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..