The last post in this travel series is here .. and is three months old!
My iPhone storage is full after more trips and if I don't microblog this now, it will be gone from memory!
On that quickfire trip to India, after we spent the day in Rameshwaram, we had to drive to Madurai to reach our hotel that night.
We left Danushkodi at almost 5 PM. We had two planned stops before reaching Madurai city.
The first was Thiruppulaani. A beautiful place with an amazing temple tank full of fishes that gave us a free feet cleaning. The temple dates back to the year 1300 and is one of the 108 divya desams. The idol was just beautiful to look at. Sculptors had the golden touch then. Today's temple idols simply don't come close.
Then we stopped at Uttarakosamanagai temple. This is another famous temple in the area. It is a Shiva temple famous for the 6 feet Nataraja idol made of emerald. They cover it with sandalwood paste throughout the year and the emerald is seen only once a year and close to a hundred thousand folks come to visit it on that day!
We got to see the sandalwood version at least. The temple was going through some renovation and we navigated our way through the massive temple complex in the dark.
Then we stopped to have an early dinner and it was off to Madurai..
A very very short video clip to remember.. we got to watch the sunset on our drive..
We got a glimpse of another beautiful temple tank after entering Madurai. We reached a fantastic hotel that my FIL had booked. He told us it was one of the best in Madurai. He was right!
We had a good nights sleep and were up early to visit the temples in Madurai the following day.
Think you will see a theme on our trips. India or Europe, we stay in each place for a day and keep moving cities every evening!
My parents had visited Rameshwaram and I was not a part of that trip. There was this constant reminder for me to go visit with my wife, especially given we had both visited Kashi before.
So a big part of this India trip (previous post here..) was to go to Rameshwaram temple and get.a bath from waters of the 21 wells in the temple. The history and reasoning behind these wells is well documented and will not explain it here.
The logistics of accomplishing this on the other hand, will get a mention. Currently the train that goes from Chennai does not go into the island. It stops at Mandapam station. Supposed to reach at 4:30 AM but is usually late by 30 mins to 45 minutes. That should factor into calculations for a one day trip!
We had a car pick us up and take us straight to the temple gate. Thanks to my chitti's friend, we were connected to one of the. priests at the temple who gave us a contact for a person named Lokesh.
His official title should be Technical Program Manager, Well bathing, Rameshwaram. He asked San, myself and my FIL to walk, after realizing my MIL couldn't walk that far. He took her on his bike to the side gate. Once there, he gave us precise instructions, took us to each well and got us drenched with water from every well within a span of 35 minutes with extreme planning and precision. After that we got to go change at the entrance and visit the main shrines. Within a 2 1/2 hour period we had done what we came to do and one of the main temple visits was checked off. (the other was Gunaseelam... not sure how many days it will take me to get to that post!)
This temple is a marvel !! just look at the pillars as far as the eye can see on every main corridor.
Saw the Sankara mutt on the way out and was reminded of the mutt in Varanasi in Hanuman Ghat! lots of memories..
We said bye to Lokesh and thanked him for pictures from his phone (we were not allowed a phone) and went to get something to eat.
After a quick brunch at a local vegetarian place (Hotel New Saravana Bhavan.. not in anyways related to Hotel Saravana Bhavan!!! but actually better..) we decided to cover the rest of the sights there in this sequence, thanks to our driver (who was from Madurai) who had done this tour many a time. However he said in his experience he had not seen anyone cram this much into a day!
First stop was Ramar paadhukai..(three of us climbed the hill and saw the sights while MIL stayed in the car.. it was a wise move. She was clearly told by our driver where there was flat nice terrain and where things would be difficult)
Then the Panchamukha Hanumaan temple with a demonstration of the floating rocks that were used by the monkeys to build the bridge to Lanka..(sadly my phone died and have no pictures or videos of that) followed by a visit to Lakshmana's temple and pond (there is a story or segment from the Ramayana that is there for each of these locations and you can read up on it if interested)
My FIL had his SLR for pics. I had to stay content with the iPhone.
Then we had finished with this area and were off to see Prof. Kalam's house. It was inspiring in its own way!
After visiting his house, we left for Dhanushkodi area. On the way we got to see the Kodhandaramar temple. Thanks to Modiji, the roads were nice and we also had access to go all the way to the end of the road to see the ocean. We had some ice cream and coconut water at the temple, then stopped by the light house.
The lighthouse has a small elevator that simply cannot handle the tourist volume. So it was difficult to wait there, but after 30 minutes we did make it to the top for some spectacular views. (The restrooms behind the lighthouse are extremely well maintained !! )
After this we got to put our feet in the ocean water where two oceans meet.
There was crazy traffic at the end of the road to make U turns and get back. Our driver had told us to keep walking to find him. The three of us walked close to a mile to catch up with the van and were out of the area.. but we did stop for chai at a roadside stall.. it was pretty good!
A short video compilation of the few clips I took..
There were two more stops to go before we were to reach our hotel in Madurai that night..
Have to start becoming a live blogger to catch up on travels these days. New sights, new people..
So tend to forget things with a photo/video overload.
We landed in Chennai late on Thursday night and left Chennai Saturday afternoon.
Within that time frame, we managed to spend a few hours with my parents, San's 95 year old grandma, visit three temples, eat out twice and meet a lot of relatives (leaving out the blog shy ones in the post)
The most special relative we met was the latest addition to the extended family. It has been a long time since I held a baby in my hands. We showed the picture to someone later in the trip and were asked why we decided to have a baby so late.
My father who is not his usual self saw us fall at his feet for blessings and wished us a boy child. We said something about our 25th wedding anniversary and maybe he heard things partly and automatically blessed. Somehow in his mind, us not having a boy is still a "lacking" thing, at least he used to keep telling me that according to my horoscope I am supposed to have female and male children. He would keep asking me how that horoscope could be wrong? We know the time and age he is from where male children are considered the representation of the gene pool. He always means well.
My dad turned 85 that morning and he was not aware of his birthday. I seem to be the best at playing dumb charades with him and sadly am not close by. We both realized that, in the hour we communicated. He said bye to me as though he was losing his translator or least that was my perception. My only thought was "If by some karma, I end up in this same state with parkinson's, need to train San and some folks around me to play dumb charades regularly, starting now!"
If only Tantra shastra was spread to the masses, things would be different on this boy child business.. that is multiple topics all colliding in my head right now. So that discussion will be sidebared. When my dad finished his blessing in bits and pieces, we just thanked him for it. Told my mom that we are almost ready to have grandkids in a few years.. one topic led to another and we fished out the kids horoscope which my mom had saved all these years!
Given the short time in Chennai, did I mention how my mom told me to go sit and do parayanam at the local Saradhambaal temple? She prioritized my praying for two out of the three hours! In any case, the goal was to make her happy, so I just went and met with all the familiar folks in the recitation group. They were all happy to see me. Many of them have seen me as a teenager. One thing I miss is this recitation group. Seriously thinking of starting one in Cupertino every Saturday morning. One of the folks even took a photo and sent it to my mom! The mama's are better insta bloggers than me.. and my mom was beaming with happiness that they had good things to say about me. Mamas happy, Mom happy, me happy..
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The nights food at Geetham was still backed up with Upma my mom made me in the morning and still had to eat at Kamakshi mess... India trips are an exercise in stretching your stomach muscles way past what you think you can.
then there was the first train ride of the trip.. on Rameshwaram express.. brought back so many memories of long train journeys in India.
"Kamalahasanukku porai eri irukkum!" was the thought as we saw this while standing at the door
we were going to see Ramanadhaswamy.. One picture from my aunt's place that stayed with me.. loved this .. all the stores in Mylapore which did framing were still not open when we went to the area.. so could not find it. Maybe on the next trip, will get a print of this!
Will continue the write up of Rameshwaram in a day, the next chance I get..
