border at Kaliyakka Villai
After sometime, when the township vanished and we were into the highway completely…the scenery was good. So we were busy trying to take some snaps.

The first stop was at Padmanabhapuram palace. It was in Tamilnadu but this part was owned by Kerala. The palace was supposed to have been built by the Travancore king at the time about 200 years ago as a guest house.
It was a typical kerala structure. We had to pay an entrance fees of Rs 10 and also Rs 25 for the camera. So I just put my camera off and inside and decided that my photography skills could be checked out later when we don’t need to pay for it.
I have to mention a funny thing here….if we had to take a still camera inside …we had to pay Rs 25….but if we took a video camera inside…we had to pay Rs 1500….it seemed a little ridiculous to me.

The palace was quite big (dint look like a palace as per looks….was more like a huge traditional house in Kerala).

Special lamp

It had 2 floors with 1 dining hall on each floor. Each of these could house 1000 people at a time.
There were rooms meant for different purposes. Each important room had some person waiting to tell us the details (in different languges).

There was a place where the king and his ministers would sit for discussions. It had clack coloured floor which is supposed to be made of natural items like kotankuchi, kadukka etc ( it is difficult to get the English names for these…so I leave it this way).
The room also had some shelves in the lower part which had holes towards the outside wall. It seems, they used to fill these with a kind of herb called vetti ver. This would also e sprinkled with water. These shelves would be opened out when the meetings would happen so that when air was blowing through the holes in the wooden walls, it would be cooled by this herb (which is actually a kind of grass root) and it would serve as natural air cooler.
They also had the wooden walls which were made in a such a way that the serrations would allow us to see outside, but it would be dark and nothing can be seen from outside.

There were also rooms for the king and the queen. There was a traditional dining table with ivory edges. WC was also available with supposedly very good sanitary systems.
There was a huge kitchecn, on top again was a room where the weapons would be stored.
There were platforms made in some places so that the king could sit and solves crisis of his subjects. One of these platforms did not have open windows. Instead, it had a carved wooden wall which would have holes in it. This was menat for the queen to sit and see the temple processions go by. She culd see the procession but the public would not be able to notice her from outside.
They had a beautifully polished dance floor where the dance for navarathri functions used to take place. The floor was polished so much that it was called kannadi tharai (mirror floor).

It was nice….a different kind of palace.
For more pictures you can visit http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:*:IE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7SKPB&q=padmanabhapuram+palace&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=ZPdISovNGMadkAWS7p35CQ&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=862347009

You could also find some more interesting information at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padmanabhapuram_Palace

The driver had told us that if we take more than 45minutes here, we would miss the temple that we had in plan next. So we came out in 40 minutes. We decided to have a tender coconut each and then we hopped in again.

Our next destination was suchindram.

Tweet This Post