Mumbai fun

The last post in this series is here..

We went from Cochin to Mumbai and had two full days in Mumbai before our return flight to the US.

Having visited so many temples every day in Tamilnadu and Kerala, why stop. While San was busy trying to get blouses stitched urgently, MIL and me went out to visit local temples. We visited 3 that morning.

Later went with San to another local temple and visited what is probably the worlds best one stop beauty store. (you can see it in the video).. 

We managed to eat out a few times..

watch three movies in two days.. the movie theater is the building next to in-laws apartment. We can just walk down and go see movies!

Here are two lapata ladies at lapata ladies..

Then we spent an evening at Ambani center. It was a stark contrast to the other shopping we did. The stores and complex was grand but there were no people in the stores! 

We walked around, took pictures and drove back in time to get some rest before flying out the next morning.

A video highlight..

The return flight was not direct. It was Mumbai to B'lore and then to SFO. The airport in Bengaluru was nice. We actually enjoyed the two hour wait.

Then there was a disaster of a return trip where the tail section of the flight had no power! 

No way to charge phone/laptop, call the air hostess, or watch anything. It was a horrible 16 hours in a plane with a local power cut. They werent even apologetic. We were to get some money back as token compensation for this horrible trip and it has been 6 months plus and we still don't have anything from Air India. There has been 20 + emails back and forth and a check leaf was wasted. That was about it. They have bought all these used planes from Delta airlines and are flying it BLR to SFO. Ratan Tata must be sad now that he can see what is going on from wherever he is!

The trip on the whole though was a happy one. Checked all the items that were in the plan. Did so much in 10 days! 

Now that I have finally finished posting about the India trip in Feb/March, can get back to otehr things that have happened since!

Tanjavoor to Guruvayoor

The previous post in this series is here..

We boarded the train at Tanjavoor close to a 7PM and it was to reach Thrissur in Kerala at 4AM. The train was 40 minutes late. FIL had booked a hotel room right next to the train station just so we could go, take a shower, change to dhotis and get going. We did get okay rest in the train given people kept changing at every station and kept waking us up. 

We reached the hotel at 5 AM, had some dip tea, and all four of us got ready in record time and were at the Sree Vadakkumnathan Temple before sunrise. The sun was just coming up when we came out of the temple. 

Then we went to the Thiruvambady Krishna temple which was just 5 or 10 minutes away.

After this we had a long car ride to Guruvayoor. We stopped for a quick bite to eat.. idly sambar and vadai at a local place (this is not related to HSB.. but the food is better!)

There was a ticket for an appointment with Guruvayoorappan at 9AM. However there was an utsavam and we found out that we should not have been sold those tickets. The temple staff said sorry and told us we will get the money back! Money or not, we wanted to see the deity before leaving. So we stood in line for 2 hours almost and got to go only so far to see the deity from 20 feet away for a few seconds before being pushed out. 

It was an interesting experience. Kerala temple crowds are really agressive. Especially the old ladies! 

The lines to keep your cell phone and footwear s a mile long! We still had fun at this temple. There was a person singing who we mistook for Yesudas first before walking to the area (you can see in video clip).. the stores on either side were cute and the ladies bought Onam sarees! 

Then we went to a shiva vishnu temple in Mamiyoor which was the last stop. It is a beautiful temple!

There was a plan to visit Chottanikkarai baghavathy amman temple which was an hours drive from there, but given we saw baghavathi in Guruvayoor, we decided to skip.

My MIL's close friend stayed in Cochin on the way to the airport. So we went to visit Kamala aunty and her husband for an evening chai visit and then head to the airport.

We saw elephants on this day. At the temples and on the roads. A land with elephants is a happy land!

a land with bananas galore is definitely a happy land..

We stopped by a place for lunch. It was awesome!

It was great to talk to them and spend a few hours. As I write this, Uncle is no more. He passed away recently. An extremely nice person. We were all glad we got to spend time with him. 

A video highlight of the Kerala leg of the trip

Then we were off to Cochin airport and flew to Mumbai. 

We had almost two days in Mumbai before our return trip to the US. That last post later..

An evening in Tanjore

The last post in this series is here..

We were done with Trichy and were on our way to Tanjore via Kallanai.. Hindsight being 20/20 we could have skipped that as it was a detour. Still we went on the bridge across the empty Cauvery river and back and kept going.

We reached Tanjore and the Big temple was going to open at 4PM. Our train from Tanjore to Guruvayoor was at 6:30 or so. 

We spent a good hour in the Tanjore museum. The ladies were taking a nap in the car while I did the rounds with FIL. There were five sections to this complex. We spent most of the time in the museum with the bronze and stone statues. 

there were some interesting things about the Tamil letters and their evolution.

Then my trusted Bata chappal just ripped in two. Walked the last 20 minutes with that. Then we made it to the Big temple 15 minutes before it opened and were walking around and taking pictures.

The amazing giant Nandi (bull) at the big temple!

stray dogs asking for belly rubs (and they do get rubs from visitors!)

a slideshow of some of the temple pics..

As soon as we got to see Brigadeeswarar, we made it back to the car. There was a flying stop at a local Bata store to get a replica of the exact chappal and we still had 30 minutes. Had the yummiest Rava dosa in a restaurant just across the station area and we spent the last 1/2 hour at the train station, drinking tea, enjoying the sunset. 

This temple complex is mind boggling.

Built using elephants for labor and has stood a 1000 years. Now elephants are hardly there!

A video clip from this leg of the trip..

Our Guruvayoor area visits on the next post!

Kula deivam et. al.

The previous post in this series is here..

We had yet another day where sleep was limited to 6 hours. The hotel in Trichy was not as good as the one in Madurai, but given we were going to just sleep, get up, shower and start it was good enough. 

The new driver showed up on time but the car had no working AC. So it was going to be an issue on a hot day. We could not wait. So we asked him to start towards Ranganathar and figure it out from there. 

Just like the previous day we went into the temple at 6AM and were out in a little over an hour. We made our way then to Thiruvanaikovil. We managed to do a super quick darshan.

By then we got a car with working AC. There was an appointment at our Kula deivam temple, Gunaseelam with the priest. We made it in time for me to take a dip in the river behind the temple and go see perumal. 

This was the third highlight of the whole trip after meeting my dad on his 85th birthday and taking bath in the wells of Rameshwaram.

They were nice enough to take care of the annadhaanam on our behalf as we had to leave right away. The pongal prasadam was great on an empty stomach. 

We were to be dropped off at Tanjore Railway station that evening in same car after a visit to the Big Temple in Tanjore. Given we had time, we visited three more temples.

We saw the Thirupanjali temple (which has a special shrine for Yama, the god of death), Thiruvellarai (a very old temple) and Uttamar Kovil (also known as bikshaandaar kovil). 

We finished all these temple visits and had lunch at Ashwins a local favorite.

We also bought some snacks for the road/Train ride later that night at Ashwins. If you are in the Trichy area, don't miss Ashwins food and snacks!

A short video clip ..

Then we made our way to Tanjore. The ladies dozed off. FIL was working in the car. I was busy finishing off some of the snacks.  The three hours in Tanjore did not disappoint.

That on another post..

Aaavudayaar and Pudukottai

The previous post in this series is here..

When FIL and me were wrapping up the visit to Thirumalai Nayakkar Mahal it was almost 2:30PM. It was hot and we were waiting for the driver to come get us. Was asking him about the return trip and he said we were to go by Vaigai express to Trichy. Given the recent train experience to Rameshwaram from Chennai and the associated dead times at the train station, I asked "what if instead of going to Trichy by train from Madurai, what if our driver drove us to Trichy with a few more stops on the way? I have always wanted to visit Aavudayar temple and see Pudukkottai (my father's birthplace) and MIL wanted to visit Bhuvaneshwari amman temple there."

FIL made some frantic last minute arrangements while we went to pick up the ladies and we told them the updated schedule. There was some mixed feelings.. but overall it was welcomed as the ladies got to visit a very old rare temple and a relatively new one.

Aaavudayaar temple is a must see. There is no idol for the deities. Just a pedestal where they pour hot steaming rice near it and offer the steam to the god. The idea is that real god is in many forms and also formless. God is everywhere and in everything is the idea. The temple itself is beautiful.

When you enter the temple you will see an Indian gecko lizzard (udumbu- something that is famous for its grip on any surface) and a monkey.. there is a story behind this and you can wiki it!

This is a really old temple. Sadly no restrooms near it and not many stores either to grab something to eat.

We drank some tea at a roadside stall and started our drive to Pudukkottai.

Pudukkottai was not what I imagined it to be. It has become a big Christian town. Massive state of the art churches everywhere. New names for the stores. A very big change over the years. We managed to go the newly updated Bhuvaneshwari temple. The temple itself is beautiful but the priests and their attitude was a turn off. In any case it was our last stop for the day and we had a two plus hour drive to Trichy.

Made a quick stop to eat. Then I had to rush and get a new Dhoti as all mine were wet from a mixup in the bag from Rameshwaram (yes, we still had wet clothes in the bag). It was finally 9:30 when we reached our hotel in Trichy.

It would have taken us the same time to reach this hotel had we traveled by train. So it was all good!

We said goodbye to our driver. A new person was going to pick us up first thing in the morning for the next days trip.. will get to that post soon!