These two guys were happily dozing away in the moving truck and I was wondering, how do they manage not to fall out? Wouldn’t the guy holding the rope release it when he falls asleep??

Great road… we were buzzing away at a constant 100kmph. Crossed 110kmph and the car reminded me of what I had skipped. I had postponed getting the wheels balanced till it was too late and one of the wheels would start a rythmic vibration between 110 & 120. Thought of the vibration as a ‘speed check’ of sorts and kept the speedo at the 100 – 110 mark.

Stopped over at a couple of filling stations for a bio-break… otherwise it was a continous drive all the way to Chennai.

Ouch!

We were caught behind some slow convoys along the way and some unexpected traffic pile-ups at the toll gates, finally reached Chennai by around 11.30pm and had a little bit of a trouble finding our way to our relative’s house where the Xing would be parked till we returned from the Andamans.

Reached home, booked a call-taxi for 3.30am (It is a 20 minute drive from Nanganallur to the Chennnai airport.), set the alarm to 2.30am and tried to grab a couple of hours of rest… it was 12.30am.

19th Sep 2009 – Chennai to Port Blair & Ross Island. ‘Shake’… ‘shhaaake’.. ‘shake’… ‘Slap!!’… What is going on? Why am I shaking?? Is it an earthquake??? and what is that noise in the background ??!! and why is Sangeetha slapping me???…

It took me a few minutes to come out of my stupor and realize that the phone was ringing and Sangeetha was trying to wake me up.

The taxi guy had come in a little ahead of time and was calling up for directions; so there we were, wide awake at 2.00am. No point in trying to sleep anymore.

Freshened up, had some porridge and made sure that we were carrying the correct bags for the Andaman leg of our trip.

‘Tickets’ – Check!; ‘Cash & Cards’ – Check!; ‘Photo IDs’ – Check! and off we went to the airport.

Not much of a crowd at that time of the day. Quickly completed the security and check-in formalities and settled down for the boarding call…

We would be Mr.Mallya’s guests for the next couple of hours…

All set! Andamans… here we come Though the ‘Time to destination says 1hr:36mins, the flight takes around 2 hours from takeoff to landing.

The first rays of dawn, lighting up the clouds…

I was busily clicking away… 100s of cloud pics!

Are we there yet? Nope… another 40 minutes or so to go.

Finally the plane started descending and we were eagerly looking out of the window… and caught our first glimpse of the Andaman Islands.

Landed at Port Blair by around 7.00am. Stepping out of the air-conditioned plane, we were greeted by the hot breeze. The outside temperature was at around 29 degrees centigrade, with very high humidity. Got our luggage and came out of the airport to catch an auto to the hotel.

Not a bad place, no lift to the upper floors though. There are several other better hotels around, but given that we just needed a place to crash at night, it served the purpose.

The room came with a weird request…
"You had booked non-AC room, but all non-AC rooms are full, so I’ll give you an AC room, but please don’t switch on the AC."
"Boss, I had booked almost a month in advance… what do you mean no non-AC rooms? Anyway, will the windows open out? Or are they shut because it is an AC room??"
"No, no… Windows will open…"
"@#$%&… ok, let us not waste time, just show us the room…"

A view from the hotel window…

We freshened up quickly and headed out to see Port Blair. We would have the entire day here + almost half a day on the 23rd when we returned from Havelock.

Well, Port Blair made us feel right at home! Autos standing in a queue… refusing to come to where you want to go… it was as if we had never left Bangalore…

But first things first; we had to go to the Phoenix Bay Harbor to book ferry-ship tickets to Havelock island for the next day. Reached there by around 9.30am and lo & behold, we were again reminded that we were very much in India!

Only Government ships ply between PB & Havelock, so typical scenario similar to a railway station.
- A big queue at the booking counter;
- managed to get info that we needed to fill up reservation forms;
- searched around and finally found the forms to be filled;
- filled in the forms and stood in the queue for a while till someone told us that we needed Xerox copies of photo-ID cards;
- grumbling about why the hell don’t they put up clear instructions, I step out of the queue complex to find a Xerox machine, only to be told that the nearest one is in the bazaar area, a couple of kms away;
- I walk out of the harbor area to find an auto to go to the Bazaar area, but no autos around;
- While I am outside the harbor, Sangeetha was still in the queue, trying to see if we could get tickets without the Xerox copies.
- She finally reaches the ticket counter and calls me on my mobile

“Come back… forget about the Xerox copies… there are no tickets available till the 24th!"
"Whaaatttt???… how can that be? There have to be some tickets on some ship at least?"
"This guy is saying absolutely no tickets till 24th"
"What about alternatives?"
"This guy is not being helpful…"
"Ok… forget it, we’ll figure out something"

We caught hold of a security person at the harbor entrance and explained our predicament and asked him if there are private boats to Havelock…"No. But… you can come to the harbor tomorrow morning and talk to the ship crew, they’ll let you board for a small fee or ‘standing tickets’".

Ok, while that was the last option, we decided to try and get some confirmed seats on the ferry. A couple of calls to the resort offices and we were put in touch with an ‘Agent’; who assured us confirmed tickets on the ferry at Rs.400/- per head (Normally they cost Rs.260 per head.) He asked us to be at the jetty by around 5.30am the next morning.

With the tickets taken care of, we headed off to see Port Blair. First stop was at the Rajiv Gandhi Water sports complex, from where we caught a ferry to Ross Island.

While we waited for the ferry to depart, we saw some schools of fish swimming around in the clear waters…

And we were wondering about how fast the weather seems to change on the Andamans; one moment it will be bright and sunny…

And the next moment it will be raining cats and dogs…

Ross Island is just a couple of 100 meters away from mainland and takes around 20 minutes to reach…

It is essentially a very small island and about 2 hours is good enough to see the place…

Some relics from the time of the Japanese occupation…

A shop / store from the British days…

You’ll find deer and geese wandering around on the island…

The USP of Ross Island are the tree covered buildings all over the place. A text-book example of nature reclaiming its own space…

Contd…

19th Sep 2009 – Port Blair & Ross Island Contd… Some of the buildings were destroyed by an earthquake in 1941 and others were abandoned in the 1940′s; subsequent cyclones and the recent tsunami also have taken their toll…

I was fascinated by these huge iron boilers. They are the remains of a water distillation plant from the late 1800s / early 1900s…

We walked around the place for a couple of hours…

Remains of a church…

The bell-tower…

We were still wandering around when we heard the horn from the ferry announcing departure back to mainland. If we missed the ferry, we would have to wait for another hour on Ross. So we ran all the way to the jetty and headed back to PB…

Next we walked over to the ‘Marine Museum’ which is right across the water-sports complex. Having seen aquariums and museums in other countries, we went in with some expectations. First thing we saw was a ‘No photography allowed’ notice. "Oh… there must be some national secrets hidden inside

The guard was keenly watching us to ensure that our cameras stay inside the bags. Now, the irony was that even if they had allowed photography, I wouldn’t have wasted any major battery time in the museum. 95% of the exhibits are dead specimens preserved with formalin inside dusty laboratory specimen jars. (See pic below to get an idea.)

The secret in this case is that this place is not worth the visit…

It was a little past 1.00pm and all the walking around had made us quite hungry.

"Let us find a restaurant to have lunch and then we can go to the Cellular jail"
"Ok, but I don’t remember seeing any restaurants on this road…"
"Hmmm… let us walk up to that road and see if there is anything around"

So we walked up the steps to reach the parallel road higher up on the hillside and there was this familiar looking building in front of us…
"Hey!!! Isn’t this the Cellular jail?"
"Looks like it is!"
"I did not realize that we were so close to this place!"

Walked up to the gate and asked someone there about the visiting hours… the jail was closed for lunch break and the guy gave us directions to a nearby restaurant. We walked over to that place for a leisurely lunch and returned back to the Cellular jail.

Statues of some of the martyrs tortured and killed in the cellular jail…

A route guide for the jail…

A hall in the admin building has a small collection of photos of artifacts associated with Subhash Chandra Bose. This was apparently a car used by him when he visited the Andamans.

The cellular jail originally had 7 wings or spokes around the central tower. The name, "cellular jail", was derived from the fact that unlike normal prisons where there are dormitories; here all the prisoners were in solitary confinement. The cells were designed to minimize or prevent communication between the prisoners.

Two wings were demolished by the Japanese, probably to use the material for their own fortifications and buildings. Another two wings of the Jail were demolished after India achieved independence. However, this led to protests from several former prisoners and political leaders and the remaining three wings and the central tower were converted into a National Memorial in 1969.

A view of the jail though a window in the admin complex…

Some exhibits…

The main courtyard…

The gallows…

Nothing much can be seen from the ventilators; other than the brick walls or the sky above…

One exhibit was a news paper from 15th Aug 1947. See the ad on the first page by Hindustan Motors?

"Oye… let me out! I really wasn’t looking at the Air-hostess on the flight! "

More pics…

We came out of the jail after a while and decided to hang around to watch the ‘sound and light show’. We walked into the park in front of the jail to kill some time.

Shortly thereafter, I and Sangeetha were looking at each other, with blinking eyes and trying hard to hold back the tears…

Why? Were we emotionally moved by the cellular jail?? Were we missing home??? Well…

While waiting for the Sound-n-light show, we ate what turned out to be the ‘hottest masala puri in the planet’… leaving us with watering eyes and burning throats… "Forget Kala-pani, let us go find some Nariyal-pani!"

The ‘Sound and light show’ was a disappointment of sorts. Slow and depressing. ‘Bling’ a light comes on one side and Om Puri drones on about he being some tree and stuff… and then comes some inane song… followed by more droning from Om Puri and co…

"Chalo, let us escape from this torture" I said, turning towards Sangeetha; only to see that she was already running away!

Went back to the Aberdeen Bazaar area, had dinner in a restaurant and walked around for a while. Port Blair by itself is quintessentially an Indian town, same traffic, and same scenes.

"Let us get back to the hotel and call it a night. We have to reach the port at 5.30am to catch the ship to Havelock"
"Auto… Auuutooo"
"Deaf Morons…"
"AAAUUUTTTTOOOOO!!!"

20th Sep 2009 – Havelock Island. The previous evening we had argued with the hotel guy that since we were not using the airport transfer (Included in the package.) he should arrange for a drop to the harbor instead. After some hemming and hawing, he finally agreed.

As promised, there was a cab waiting for us in the morning and the harbor was just a few minutes away. Walked over to where the ferries were berthed and called up the ‘Agent’. We caught up with him near the Chouldari, money was handed over and tickets were procured.

The tickets were in the name of a Mr. & Mrs. Ashwin, but no ID proof was sought and we walked onboard.

Later when I was looking into the time of issue of the tickets, they were confirmed tickets, issued at 10.30am on the 19th, a few minutes after we had spoken to the agent. We had been at the counter at around 9.30am and were told that there were ‘absolutely no tickets available…’ so where did these confirmed tickets materialize from?

Apparently, this is an organized racket involving the booking counter guys, the ‘agents’ and the ship crew.

- The booking counter guys will issue a few tickets and then start off their ‘no tickets’ story.
- Tourists who need to reach Havelock will ask around for options, only to be pointed towards the agents… who will sell the tickets at a premium; with the booking counter guys and the crew getting their cut. (For turning a blind eye to the ID requirements at the time of boarding).
- Those that just walk into the jetty before the sailing time are allowed onboard by the crew on payment of a fee or the so called ‘standing ticket’.

Welcome to India…

We dumped our bags on the seats and headed up to the top deck. Other than locals who travel on this route regularly, everyone else prefers to be on the top deck…

Soon the horn was sounded and we headed towards Havelock Island…

We came across some amazing sights around us while sailing past the isles…

We walked all around exploring the ship…

Even though there are GPS devices, a depth sounder and other electronic navigational aids onboard, the crew was still manually cross-verifying the details with the depth charts…

Soon we reached Havelock and it was a beautiful sight!

We got off the ship and caught an auto to reach our resort. One of the few fuel bunks on the island…

We reached the resort after a scenic drive, checked in and were shown our home for the next two days…

Only problem I saw with this ‘shower with a skylight’; what if a coconut decides to drop in from the tree above when I am in the shower?

Unpacked, freshened up, had a quick breakfast and asked at the front office about the itinerary for the day.

We decided that today we’ll go kayaking… tomorrow we’ll go snorkeling and the day after we go scuba diving. A logical progression… first above the surface, then on the surface, and finally under the surface

Ok.. ok.. Control Yaar!

Huffing and puffing, I followed her around…

It was good fun, trying to have an impromptu race… navigating our way around the channels in the mangroves…

It was only after a while that we realized that ‘Half a day’ was a very optimistic offer… within an hour we were baking in the sun and after a couple of hours our arms were aching!

Gyan for the day…"The further you row away, the more you have to row back…"

Slowly we rowed back to the jetty beach, returned the Kayaks and got into the cab back to the resort.

Enjoyed a leisurely lunch in the restaurant, freshened up and headed towards the Radhanagar beach, which is just around 100 meters from the resort…

With just around 5 – 6 people on the beach which stretches across a couple of kilometers, we had the beach pretty much to ourselves…

Played in the water till it was dark and then walked back to the resort to grab dinner and curl up with a book. [There are no TVs in the resort... they do have a small collection of books though.]

We were asked to be ready by 7.30am the next day and a cab would be ready to take us snorkeling.

Sangeetha - "Good night…"
Me - "Snore… snooorrrreeee…"

21st Sep 2009 – Havelock Island. It dawns quite early on the Andamans. A quick glance at a time-zone map shows that AN is actually in the GMT+6.30 zone, but as a part of India, the clocks are set to GMT+5.30.

Woke up quite early and went out for a chai and a stroll on the beach. No chance of catching the sunset, the sun was up long before we were… and the skies were overcast too.

Playing with my new toy

True to what we had read and heard, it is a very very clean beach. The stuff that you see on the sands is just sea-weed that washes up onto the shore. I had read in a couple of places about this beach being mentioned in the Time magazine as the "Best Beach in Asia" in 2004…

After a while it started to rain. Packed up our cameras and ran back to the restaurant to finish breakfast.

A hermit crab walking across a fallen tree…

At 7.30am sharp, there was a cab waiting to take us for our snorkeling trip. We were joined by another couple who were on their honeymoon…

The ‘Dunghi’ boat first took us to Elephant beach, past the light house. The snorkeling trip was a half day event. Around 1.5 hours in the waters around Elephant beach and later followed by an hour or so around the light house area.

The waters around Elephant beach are clear and have great corals + lots of multi-colored fish…

Don’t go by the color of the waters in this pic. It got muddied up by all the walking around with the swim-fins on…

A few minutes of practice with the snorkel gear in the shallows and we started venturing out into the deeper waters…

The guys on the boat stationed themselves a little further away to keep an eye on any other passing boats…

Snorkeled for about an hour or so before getting back onto the boat to head towards the light-house area…

After another hour of chasing fish around, it was time to head back…

A quick shower and we were feeling quite hungry!
"Let us hire out a bike and have lunch in one of the other places on the island"
"Ok"

The resort has a bunch of Honda Activas readily available and they rent them out for Rs.350 per day. We hired one out for half a day and headed out towards the main market / jetty area. We had come across this new looking restaurant earlier, decided to grab something to eat there…

The bike had a liter of petrol when we started and I optimistically put in another couple of liters. 2 liters turned out to be an overkill since the total road network on the island adds up to between 20 to 25kms…

First we headed down towards the Kalapathar village road, to Barefoot Scuba, where we were scheduled for a half day package the next day…

Walked around the place looking at all the fancy equipment…

Walked around on the beach next door; where the waters had receded considerably due to the low tide…

They have some accommodation facilities here too, meant for people taking up the longer duration diving packages…

And mini shacks / huts, for Rs.100 per night, which are quite popular with the foreign backpackers…

Stopped for chai at this errr… Powerful restaurant?!

Headed down the road, stopping at the beaches along the way…

The road winds through the paddy fields and the forests…

There are quite a few resorts of all sizes dotting this road…

A game of football was going on in a village playground…

Contd…

21st Sep 2009 – Havelock Island. Contd… After a while, we headed back towards the resort, with a plan to catch the sunset on the beach…

‘Rajan’, the swimming elephant…

Parked the bike and headed out to the beach through the forest patch that separates the beach and the resort…

Hmmm… We had missed the sunset by a few minutes. Nevertheless, it was a lovely time for a walk on the beach…

A hermit crab…

We strolled around till the last light of the day faded away…

An early dinner and we shut down for the day, feeling all excited and looking forward to our first scuba dive the next day.

Goodnight!

22nd Sep 09 – Havelock Island. When we had come back to the room the previous evening, I had set the AC temp to the lowest setting to cool the room quickly, forgot about it and dozed off. As the phrase goes: "It was a cold & dark night…" and the windows had fogged up from the outside.

When we stepped out for breakfast, even the camera lens got fogged up…

Quick breakfast and we were taken to the scuba center to get kitted up…

The dive would be in the waters around the Elephant beach. The entire session was for half a day, with the actual dive time lasting around 45 minutes. (Depending on how fast we used up our air supply.)

Enroute we were given an overview on the do’s and don’ts etc…

Spent a few minutes of getting familiar with the equipment, there were a couple of practice sessions on dive essentials like ‘what to do if you lose your air regulator underwater…’, ‘what to do if you or your buddy run out of air…’, ‘what to do if your mask fills up with water…’.

After a few minutes of practice in the shallow waters, the instructor took us down past the reef edge… where the light green water turns into deep blue…

Total dive time was around 40 minutes, max depth was 12 to 15 meters or around 35 – 45 feet. (There are gauges attached to the tank to check your depth and also keep an eye on your air-supply.)

Overall it was a wonderful experience and you get to see corals and lots of fish in the depths. One feedback that we gave was that they should have an underwater still camera available, so that visitors can get some souvenirs of their experience.

Considering that they charge 4500/- per person, a pic or two thrown in would have been great! Or they could have a couple of cameras on rent and we wouldn’t have minded paying a couple of hundreds extra.

Show over, back into the boat and we headed back towards the scuba center…

While we waiting for our cab to arrive, we clicked some pics on the beach which was ‘Picture perfect!’ Yes, this is the same ugly beach that we had seen at low-tide yesterday.

And yes, we also got a couple of certificates as keepsakes from our experience.

We came back to the resort… found some more elephants near the resort area…

Grabbed a couple of beach towels and headed back towards the Radhanagar beach…

You’ll see a couple of ships in most of our beach pics; the Navy was conducting some exercises in that area and there were a couple of ships anchored quite close to the beach…

The first two nights we had booked something called ‘Andaman Villa’, for the last night we had booked a ‘Nicobari Villa’; though it is non-air-conditioned, the prices were same as the previous one. But we had opted for it to see what it is all about… and we were amazed!

Quite spacious, with a thatched roof and French windows…

A spacious walled sit out with an inside entrance…

An open shower stall…

Now, that’s a loo with a view…

And the innovative part of the design is that most of the walls consist of vertical slats that can be opened up. So essentially you’ll have a window wherever you want one!

And they have a…

This would be our last evening on Havelock and we headed back towards the beach to finally catch the elusive sunset.

Wendy & Wendicks had just come back after a romp in the sands…

There were a lot of such patterns all along the beach; made by small crabs borrowing into the sand.

The Navy ship was still floating around…

Contd…

22nd Sep 09 – Havelock Island. Contd… We walked all the way to the end of the beach, an area with some colorful rock formations…

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING???"
"Just a minute, I want to see if I still remember how to climb a tree…"
"COME DOWN NOW, YOU’LL FALL AND BREAK YOUR LEG!"
"No No… Don’t worry I’ll just climb till there and…"
"IF YOU DON’T COME DOWN RIGHT NOW, I’LL BREAK YOUR LEG"
"Grumble… grumble… mumble… mumble… Ok Ok…"

We found quite a few pieces of multicolored coral all along the sand. However somebody had cautioned us carrying back any, to avoid harassment at the airport security.

This sure is a nice pic. What you can’t see here is the effort that went into this pic: Compose frame, set timer (10 secs max in the auto mode), click and run across the sand to sit beside Sangeetha… only to realize that I am a second or two late… and I managed to get a pic of my bum? Ok; one more try… and one more! (Note to self: Read camera manual to figure out how to increase the self-timer window.)

Mr.Anil Mandal, stays in nearby village and comes to the beach every evening to catch a fish or two…

We managed to catch a partial sunset, due to the clouds on the horizon and started walking back…

Mr.Mandal was still trying his luck, he waved at us… we waved back and walked away…

By the time we reached close to the resort, it was fully dark…

Lights from the navy ship…

Had an early dinner and had a long chat with Harshita, who recently joined the resort as the resident naturalist and has some really great ideas about how the island and the waters around can be protected.

The day we arrived on Havelock, we had asked the front office folks to take care of the return ship tickets for the morning of the 23rd Sep.

Later that week, during a casual conversation with our cab driver, he was telling us about life on the Andamans and mentioned that his kids study in Port Blair and he visits them almost every week…

"Sirf bees-pachees minute ka rasta hai…"
"Bees-pachees minute?? Par ferry mein to do ghante lage."
"Nahi, mein helicopter mein jaata hun"
"Helicopter? Havelock se Port Blair helicopter service bhi hai? Hame to kisi ne nahin bataya."
"Haan service to hai, par regular nahin, agar minimum 8 passengers Port Blair se reservation karaye, to helicopter Havelock aata hai.. aur return flight rehta hai. Kabhi kabhi flight cancel bhi ho jata hai."
"Paise kitne lagte hain?"
"Locals ke liye 350 rupees aur tourist ke liye 800 rupees"
"Kya 23rd Sep ke liye service hain?"
"Dekhna padega, sirf 22nd night ko confirm ho sakta hai ki flight hai ya nahin"
"Aur ticket kahan se lena padega?"
"Aap mujhe paise de do, agar helicopter ticket nahin mila, to ferry ticket arrange kardonga"

I was a little skeptical about handing over Rs.1600 to someone we had just met about an hour ago… but Havelock is a small place where everyone seems to know everyone else. So I just gave him the money and jotted down his name + the cab number

We were just about to finish dinner when a guy from the front office walked up to tell us that the helicopter tickets were confirmed and a cab would be waiting to pick us up at 10.00am the next morning.

Went back to the room to start packing up and did a little bit of star gazing from the sit out before winding up for the day. We were really looking forward to our first helicopter ride the next day!

23rd Sep 2009 – Havelock to Port Blair. For a change, we woke up a little later than usual on the morning of the 23rd Sep, finished breakfast, settled our bills and walked around the resort and beach for a recap…

Said goodbye to Wendy…

Wendicks did not seem so happy about being woken up from his snooze…

Soon it was 10.15am and our cab was waiting to take us to the helipad. Reached the helipad got our tickets and we were sitting there waiting for our ride…

As usual, the weather in the Andamans turns on a dime; what started off as a clear morning sky, was very soon overcast and we were worried about the flight getting cancelled if it started raining heavily. It was time to sing ‘Rain Rain Go Away!‘

At around 11.15am we heard the noise in the distance, which grew louder and louder till this bird came in to land!

Picked up our bags and ran towards the chopper, strapped ourselves in and ready to fly…

The helicopter was a very noisy affair, but it was a great experience…

There were a few Navy ships engaged in some exercises in the waters below…

Soon we were close to PB…

That’s Ross Island…

A glimpse of the Cellular Jail…

A small park that overlooks the airport…

Getting ready to land…

The flight lasted around 25 minutes and we reached our hotel by around 12.00 noon. Just dumped our bags and went out to do some more sight seeing around Port Blair. We contemplated whether we should take one of the ferry cruises to the outlying islands. Decided against it, planning to take it easy and just hang around in Port Blair.

One more place on our itinerary was the Government Agricultural research institute. Apart from a landscaped garden, the institute has a collection of the spice plants / trees that are grown on the Andamans. This place is around 12kms from Port Blair and we thought of taking a bus. Went to the bus-stand and waited for a while for the bus to be announced.

Just like in Goa, there are a lot of foreign tourists milling around Port Blair…

I followed his focus and this is what he was clicking away at…

Soon we found the bus that was supposed to take us to CARI. But the bus was not in a condition to take us anywhere. After everyone boarded the bus, the driver said "Self start nahin hain, dhakka lagana padega"

First the bus was pushed in one direction and it wouldn’t start. Then it was pushed in the other direction and it cranked to life. Those who had got down to push got back in again, only to find that their seats were now occupied by others!

Contd…

23rd Sep 2009 – Havelock Island to Port Blair. Contd… Soon we reached the Agri institute and did not find any other visitors in the place. Walked around the small garden and a guy who works there explained a little about some of the trees & plants in the garden…

On the way back, we stopped at the ‘Samudrika’…which is something like the Cauvery Emporium of Port Blair, to pick up some souvenirs.

Our flight back to Chennai was at 6.55am the next morning. Went back to the hotel, ordered a light dinner via room service (Not so great.) and settled down to catch up on the news. It had been almost a week since we had watched TV or read a news paper!

After confirming that a cab would be available to take us to the airport in the morning, we switched off for the night.

Some foot-notes:
* There are a few good restaurants in the Aberdeen Bazaar area which serve decent veggie meals and snacks. We had been to one such place called ‘Annapoorna’ on the evening of the 19th Sep. We should have probably gone back to that place on the 23rd evening too…

* There are some local news papers printed in Port Blair, but editions of the mainland news papers like TOI, Hindu etc. are either difficult to come by or are available only the next day.

* Airtel mobile and GPRS works just fine in most areas, except on Havelock Island where only BSNL seems to have a tower. Other networks are accessible only from areas around the beach, where you can get some faint signal from the Port Blair towers.

24th Sep 2009 – Port Blair to Chennai & drive to Alambarai, Pondicherry, Chidambaram. I keep coming across this quotation in many ‘touristy’ places. Which goes like: “Leave only foot prints, take only memories”? Memories taken, but along with our foot prints, we also left some more stuff on the Andamans… including my toothbrush

Reached Chennai and took a taxi to our relative’s house. It had been quite some time since I sat in an Ambassador, and it still is one amazing car.

The long drive part of the trip started from the 24th of Sep 09. The route followed is as below:

Why so many temples covered?
Well… temples were the focal point of arts, crafts and traditions during the ancient times. They are living museums showcasing the work of the best craftsmen from those times.

Sangeetha had already been to some of these places in the past… and she would speak about the huge temples, the extraordinary carvings etc. Also, I had seen quite a few documentaries on TV and read a few books on Temples of Tamilnadu and was keenly looking forward to seeing them myself. That is the story behind this itinerary.

We had an early lunch and by 12.30pm we were ready to hit the road for the driving part of our trip. We asked around and reached the East Coast Road that goes towards Mahabalipuram & Pondicherry…

We have already been to Mahabalipuram and Pondicherry during a previous trip, so they were not on our must-see list for this time. Our plan was to by-pass Mahabalipuram, stop in Pondicherry for some food and tea in the evening and proceed towards Chidambaram.

A small stop at the ‘Tiger Cave’ that is just beside the road, a few kilometers before Mahabalipuram…

An interesting looking bird we saw near the caves…

More birds, in the back-waters that line the ECR…

We came across this board about the ‘Alambarai fort’ which is around 10 – 12 kms deviation from the main road. I was keen on seeing the fort; Sangeetha said "I haven’t heard or read about this fort anywhere"; so we decided to check it out…

The fort is right next to the beach; however it is totally in ruins. Nothing much remains except for a few walls…

You can get a good view of the sea from here though…

Next stop, Pondicherry! The cops here still use the funny looking cap that is a relic from the French era…

Though it has been quite a while since we had last been to Pondy, we still could remember the route to the French quarter…

We stopped at the Promenade hotel for tea and Pizza…

They serve a range of excellent thin crust oven fresh pizzas…

Yummy!

The beach-road does tend to get a little crowded towards the evening, since it is a popular hangout for the locals and tourists alike…

There are a number of eateries to suit all budgets and the avenue is dotted with historical buildings from the French colonial era.

After a small stroll around this place, we were ready to move on to our destination for the day; Chidambaram…

We reached Chidambaram by around 7.45pm, found a lodge quite close to the main temple, parked the car and proceeded towards the temple for a darshan.

Our modus-operandi throughout the trip was to finish off with the darshan as fast as possible, usually on the night that we arrive there. The next morning we would just explore the temple and the monuments around at a leisurely pace.

Since we were travelling during the ‘Dussehra’ or ‘Navarathri’ period, most temples were open till quite late into the night, which suited us fine. Else most of these places shut by 8pm.

Chidambaram is the place where Shiva is worshipped in the form of ‘Nataraja’; and the idol is incredibly beautiful! Chidambaram is also one of the five holiest Shiva temples. This Wikipedia link provides extensive info: Chidambaram Temple – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The main entrance gopuram of the temple…

After a quick darshan, we found a restaurant for dinner. In many places in Tamilnadu, meals are not served at night. Dinner usually consists of dosa / uthapam / idly etc.

Bangles by the roadside…

Walked back to the hotel and we shut down for the night by around 10.30pm. We planned to wake up really early the next day to check out the temple and proceed further.

25th Sep 2009 – Chidambaram, GangaikondaCholapuram, Darasuram, Kumbakonam, Tanjore. We were up and out by 7.00am on the 25th and proceeded towards the Chidambaram temple.

If you are wondering whatever happened to the Trekkers what were manufactured by Hindustan Motors, looks like most of them wound up in Tamilnadu; and were mostly bought by driving schools. We came across a number of these vehicles in good running condition around TN, mostly with ‘L’ boards stuck to them.

The temple entrance gopuram in daylight…

More pics from outside the temple complex. Each temple in TN has its own rule book when it comes to photography. In some places they’ll allow you unfettered access to take pics anywhere (Except the main deity.) In other places the totally prohibit carrying cameras into the temples. In a few other places you need to buy a camera ticket…

After spending some time in Chidambaram, we headed off towards Gangaikonda cholapuram. A lot of info about this place is available here: Gangaikonda Cholapuram – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pics from the temple; which does bear a strong resemblance to the Tanjore Brihadeshwara temple. This temple was once surrounded by a massive fortification wall, which was dismantled by the British, who used the stones for constructing a Anaicut (Dam) across a river nearby.

Next we headed towards Kumbakonam. A small town that literally has a temple in every other street. We had listed down a few temples which are architecturally and artistically significant and planned our visit around them.

Drove through Kumbakonam to visit Darasuram first and then spend the rest of the day in Kumbakonam.

Darasuram is famous for the ‘Airavteshwara temple’ which features in UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites. More info here: Darasuram – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A very beautiful temple, with intricate carvings…

And remnants of ancient paintings; created using natural colors and pigments…

Some more pics from in and around the temple…

There are also quite a few handloom silk units in and around Darasuram. We walked around a little into the streets around the temple and found one. The folks were sweet enough to take a few minutes off to explain ‘how things work!’

I had always assumed that a handloom is a relatively simple machine. But in reality, it is extremely complex. The loom is actually a programmable device, with the design inputs being fed in via punched cards.

There are cards which specify the design of the top and bottom borders of the saree, cards which generate the main section design and another set of complex cards for the pallu.

Depending on the complexity of the design, a single silk saree takes anywhere between 5 to 20 days to weave…

We were back in Kumbakonam by lunch time. Had plate meals in a small hotel and worked out a plan of action. We realized that the places we wanted to see were located with a few square Kms of the town. Since finding our way around + finding a parking place after we reached the places was going to be a pain, we just parked the car near the first place we wanted to see and hired an auto.

Caught hold of an auto guy, told him about the list of places we wanted to see, asked him how much time it would take to cover all of these and the best order to follow… and then asked him how much would he charge if he were to take us around to all of these places.Started with 200/- and negotiated it down to 175/- and we were all set. He would take us to a temple and wait for us.

For extensive details about Kumbakonam + a listing of the important temples etc. Please check this link: Kumbakonam – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Many of the temples in Kumbakonam are spread over a large area. So the corridors in some of the temple complexes are used as markets. And the temple compound is used as a thoroughfare… if you want to go to the other street, just hold your slippers in your hand and walk through the temple compound instead of the longer route around it.

Dolls; which are quite popular in Karnataka & Tamilnadu, displayed as part of Dussehra festivities…

Just a random pic…

In most places in the interiors of Tamilnadu, everything and everybody shuts down at around 12.30pm; and it is siesta time till around 4.00pm. So plan your trip taking this into consideration…

Contd…

25th Sep 09-Chidambaram, GangaikondaCholapuram, Darasuram, Kumbakonam, Tanjore Contd. More pics from Kumbakonam…

The ‘Mahamaham tank’. Which literally comes alive with people during the Mahamaham festival, known as the Kumbamela of South India. It occurs once every 12 years…

The B&W pic below from the year 1900 (?) illustrates what I mean.

Taking the auto was a very prudent decision indeed. He whizzed us through the narrow alleys and took us from place to place…

More pics…

The Ramappa temple, which features some exquisite stone work…

And a pictorial depiction of the Ramayana…

Kumbakonam also has quite a few brass workshops. Walk a little into some of the alleys around the temples and you can watch the artisans going about their work…

The temple compound turns into a place for an evening outing with the family. With small shops, merry-go-round and rides for kids, snack shops and the picture is completed by a ‘blessing’ elephant.

After Kumbakonam our next destination was Tanjore or Thanjavur. Which is famous for the Brihadeshwara temple and also the ubiquitous Tanjore paintings.

We started from Kumbakonam at around 6.30pm, the distance between Kumbakonam is around 40kms and the roads are quite good. We could cover the distance in around an hour.

Entering Tanjore, we headed straight towards the Brihadeshwara temple. Saw that the monument was still lit up at around 8.00pm. On enquiring at the entrance we found that the temple was open till around 10pm that night due to the festivities.

Drove around a little and found a place called ‘Pandiyar Residency’. The hotel + rooms were clean and we checked in; and headed back to the temple.

A quick note about the hotel: This is the only hotel from our entire trip that I would rate as ‘Please Avoid’. Non-responsive staff, towels and soaps that never arrived till we chased them several times, chai that never arrived in spite of repeated reminders, parking problems thanks to the movie theatre adjacent to the hotel.

Coming back to the temple, Wikipedia says: "The Brihadeshwara Temple at Thanjavur, is the world’s first complete granite temple and a brilliant example of the major heights achieved by Cholas in temple architecture. It is a tribute and a reflection of the power of its patron RajaRaja Chola I. It remains as one of the greatest glories of Indian architecture.

The temple is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site "Great Living Chola Temples"…

"… The ‘Vimana’ – or the temple tower – is 216 ft (66 m) high and is among the tallest of its kind in the world. There is a big statue of Nandi (sacred bull), carved out of a single rock, at the entrance measuring about 16 feet long and 13 feet high…"

The temple is capped by a monolithic ‘shikhara’ made of a single granite block weighing around 80 tons; which was probably pulled up using an inclined ramp that was around 4 to 6 kms long!

There was not much of a crowd at that time and we spent more than an hour walking around the temple…

The smaller temple adjacent to the main temple…

More pics…

The monolithic Nandi, which is the second biggest in the country.

By 10.30pm the temple was shut and we were among the last few to walk out of the complex…

Headed back to the hotel and logged off for the night. Tomorrow was going to be a long day!

26th Sep 09 – Tanjore, Trichy, Srirangam. Our best friend on the road, Google! I used Airtel GPRS quite extensively during the trip. Be it for reading up about the places to see or looking up the route options on Gmaps…

Next morning we headed towards the temple by around 7.30am. Found a good restaurant nearby for breakfast and walked back into the complex…

Carved; and painted…

The smaller temple in the complex…

The walls of the passages along the outer perimeter are covered with paintings. Looks like there have been some restoration attempts in the past…

Next we drove off towards the Tanjore palace, which is a couple of kilometers from the temple.

The Palace, on the east main street is a complex of structures, built partly by the Nayaks around 1550 AD, and additions were made by the Marathas.

The Nataraja hall in the temple museum…

The palace has a huge whale skeleton, from a carcass that washed ashore and was donated to the museum by the fisheries department…

More pics..

You can climb up the narrow staircase up to the 3rd floor of the tower…

The palace compound seems to have been encroached upon and there are quite a few houses and even a basketball court in the area behind the palace…

The palace complex…

The halls in the palace feature some very elaborate examples of stucco-work…

The Brihadeshwara temple dominates the skyline of Tanjore…

Contd…

26th Sep 09 – Tanjore, Trichy, Srirangam. Contd.. "Theese is bell tower of paalace. You know bell? ding-ding , ding-ding?" – A guide was explaining to a foreign tourist…

The ‘durbar hall’ of the palace. As you can make out, the lack of maintenance is evident in the fading paint all around…

This would have been a really bright and colorful place in its hey-day…

Another section of the palace which houses a museum…

There is also a Government handicrafts showroom in the palace complex, which has a very good collection of curios and artifacts…

They also have a good collection of Tanjore paintings, which are made with semi-precious gemstones and gold foil…

After spending a few hours in Tanjore, we drove on to our next destination; Trichy or Tiruchirapalli. Our first stop was at the ‘Rock fort’ temple. The old-city in which the Rock-fort is located is a little messy with lots of traffic going in all directions!

We kept asking for directions till we finally reached a road from where we could see the Rock-fort and headed straight towards it.

Found parking near a museum building and walked towards the stairs leading up to the top…

It is quite amazing how such a big complex of temples has been built on top of the rock…

There is also a cave temple on top; which reminded us of the temples we had seen in Badami. ( http://www.dummysite.com/forum/travel…ighways-2.html )

The Ganesha temple which is the top most point of the Rock-fort hill…

Trichy from the top…

We could also see Srirangam across the river, where we were heading to next…

A poster featuring views of the Rock-fort from the four directions; sponsored by Ambica Sarees, who deal in ‘Excessive’ fancy sarees… whatever that means.

Visited the other temples on the hill and walked down…

For 2 rupees, I too got blessed… with elephant snot. (Cheeee!… where are the tissues)

It was around 7.15pm when we started off from Trichy to Srirangam, which is just across the river…

Some images from Trichy…

Reached Srirangam, parked the car and walked into the temple. We had planned to finish darshan and find a hotel later.

We were walking through the crowd when someone called out my name "Sanjay"… I turned around to see an old colleague and team-mate of mine who was also in Srirangam with his family. This is surely a small world!
Finished darshan and found a hotel right next to the temple and settled down for the night.

Srirangam is apparently the largest functioning Hindu temple complex in the world and the second largest temple complex in terms of area. Second only to the Angkor-Wat temple complex.

By the time we finished darshan, it was around 10.00pm; and by the time we retuned back to the room, it was around 11.00pm… Set the alarm for 6.00am and lights out.

27th Sep 09- Srirangam, Thirumayam, Kanadukathan & Rameshwaram. ‘Beep beep… beep beep’ – Snooze. ‘Beep beep – beep beep’ – Snooze again. Finally got out of bed to freshen up and caught the sunrise through the hotel window…

One of the Srirangam temple gopurams as seen from the hotel room…

Since the hotel is in a street adjacent to the temple, we just had to walk across…

Srirangam is a huge complex, with a number of temples, mantaps and other buildings spread out across several acres. We entered through the gate that is close to the Ramanujacharya temple.

This mantap is noted for its beautifully carved pillars…

The Ramanujacharya temple is the place where the saint’s mortal remains were interred. A life-size wax (or is it wooden?) statue of the saint is worshipped here…

There is a view-point on top of a building near the Ramanuja temple; from where you get a panoramic view of the temple. I could count 9 gopurams from here, 6 are in this picture… (Without considering the dome-like structure in the bottom left corner and the golden shikharam)

And three in this picture…

Some other pics from the streets around the temples:

Starting her day with a glass of ‘Kapi’…

On his way to the temple…

Waiting for business…

There is also a thousand pillared hall in this temple. It actually has more than a 1000 pillars, but most of them are plain and simple stone columns…

No pics from inside the temple since cameras are not allowed. We walked around in the temple for quite a while and headed back to the hotel to pack up and proceed.

The previous evening, Sangeetha had mentioned that quite a few Tamil serials are shot in Srirangam, especially in the old houses that surround the temple. When we were walking back to the hotel, we saw a power-van and the tell tale signs of a shooting in progress…

The scene was an autorickshaw driving up to one of the houses and an old man & his daughter (in law?) step out of it and head inside the house.

The ‘old man’ was being played by Sudhakar, who has acted in quite a few Telugu & Tamil films in the 80s & 90s.

While chatting with a priest at the Srirangam temple, he mentioned that in terms of size, the Anantasayi statue (Vishnu reclining on Seshanaga) in Thirumayam is much bigger than Srirangam, and is the second largest in India after the statue in Tiruvananthapuram. He also mentioned that Thirumayam was along the route to Rameshwaram.

Hmmm… Interesting! Fired up Google maps and checked to see the exact location of Thirumayam and we added it into our plans.

Started from Srirangam and bypassed Trichy and headed towards Thirumayam & then onto Rameshwaram.

The rockfort as seen from the bypass road…

Somewhere along the way I saw this sign-board.
"Looks interesting, why not go check it out?"
"Ok."

Took the diversion and drove slowly to see if any other boards could guide us to this ‘Pre-historic’ site. We even enquired with a couple of folks we encountered on the way and nobody seemed to have any clue about this board or the site.

After driving down that road for a couple of Kms, we felt that this would probably be a futile exercise, decided to turn back and returned to the main road.

"Maybe the ‘pre-historic’ site is still under construction" Sangeetha quipped

We took the road that leads up to the temple and headed up.
"Looks like someone threw away perfectly good cannon… should we load it into the car and take it home?"
"Shut up and drive…"

The temple was almost deserted when we reached there. Walked in and the priest opened up the sanctum for us. This was originally a cave temple which has been developed into a full-fledged structure. The reclining Vishnu statue is around 16 feet in length and very majestic.

After darshan, we headed out and walked through the temple. You can see some intricately carved pillars (including the now common ‘musical pillars’)…

Though this looks like a free-standing statue, it is actually been carved out of the same rock as the rest of the pillar behind it. A coating of oil gives it the black color. One unique aspect of the statues in this temple is that unlike the stylized carvings in other places, the artists of this temple were more realistic in their portrayal of the benefactors. You can even see the overhanging paunch in this statue…

When Sangeetha asked the priest about the ‘Sthalapuranam’ of the place, he was quite hard of hearing and could not understand her question… instead this person who was standing next to us pitched in and started speaking about the temple, its history etc.

He spoke with a lot of passion and conviction about how the folks who carved these temples had to have superhuman qualities to be able to visualize and ‘liberate’ such incredible works of art from within the hard rock.

He made us follow him around the temple and showed us some statues and explained how difficult it must have been to achieve the level of detailing. (Some of the statues have musculature and even veins carved into the details. A couple of statues even have toe-nails that have slightly overgrown the toes and there is a minute gap under them!)

He had a very pleasant voice & modulation and though I could only follow bits and pieces of his speech (he was speaking in Tamil) I was just standing there listening to him. Sangeetha would pause occasionally to translate the conversation when she felt I was a little lost. He must have spoken for almost 25 to 30 minutes!

I was expecting that he was perhaps a ‘guide’ and would ask for money towards the end of the conversation. Finally Sangeetha asked him about his occupation… and he mentioned that he is a stone-mason who undertakes construction work. He asked us to hurry up and go to the nearby Shiva temple before it closed…

It was only later that I regretted not having recorded the conversation as a video clip and not having asked for his name…

After visiting the other temple, we decided to continue towards Rameshwaram. But could not resist one more look at the Vishnu statue… promising ourselves that we would just take a quick peek, we went back into the temple.

One more darshan and we were walking out when the priest mentioned that ‘prasadam’ would be served shortly and asked us to wait.

The ‘Prasadam’ was very liberal servings of sweet pongal and khara pongal…

It was a little past lunch time and we were indeed quite hungry. There was enough prasadam for everyone to have a second round and that was a very satisfying lunch!

We walked out of the temple and tried to find the person who had spoken to us earlier, no luck. Started the Xing and headed back towards the highway…

Contd…

27th Sep 09- Srirangam, Thirumayam, Kanadukathan & Rameshwaram. (Contd) Sometime later during the drive we came across this board. Having been through the ‘case of the missing pre-historic site’ earlier that day, we contemplated whether we should go take a look at this place.

Ok fine! Let us just go see what a heritage town is all about. It is not every other day that we drive this way.

And we are glad we decided to take the turn… instead of a quick look, we ended up spending around 4 hours in Kanadukathan! First of all, it is a small town with neatly laid out streets and HUGE! Mansions all around, dating back to the late 1800s and the early 1900s.

This place is one of the home-towns of the Chettiars (of the Chettinadu fame).

One of the biggest mansions is called ‘the Palace’ and is the ancestral home of Mr.M. A. M. Ramaswamy, an Industrialist and one of the most famous names in Indian horse racing.

Every road, every turn… you’ll find palatial houses.

One such house has been converted into a palace-hotel of sorts, catering mainly to visitors from US & Europe. We walked into the mansion and wandered around wondering at the extravagance…

Elaborate wood-work ceilings, huge rooms with intricate stone worked floors, courtyards within the houses…

We spoke to the owner of the house who graciously allowed us to not only walk around his house, but also arranged for us to see a couple of other houses in the area…

A few pics from inside the other houses we saw…

Belgian mirrors…

Solid wooden pillars…

Huge rooms…

Wooden ceilings…

Antique furniture…

Tiled ceilings…

A courtyard in the living area…

A courtyard for the kitchen area!

This was a dining hall! Notice that there are mirrors next to the doors ? A guest could just lean back and stretch out his / her hand, the serving staff would see the indication through the mirrors and walk up to the guest…

Contd…

27th Sep 09- Srirangam, Thirumayam, Kanadukathan & Rameshwaram. (Contd) We drove around the town for a while wondering at how life would have been when the town was in full bloom.

Sadly 80 – 90% of the houses are now in a state of disrepair, with the younger generations having moved on into the cities and only servants / caretakers now living in most of the mansions. There are apparently over 150+ significant mansions in the town and the surrounding areas…

We were running behind schedule due to the detours we had taken. Reached the highway and I mentioned to Sangeetha "Next stop Rameshwaram". But I spoke a little too soon; it had started to rain heavily and after about an hour’s drive, we found the road was blocked by a fallen tree.

Slushy fields on both sides and the nearest diversion was too far away, so everyone was just waiting for the tree to be cleared. An earth-mover had been summoned from a nearby village and would take some time to arrive.

Leaned back, opened a pack of chips and took a break for a while. A JCB arrived and made short work of the fallen tree and cleared up the highway again. We had been stuck for around 30 minutes…

From there on it was a non-stop drive all the way to Rameshwaram…

It was already around 8.00pm when we crossed the Pamban Bridge and entered Rameshwaram; found a hotel close to the temple and checked in. Had dinner in a small restaurant nearby and called it a day!

28th Sep 09- Rameshwaram, Dhanushkodi & Kanyakumari. Rameshwaram is actually an island, connected to mainland India by the Pamban Bridge. Dhanushkodi is on the other tip of the island.

Went into the Rameshwaram temple by around 6.30am…

There are 22 wells / ponds inside the temple complex. The water from each of these wells apparently has a different taste and pilgrims will take bath or taste the waters from each of these wells.

There will be ‘guides’ walking around in the temple with buckets and long ropes, for a fee they will quickly walk you around to all these wells and pour a bucket of water on your head…

Rameshwaram is also a temple of corridors. The passages around the temple run for a length of over 1200 meters in total…

The paths that lead to all the wells can be easily identified, it will be perennially wet with all the dripping pilgrims rushing around from well to well…

This is the longest un-interrupted passage in the temple, running to a length of 230 meters…

In the queue we somehow got pushed into a Marwari group who had taken up some special pooja; and we were made to sit in front of the sanctum for quite a while till the abhishekas were completed, so it was a very good darshan.

Next, we decided to head to Dhanushkodi, which is at the tip of the Rameshwaram Island from where the ‘Ram Setu’ or Adam’s bridge starts.

Dhanushkodi was a thriving town till December 1964; when a 20ft tidal wave driven by a cyclone crashed through the place and destroyed almost all the buildings; also carrying away a train loaded with 115 passengers, all of whom were drowned.

We had to drive through a narrow strip of land with sea on the both sides, which progressively gets narrower and narrower…

After a while you can see sand / beach on both sides of the road…

After a couple of more kilometers, the road ends in a small village…

From the village you will have to go to Dhanushkodi in four wheel drive Mahindra vans. It is a 20 to 25 minute drive through the sands, till you reach the final tip of land…

For 50 rupees per head, you get a wild ride through the sands; with options of sitting inside, hanging on to the outsides or clambering up to the top!

We came across ruins of what was once the thriving town of Dhanushkodi…

In some places the sand bar is reduced to just a narrow strip with sea on both the sides…

Reached the tip at last…

A pilgrimage to Varanasi is considered to be incomplete till you visit Rameshwaram and Dhanushkodi, so you’ll see lots of visitors from up north performing poojas on the beaches here…

Say cheese…

From here, you can see that the sea is quite shallow and there is a series of sand-bars and islands that reach out all the way to Srilanka…

Wet black sand, getting covered by the white dry sand blown across by the wind…

A boat to nowhere…

On the way back the van guy stops between the ruins of Dhanushkodi for a short while. This was once part of the railway station…

There a number of buildings strewn around, slowly being swallowed up by the sands…

Remains of a church…

After this we drove back to Rameshwaram, we had a couple of more places to see, post which we planned to have lunch, return to the hotel to freshen up and wash the car; and proceed towards our next destination.

First stop was the ‘Ramarpadam’, a temple at the highest point of the island, where the foot-prints of Rama are carved into the stone. The Ramarpadam temple offers an all round view of the island.

The Rameshwaram temple as seen from Ramarpadam…

Next stop was the Panchamukhi hanuman temple, famous for the ‘floating stones’. As I had expected, this is a tourist trap… the ‘floating stones’ are actually blocks of coral, which will float since they are porous.

Contd…

28th Sep 09- Rameshwaram, Dhanushkodi & Kanyakumari. (Contd.) Came back to the hotel post lunch, washed the car, had a refreshing bath and moved on.

We had driven over the Pamban Bridge the previous night, now we stopped there to take a look.

Wikipedia says "The Pamban Bridge on the Palk Strait connects Rameshwaram to mainland India. It refers to both the road bridge and the cantilever railway bridge, though primarily it means the latter. It was India’s first sea bridge. It is the second longest sea bridge in India (after Bandra-Worli Sea Link) at a length of about 2.3 km.

From the elevated two-lane road bridge, adjoining islands and the parallel rail bridge below can be viewed.

The railway bridge is 6,776 ft (2,065 m) and was opened for traffic in 1914. The railroad bridge is a still-functioning double-leaf bascule bridge section that can be raised to let ships pass under the bridge."

The bridge is a regular tourist spot where travelers stop for a few minutes to admire the view…

Fishing boats from the nearby coastal village…

We drove on from there, towards our next destination – Kanyakumari.

Stopped at a bunk to fill-up and saw this contraption, probably quite a common sight in many parts of India. But each one will be unique!
From what I could see, this one was:
- powered by a Bajaj engine (with the kick start intact.),
- Engine is mated to the rear wheels through a chain-drive,
- front wheel assembly from a Rajdoot bike,
- head-light and handle from a TVS moped,
- rear-wheels from some ancient mini-truck or pick-up,
- The load-bed is mounted on 6 heavy duty shock absorber units, probably from a jeep or van.

After a couple of hours we started seeing un-ending rows of salt pans.

"We must be close to some port or coastal town" I said.
"Yup, we are close to Tuticorin" – Sangeetha said, looking up from the map.

Soon enough we came across large container yards…

Next on, we reached Tirunelveli, planning to drive through and reach Kanyakumari for dinner.

"You know, Tirunelveli is famous for Tirunelveli halwa"
"Yes I know…"
"I feel like eating Tirunelveli halwa"
"Ok, we should come across a shop selling it along the way, will stop and buy"

But as luck would have it, I did not find any sweet shop along the route we took and soon we were near the outskirts of the city.

"Oh, we did not find any shops on the way no…"
"We’ll pass through this place on our way back; I will buy you halwa tomorrow."
"Ok, but I feel like eating halwa now…but it is ok, so what if I feel like eating halwa, it is ok, let us drive on…"
"Tauba tera halwa, tauba tera pyar, tera emotional atyachar…"

So we turned back, hunted down a sweet shop selling the gooey halwa, bought around 250 grams of the stuff and tracked our way back to the road to Kanyakumari.

Reached Kanyakumari and stopped to ask for directions to the Vivekananda rock etc. (Most of the places to see in Kanyakumari are within walkable distance from there.) Immediately we were pounced upon by touts trying to give us ‘sea-facing, beach side rooms’ One guy was so insistent that he kept following us on his moped for quite some distance.

First task was to have dinner, which we did in a hotel ‘Saravana bhavan’ very close to the main temple. Then we drove around slowly to check into a hotel.

After enquiring in a couple of places, we figured out the going rate for rooms that night. On a whim, we stopped at a Hotel Sun World. To keep the story short, the guy showed us a rate card for Rs.3200/- for an AC room for the night, so we decided to walk away and check into one of the smaller hotels where the rate was around 900/-, the guy started offering some discounts. Sangeetha bargained that our budget was around 1000/-… and when we reached an impasse, we finally walked out.

We were about to get into the car when the guy called us back and agreed to Rs.1100/-, with a 12.00 noon check out the next day. Which suited us fine. [Considering that it was 10.30pm and on a week-day, the room would have been vacant anyways...]

The guy mentioned that Sunrise would be at around 6.00am, there is also a gallery on top of the hotel from where you can catch the sunrise, else you can walk to the beach, which is a good 20 minute walk. We decided to head to the beach.

Checked in, set the alarm for 5.00am, watched news for a few minutes and zzzz…zzzz….

29th Sep 2009- Kanyakumari, Suchindram, Padmanabhapuram. Not wanting to miss the sunrise, we had set the alarm to 4.15am; planning to be on the beach by 5.30am at least.

The beach (Sunrise point), Vivekananda memorial, Kanyakumari temple, Triveni Sangam, Gandhi mantap etc. all are clustered within a couple of hundred meters from each other; and very close to the hotel too…

Reached the beach at around 5.40am and there were already quite a few people crowding all the vantage points…

We noticed that the jetty wasn’t crowded and briskly walked towards the end of the jetty…

Sunrise had already commenced, but due to the low clouds on the horizon, we still could not see the sun. But the scenery was spectacular. That’s the Vivekananda rock memorial and the 133 ft Thiruvalluvar Statue…

So many colors and shades…

The Sun quietly slipped through the clouds and it was way past Sunrise time…

We headed towards the temple and finished darshan. Next on we decided to see all other places within walkable distance, before taking the ferry to the rock memorial.

Swami Vivekananda was surely a brave man to have swum through these waters to reach the Sripada rock (On which the memorial was built)…

The Gandhi mandapam…

Sea shells on sale…

After a 30 minute wait in the queue, we finally boarded the ferry to reach the Vivekananda rock memorial. This structure was built in 1970 on the rock where Vivekananda meditated in December 1892 and attained enlightenment…

The ferry took us to the Thiruvalluvar statue next…

We came back to the hotel, packed up and checked out by around 11.30am…

Next on our list was Suchindram, which is around 11 kms from Kanyakumari.

Wikipedia : "The temple is an architectural marvel known for its quality of workmanship in stone. The musical pillars carved out of single stone and which stands at 18 feet is an architectural delight. There are 7 musical pillars in the Alangara Mandapam each cut out of single rock, which emit the sounds of various musical instruments when struck. There are 1035 pillars with carvings in the dancing hall.

The Anjaneya or Hanuman statue stands at 22 feet or 3 m and is carved of a single granite block and is one of the tallest statues in India. It is of great historical interest that this statue was buried in the temple, fearing an attack by Tippu Sultan and was, subsequently, forgotten.

The religious significance of the temple stem, from the fact that the main statue of linga represent Siva (Sthanu), Vishnu (maal) and Brahma (Ayan).The representation of the three central gods of Hinduism in one Linga makes it one of the unique temple in India."

Of all the things in the temple, the Hanuman statue alone is enough to justify the drive to this place.

* No cameras allowed into the temple.

Even the gopuram of the temple has entire epics depicted on it…

From Suchindram, we headed towards Padmanabhapuram, which is famous for its wooden palace. Drove past this picturesque church along the way…

Wikipedia: "The palace was constructed around 1601 A.D by Iravipillai Iravivarma Kulasekhara Perumal who ruled Travancore between 1592 A.D. and 1609 A.D.

In the late 18th century, the capital of Travancore was shifted from here to Thiruvananthapuram, and the place lost its former glory. However, the palace complex continues to be the best examples of traditional Kerala architecture, and some portions of the sprawling complex are also the hall mark of traditional Kerala style building art."

A curious thing about the palace is that though the palace is in the State of Tamil Nadu, it is a part of Kerala! I.e. the land and the Palace belong to the Government of Kerala.

An ingenious hanging lamp that could be turned in the direction where you needed light…

The ‘Mantrasala’ – King’s court Chamber…

A dining hall where around 2000 people were fed every day…

The older sections of the palace are currently being repaired…

Wooden pillars, each carved from a single jack fruit tree…

Huge pickle jars…

Narrow balconies on the first floor…

The King’s bed, which was made from 64 different types of wood with medicinal qualities…

Contd…

29th Sep 09- Kanyakumari, Suchindram, Padmanabhapuram. (Contd.) More pics from within the palace…

The hall which served as the office space for the administrative staff…

A balcony that overlooks the adjacent street. Seated here, the king could provide an audience to the people below and also watch races and other cultural activities…

A painting showing the coronation of King Marthanda Varma…

Floors which have still retained the fine finishing…

"The Nataksala or the hall or performance has solid granite pillars and gleaming black floor. There is a wooden enclosure, with peepholes, where the women of the royal household used to sit and watch the performance." - The openings near the ceiling are the peep holes.

Some pics from the museum within the palace complex…

A punishment cage…

Some curios in the shops outside…

It was late evening by the time we came out of the palace. Had some nariyal pani and started our drive to Madurai. We drove back to Nagercoil and got onto NH7…

We reached Madurai by around 10.00pm and the area where the Meenakshi temple is located is a super mess. One ways, blocked roads, trucks & tempos parked all over. (The traders in that area load and unload stocks at this time of the night.)

We spent almost an hour trying to find the temple and then trying to find our way out of the area. Finally we extricated ourselves from the mess and accomplished two things… found a restaurant to have dinner and found a decent hotel nearby with safe parking.

Good night!

30th Sep 2009 – Madurai to Bangalore! A heads-up on another way in which auto guys try to take visitors for a ride in Madurai:

Since we were just a couple of kilometers from the temple, we wanted to avoid the hassle of finding a parking place near the temple. Left the car at the hotel and got into an auto. The rate we agreed upon was 25/-

We seemed to be passing by one of the temple gates and taking a longer route… I asked him where he was taking us. He replied back that he was taking us to the gate from where it would be a shorter walk to the temple. Since we had already negotiated the rate, I was a little curious to see what he was up to.

Finally we reached a street in front of another gate; he stopped in front of a Saree shop and started saying…

“Very nice and cheap silk sarees in this shop… very good silk…”
“No thanks, we want to go to temple, not saree shopping…”
“It will take only few minutes, why don’t you see the sarees, you can also leave your slippers in the shop… Free service, slippers are not allowed near the temple!”

By then an employee of the shop also joined in and echoed this “Slippers are not allowed near temple, you need to leave them somewhere else, and you can leave them in our shop… free service.”

The idea seemed to be that if we leave our footwear there, we will definitely come back to the shop… and thanks to the ‘Free service’; we’ll be somewhat obligated to see the sarees and maybe buy them. The auto-guy would get his cut for driving customers to the shop.

We probably would not have minded browsing through the shop and maybe even picking up an odd saree or two; But this bull-**** about “Slippers not allowed near temple" was a little too much to digest.

Just ignored them and their “Free service” and walked towards the temple… telling Sangeetha that if need be, we’ll just leave the footwear by the roadside and buy new ones if they get whacked… (We were wearing cheap hawaiis).

A few feet from the entrance gates, on all sides of the temple, there are counters provided by the temple administration, where you can leave your foot wear and collect tokens. The tokens too are color coded / marked to indicate the gate where you left your stuff.

Coming back to the T’log, today would be the last day of our trip. We had to be back in Bangalore by 1st October and the plan was to finish all the sightseeing in Madurai and drive to Bangalore non-stop.

We would have around 450kms of driving ahead of us and I estimated that it would require around 7 to 8 hours from start to stop. Even if we started our drive at 4.00pm, we would be in Blr by around midnight.

The Madurai Meenakshi temple is quite a colorful spectacle. "The complex covers around 45 acres and the temple is a massive structure measuring 254 by 237 meters. The temple is surrounded by 12 towers, the tallest of which, the famous Southern tower, rises to over 170 ft (52 m) high…"

More corridors, but not as long as those in Rameshwaram…

Sunlight from a ventilator and the smoke in the temple resulted in an interesting effect…

Some pics from inside the Madurai temple…

In one of the passages, the ceiling is covered with different aspects of Ganesha…

A big Nataraja statue in the museum within the temple. It is more than 6 feet high. Could not get a better pic since the statue was lit up from below by a glaring flood light…

Silhouettes…

Ok, control yaar…

The ‘Aayiram Kaal Mandapam’ or Thousand Pillared Hall (actually has 985 carved pillars), now houses the museum…

The ‘Porthamarai Kulam’, i.e. the Pond with the Golden Lotus…

After the temple, we headed towards the ‘Thirumalai Nayak’ palace. It is within walkable distance from the temple…

Silk (?) yarn being cleaned and prepared by the roadside…

After a short walk, we reached the Madurai palace. "Thirumalai Nayak Palace is a 17th century palace was built by King Thirumalai Nayak, one of the Madurai Nayak rulers in 1636 AD in the city of Madurai, India. This Palace was built with the help of an Italian Architect and is a classic fusion of Dravidian, Islamic and European styles.

The building, which can be seen today, was the main Palace where the king lived. The original Palace Complex was four times bigger than the present structure. In its heyday, Tirumalai Nayak’s Palace at Madurai was considered to be one of the wonders of the South.

It is believed that Chockanatha Nayak, the grand son of Thirumalai Nayak, wanted to build his own palace in Trichy. He demolished parts of the Madurai palace and carried away valuables, wood carvings etc. The rest of the structure fell into disrepair and was slowly disintegrating till Lord Napier; the governor of Madras between 1866 and 1872 took a fancy to this magnificent building and got it renovated for use as a court and administrative office."

A painting from 1798 shows the dilapidated condition of the palace…

The ASI has renovated and maintained the palace quite well…

Contd…

30th Sep 2009 – Madurai to Bangalore! (Contd…) Pics from inside the palace, showing the elaborate stucco work and the elegantly painted ceilings…

There is also a museum in one of the wings, housing some artifacts, reproductions of ancient paintings etc.

Coming out of the palace, we thought of catching an auto back to the hotel. Seeing a few cycle rickshaws at a corner, we decided to take a cycle-rickshaw instead.

Though it cost us almost double of what an auto would have, it has a certain novelty factor of its own. He asked for 40, we bargained for 30, but finally paid him 50,

This form of transportation is now almost extinct in most parts of India, the last time I rode in a cycle rickshaw was in the early 90s in Cuddapah.

Post lunch we packed up and started off towards Bangalore. Had a little bit of a problem in finding our way to the highway, but reached the NH7 and this was the home stretch all the way to Bangalore!

Drove past Palani, a passing thought occurred that we should consider a brief stop over, but continued on…

The highway can be quite treacherous due to morons (mainly private bus drivers & bikers) driving up in the inner lane on the wrong side of the road.

Though in some places there was a genuine diversion due to the ongoing construction, in most cases folks would be driving on the wrong side to avoid having to take a ‘U’ turn somewhere. So had to be really careful around the curves…

A classic example…

Stopped at a BPCL ‘Ghar’ dhaba for dinner and tanking up. Reached Bangalore at around 11.45pm.

"So, what plans for the next trip…?"
"Oh, we should go for a drive around Kerala sometime or maybe a trip up north…"
"Anything is fine; as long as you don’t take me around to see more temples!"
"But Sri.Guruvayurappa is calling me… http://tripwip.com/triplogs/?p=70 ‘Xing’ing around ! – A weekend trek to Mukurthi Peak near Ooty… Ooty seems to be the flavor of the season and this was a trek through the Mukurthi national park which is very close to Ooty. This was done over the weekend of 28th & 29th Nov 09. Mukurthi National Park is sandwiched between [...]]]> ‘Xing’ing around ! – A weekend trek to Mukurthi Peak near Ooty… Ooty seems to be the flavor of the season and this was a trek through the Mukurthi national park which is very close to Ooty. This was done over the weekend of 28th & 29th Nov 09.

Mukurthi National Park is sandwiched between the Mudumalai National Park and the Silent Valley National park.

Wikipedia says: Quote: The Mukurthi National Park is a part of Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, India’s first International Biosphere Reserve. The Western Ghats, Nilgiri Sub-Cluster (6,000+ km²), including all of Mukurthi National Park, is under consideration by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee for selection as a World Heritage Site.

The park is characterized by Montane grasslands and shrub lands interspersed with sholas in a high altitude area of high rainfall, subfreezing temperatures and high winds. It is home to an array of endangered wildlife, including the Tiger and Asian Elephant, but its main mammal attraction is the Nilgiri Tahr. The park was previously known as Nilgiri Tahr National Park.

The park is named after the distinctive looking Mukurthi peak, which at 8,379ft is the fourth highest peak in the Nilgiri range.

This 1852 water color painting by a British artist captures the unusual shape of this peak… resembling a pointed nose!

(Pic courtesy – British Library)

A trek to Mukurthi was on our to-do list for quite a while and our old friend Mr.Chandrashekar coordinated for the permits, logistics and took care of all the ground work. The dates were confirmed and we were quite excited and looking forward to the trip… but it turned out that Sangeetha had to go to New York on an official trip and she had to drop out

The group planned to meet up near Majestic Bus stand at around 9pm on Friday evening. I rushed home from office, Sangeetha had already kept my bag packed… a quick dinner and I caught an auto.

Having had a tiring day, I slept through out the journey, waking up only when we were close to Ooty. After getting delayed due to some blocked roads / traffic jams on the ghat sections, we reached Ooty only by around 6.30am on Saturday morning.

We stopped at the Ooty youth hostel for freshening up and a light breakfast.

James, the caretaker of the Mukurthi fishing hut, would join us only at around 9.00am, so we had some time to kill.

The guys exercising their SLRs with the customary macro pix!

After James joined us, we went into Ooty town to buy some provisions. Ooty town is quite commercialized, crowded, noisy & polluted. Here is a typical scene, complete with a garbage truck, the milling crowds, haphazardly parked vehicles… and a cop screaming at the top of his voice!

But there are quite a few areas in around the town which are quite picturesque…

Shopping completed, we headed off towards the Porthimund dam from where our trek would begin. On the outskirts of Ooty, we found mountains alright… mountains of garbage that is.

Bad roads… really bad roads!

After about an hour, we reached the Porthimund dam.

A Nilgiri Langur…

We distributed the provisions between a couple of us to prepare for the long walk ahead…

Public transport! 5 men on a bike.

After a chai in the village shop, we started off into the jungle…

The scenic backwaters of the dam…

Progress was sometimes slowed down by the fallen trees…

And the narrow path through the undergrowth…

Our first glimpse of the Mukurthi peak – The sharp pointed peak at the distance, right in the middle of the pic…

Most of the path was through a jeep trail…

Found lots of signs that elephants too use this route frequently…

More flora and fauna…

A small waterfall alongside the track; close to the fishing hut…

The Mukurthi fishing hut. Trust the British to find the most picturesque locations to build a house!

Contd…

Trek to the Mukurthi Peak This place was once home to a gentleman named Richard Radcliffe, who was a Vice President of the Nilgiri Wildlife & Environmental Association…

Very basic accommodation, with 5 beds in total; and the rest of the gang would have to sleep in the hall in their sleeping bags…

James set about preparing lunch…

Post lunch we headed down towards the lake…

A stream that feeds into the lake…

Crystal clear…

A group photo…

A mushroom…

A mirror image…

We walked alongside the lake for quite a while, taking pics while the sun was going down…

And the moon came up…

Skipping stones across the lake…

As the daylight slowly faded away, we decided to head back to the hut…

Had a simple but hot & tasty dinner and by around 8.00pm we were ready to bed down for the day. Some of the braver souls decided to try sleeping outside!

By around 9.00pm the temperature had fallen so low that even the water in the taps was painfully cold. It was quite comforting to sit next to the fireplace in the living room…

It was 9.30pm and I finally tucked into my sleeping bag. At around 10.30pm I was woken up by sounds of the guys who were sleeping outside rushing back inside since the temperatures outside were unbearably cold!

We were up at 5.00am, freshened up, had a light breakfast and headed out at 6.45am…

The night temperatures must have fallen to around 4 degrees or less, since there was ground frost all around. Even at around 7.30am it was cold enough to keep the frost intact.

A frozen spider and its web…

We could catch occasional glimpses of our destination. The sharp peak is quite unmistakable…

Defreezing back to life…

There were patches of wooded areas…

The ground continued to remain frozen wherever there was no direct sunlight…

Contd…

Trek to Mukurthi Peak Ice on my shoes!

A caterpillar…

Mukurthi was still quite a long way to go. Took this pic with some zoom…

Came across these pug marks near a stream. Took pics with my watch next to them to provide a scale…

Through the grasslands…

Closer to the peak…

A stream coming down through the sholas…

The going got steeper and the sun got hotter…

The view got better and better as we gained altitude…

While looking at the peak I saw some movement at the distance. Zoomed in to catch a herd of Nilgiri Tahr bounding down from the peak…

They had heard us approaching from well over a kilometer away and slowly grazed their way away towards the other side of the peak…

A rest stop…

Contd…

Mukurthi National Park Trek The rolling hills and the towering mountains…

As we made our way up to the peak, the last stretch was quite steep…

Is this why they are called the ‘Blue Mountains’?

The Mukurthi Lake…

We finally reached the peak by around 11.15am!

After spending around 45 minutes on the peak, savoring the amazing view all around us, we started our descent…

A photo that was hanging on the wall in the fishing hut shows three tigers walking along a path at the base of the peak. [Since Tigers are solitary animals, this might be a pic of three almost grown-up cubs that have not yet gone their own separate ways; or might be a composite image from three shots of the same Tiger]

What looks like a path is actually a gully cut across the hillside by rain water…

Another waterfall along the way…

We reached the hut at around 3.00pm, had lunch and started walking back towards the dam where our vehicle was parked.

Ok, the last couple of kilometers turned out to be another mini-trek. We were walking alongside James, who asked us if we wanted to take a ‘short-cut’. A shorter route it certainly was… but it was again a walk up a hill and through the forest.

Some of us were contemplating whether to stop over Ooty to pick up some home-made chocolates etc. But considering the fact that the Bandipur route would be shut at 9.00pm, we decided to skip the shopping and raced off to cross the check post before it was shut.

Made it across into the Bandipur road with plenty of time to spare, stopped for dinner at Gundlupet, later that night a short stop at the Coffee day on Mysore road and we were back in Bangalore in the wee hours of Monday.