kerala and the temple carnival ..
0 Comments Published by Gurinder Raju on Monday, September 10, 2007 at 1:05 AM.
Earlier posts in this series :
kerala-and-the-romantic-rains,
kerala-and-the-mystical-mists,
kerala-and-the-sexy-beauty
I suddenly woke up with the noise of someone approaching me and found that the train had been at Trivandrum for the last half hour with both of us fast asleep. We sighted some funny looking posters of malyali movies as we started yet another hunt for some place to sleep. Our two stops here, the Padmanabhaswamy temple and the Trivandrum zoo were very near to the station as the sign boards told us. Most of the hotels were full and we took up a rather cheap place and slept. We had to start early tomorrow as we had plans to pack Trivandrum, Kovalam and Kanyakumari within one day itself.
Trivandrum is a beautiful city and boasts of some real nice architecture . Traffic policemen in nice crisp white uniforms can be found at each intersection. It seems that the city has a fetish for Ambassadors cars .. they are everywhere .. and no surprise we ended up hiring up one for the day. To enter the Padmanabhaswamy temple you have to wear the traditional Mundu, it was fun prancing around the temple premises in the Mundu. After a small trip to the Trivandrum zoo we headed towards Kovalam, some 16 Km away from Trivandrum.
Kovalam's beaches are one of the most popular in Kerala. The three beaches named LightHouse, Hawa and Samudra attract lot of foreign tourists every year. Met this cute little girl , the miss universe to be, at the LightHouse beach. We tried to be in time for a visit to the Padmanabhapuram wooden palace en route to Kanyakumari, but we were a bit late and the palace was closed for lunch hours.
Kanyakumari was fun. Took a ferry ride to the Vivekananda Rock Memorial and the Tiruvalluvar(a celebrated Tamil poet) statue. At the Triveni Point (here you can see the three colours of the three oceans merging) we had mirchi ka pakora, the kela pakora and several cups of tea. They have a rather unique way of preparing tea, a cup at a time, and the whole process is very interesting to watch. This was the most picturesque place in Kanyakumari .. the rocky beach with the violent sea and the two monuments in sight on the left.
The 7'o clock bus to Rameshwaram was late and we set out to catch the night view of the monuments and we sighted this Vivekananda museum just next to the bus stand. The beautiful red building with "the wandering monk" etched out in white just next to the entrance. We rushed inside to see that it was full of insights in to various phases of his life. We rushed back, gave the STD guy next to the bus station our number, asked him to call us up when the bus arrives and rushed back in to the museum. We saw this rare photograph of the two rocks in the sea prior to the setting up of the memorial and the statue. It had just been 10 minutes when the phone rang and we had to leave unfinished.
The overnight journey to Rameshwaram was bumpy. Yes that would be right word to describe it. Every now and then, we jumped, not with joy, but courtesy the puddles in the road. As we saw village after village we could visualise the bus on the map crawling along the east coast. We reached Rameshwaram at 5 am and got to the Ramanathaswamy temple at 6am.
Its huge huge temple and one of the chaar dhaams (Badrinath, Dwarka and Puri being the other three). Legend says that Sri Ram built a bridge from here across the sea to rescue Sita. After the pooja we went to Danukshodi, 8Km from Rameshwaram .. walked along the bare sea bed and swam a little. It was the the west coast at Kovalam the previous day and now the east coast at Dhanukshodi.
We had booked our train tickets from Madurai to Chennai from where i was to catch a flight back to Delhi. We made our way to Madurai in a bus from Rameshwaram and managed to visit the Meenakshi temple at Madurai in the little time we had there. Meenakshi temple, dedicated to Lord Shiva and Paarvati, is the hub of religious and cultural life of the city.
We were completely tapped out of cash by this time and didn't have much time to locate an ATM. Somehow convinced the pooja thaali walah to give the thaali for 10 rupees we had. Inside also urged the pundit to give the coconut prasad to offer for free.
I was trying to capture the night view of the temple when this handicraft shopkeeper told me i could go to the rooftop from their shop and click some photos from there. We literally ran our way upstairs .. train departure was less than an hour away.
Got to the railway station in time only to know that the train was a little late. It gave us enough time to devour some idlis and dosas at a nearby shop. Aditya came to know during the day that he would have to go to Delhi himself for some official work(he was to get off at Pondicherry earlier). Later he knew that he would be going by the same flight that i was to catch. It was a nice thing to happen .. a nice co-incidence. We got to Chennai at 7 am in the morning and the flight was at 10.30 am. We caught an auto for the Marina beach. Marina beach is a real long beach and stretches for some 12 Km. A stroll along the beach and we started looking for a bus or an auto to the airport. We were having a hard time knowing nothing about the route and no autos in sight when this elderly couple sitting nearby in their jogging shoes called us .. they tried to tell us which bus to catch .. but realizing that we were short of time .. offered us a ride .. called for their driver who came along in their mercedes. The couple shared the story of their success and offered us some tea on the way .. another of the nice experiences that made this trip unforgettable in every sense of the word ...
kerala-and-the-romantic-rains,
kerala-and-the-mystical-mists,
kerala-and-the-sexy-beauty
I suddenly woke up with the noise of someone approaching me and found that the train had been at Trivandrum for the last half hour with both of us fast asleep. We sighted some funny looking posters of malyali movies as we started yet another hunt for some place to sleep. Our two stops here, the Padmanabhaswamy temple and the Trivandrum zoo were very near to the station as the sign boards told us. Most of the hotels were full and we took up a rather cheap place and slept. We had to start early tomorrow as we had plans to pack Trivandrum, Kovalam and Kanyakumari within one day itself.
Trivandrum is a beautiful city and boasts of some real nice architecture . Traffic policemen in nice crisp white uniforms can be found at each intersection. It seems that the city has a fetish for Ambassadors cars .. they are everywhere .. and no surprise we ended up hiring up one for the day. To enter the Padmanabhaswamy temple you have to wear the traditional Mundu, it was fun prancing around the temple premises in the Mundu. After a small trip to the Trivandrum zoo we headed towards Kovalam, some 16 Km away from Trivandrum.
Kovalam's beaches are one of the most popular in Kerala. The three beaches named LightHouse, Hawa and Samudra attract lot of foreign tourists every year. Met this cute little girl , the miss universe to be, at the LightHouse beach. We tried to be in time for a visit to the Padmanabhapuram wooden palace en route to Kanyakumari, but we were a bit late and the palace was closed for lunch hours.
Kanyakumari was fun. Took a ferry ride to the Vivekananda Rock Memorial and the Tiruvalluvar(a celebrated Tamil poet) statue. At the Triveni Point (here you can see the three colours of the three oceans merging) we had mirchi ka pakora, the kela pakora and several cups of tea. They have a rather unique way of preparing tea, a cup at a time, and the whole process is very interesting to watch. This was the most picturesque place in Kanyakumari .. the rocky beach with the violent sea and the two monuments in sight on the left.The 7'o clock bus to Rameshwaram was late and we set out to catch the night view of the monuments and we sighted this Vivekananda museum just next to the bus stand. The beautiful red building with "the wandering monk" etched out in white just next to the entrance. We rushed inside to see that it was full of insights in to various phases of his life. We rushed back, gave the STD guy next to the bus station our number, asked him to call us up when the bus arrives and rushed back in to the museum. We saw this rare photograph of the two rocks in the sea prior to the setting up of the memorial and the statue. It had just been 10 minutes when the phone rang and we had to leave unfinished.
The overnight journey to Rameshwaram was bumpy. Yes that would be right word to describe it. Every now and then, we jumped, not with joy, but courtesy the puddles in the road. As we saw village after village we could visualise the bus on the map crawling along the east coast. We reached Rameshwaram at 5 am and got to the Ramanathaswamy temple at 6am.
Its huge huge temple and one of the chaar dhaams (Badrinath, Dwarka and Puri being the other three). Legend says that Sri Ram built a bridge from here across the sea to rescue Sita. After the pooja we went to Danukshodi, 8Km from Rameshwaram .. walked along the bare sea bed and swam a little. It was the the west coast at Kovalam the previous day and now the east coast at Dhanukshodi.
We had booked our train tickets from Madurai to Chennai from where i was to catch a flight back to Delhi. We made our way to Madurai in a bus from Rameshwaram and managed to visit the Meenakshi temple at Madurai in the little time we had there. Meenakshi temple, dedicated to Lord Shiva and Paarvati, is the hub of religious and cultural life of the city.We were completely tapped out of cash by this time and didn't have much time to locate an ATM. Somehow convinced the pooja thaali walah to give the thaali for 10 rupees we had. Inside also urged the pundit to give the coconut prasad to offer for free.
I was trying to capture the night view of the temple when this handicraft shopkeeper told me i could go to the rooftop from their shop and click some photos from there. We literally ran our way upstairs .. train departure was less than an hour away.
Got to the railway station in time only to know that the train was a little late. It gave us enough time to devour some idlis and dosas at a nearby shop. Aditya came to know during the day that he would have to go to Delhi himself for some official work(he was to get off at Pondicherry earlier). Later he knew that he would be going by the same flight that i was to catch. It was a nice thing to happen .. a nice co-incidence. We got to Chennai at 7 am in the morning and the flight was at 10.30 am. We caught an auto for the Marina beach. Marina beach is a real long beach and stretches for some 12 Km. A stroll along the beach and we started looking for a bus or an auto to the airport. We were having a hard time knowing nothing about the route and no autos in sight when this elderly couple sitting nearby in their jogging shoes called us .. they tried to tell us which bus to catch .. but realizing that we were short of time .. offered us a ride .. called for their driver who came along in their mercedes. The couple shared the story of their success and offered us some tea on the way .. another of the nice experiences that made this trip unforgettable in every sense of the word ...
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