Rameshwaram to Madurai

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!

Madurai in another post!

Nature trip in Arizona Part 5: Horseshoe Bend, Sedona and back

The previous post in this series is here..

Day 3 was for the return journey to Phoenix. Given San's back and our attempt at being nice to my SIL we decided to drive to Phoenix but stay overnight near the airport and take the first filght back in on Memorial day morning to the bay area. 

First stop on way back was the horseshoe bend. It is a mile walk from the parking lot. San walked slow and steady. It was 8 AM and already hot. We should have visited this place during golden hour. The direct sun and shadows did not make for great pictures. The place was way too crowded. I tried to sit on the ledge and San starts screaming as usual. So doing yoga poses on the edge was ruled out!

 

A short video clip of horseshoe bend..

After the walk back from Horseshoe bend I was asked to "hit the gas"... and that I did. There was some volcanic crater on the way back towards Sedona. Just before going to the exit, we decided to keep driving .. lunch was calling. 

We took a good 20 minutes to find parking in Sedona. Then we had a nice Italian lunch at Sedona Pizza and Pasta. Excellent food and excellent service on a busy day!

Walked around a few stores along the busy street, the ladies did some "shopping" and we were on our way back towards Phoenix. 

We had an early but amazing dinner at a place 5 minutes from the airport and close to our hotel. Indian Delhi Palace food was mouth watering!

After stuffing ourselves we went to sleep early. We had to wake up at 3:30 to make it to the car return and catch the first flight out. The car rental place is not close to the airport. There is a train ride from there to the airport!

We made it back to the bay area and San was still in decent shape and declared her back was no worse than when we started. That to me was a success. The SIL seemed to have had a good time as well. 

This was a new place for all of us and it was a good trip overall given we took an extra nights rest.

We have so many places to visit that I doubt we will hit Page again anytime soon. If you have not been to Antelope canyon, definitely see it in this lifetime.. plan and visit!

Glad that this trip was captured in this blog finally, over the next long weekend! 

A nature trip in Arizona- part 1: Red Rock state park

Over the Memorial day long weekend, San myself and my SIL who visited from Melbourne, made a three day trip to Arizona. 

This trip had been planned months in advance to visit Antelope canyon. This was yet another "bucket list" trip. Our previous plans had all been cancelled or we could not get reservations to visit the canyon on usual long weekends. The tour is owned by an Indian reservation and they limit the number of people who can walk through it every day.

San tore her back muscle the previous week and was pretty much in bed rest when my SIL showed up. We were in two minds initially. Told her that it will be okay. It was a 3 hour flight and a 5+ hour drive from Phoenix to the hotel in Page, Arizona. If we took enough breaks and she sat with a waist belt and a pillow for the plane, car ride and rationed her painkillers.. it was doable. So the trip was on! 

Took the Friday off and flew into Phoenix. Got our rental car and started driving out of the airport at 10AM. Our plan was to stop by Red Rock state park for two hours and make it to Page by 6 PM for dinner.  Did not expect Friday morning traffic near Phoenix airport to be that intense. Everyone drives vehicles raised from the floor. Even cars seemed to be on some raised suspension! Folks follow some unwritten rule that larger the vehicle, less the obligation to follow driving rules. Felt like a rat running along the dinosaurs in a stampede of sorts.

Things got better once we were out of that area. We made a pit stop at Denny's. San and me both used to love Denny's. It was a go to place for us years ago. Could eat a pancake or waffle or engilish muffin anytime of the day! Their cheese sticks used to be amazing as well. Guess, Denny's is a shell of what it was before. The service and food quality was bad. Both me and my SIL had a queasy stomach after eating there. The worse thing was me telling my SIL about how good Denny's was and we ended up with that experience. Moral of the story : Don't live in the past. As a rule of thumb, food place quality goes only one way over time!

We made it to Red Rock state park a little after 1PM. They have a nice visitor center. It was a hot day and we decided to do the shortest trail to get a sample of the place. Walked a mile around a "cute" trail along the creem and took pictures from the vista point! 

The trail itself was nice and cool. We would have loved to walk around some more but San had to go through the paces slowly. The unanimous vote was to make a non stop dash to Page from there. 

We slowed down around Sedona and admired the cute shops and restaurants on the way. Had to make three stops. Readers please note that there are 40 mile stretches on the way from Sedona to Page where there are no restrooms! If you see one, stop. Don't think another one will come in 5 mins! You are welcome!

We made it to our hotel in Page by 7PM but our phones kept saying 8PM. I had panicked going "wait.. we drove an extra hour to get here?! How many stops did we do? I did drive reasonably fast". Apparently iPhones have a time issue in Page. They switch to Utah time. However Page follows Phoenix time which is same as CST.  Again, if you are a poor driver who is asked why it took an extra hour to get to Page, check the local clocks. You are welcome!

Decided to torture the two ladies by singing "Adi aathaadi" in a high pitch for a good hour in the hotel room and was eventually confined to the restroom. Think everyone in the hotel must have complained about some deranged lunatic screaming in the restroom. Eventually there was a knock on the door to tell me that "enough was enough" and "things are actually getting worse on every new try". They prefered driving with the sun in their faces for hours compared to being a forced audience for this singing etc... so called it a night. 

We were to spend the entire next day around Antelope canyon. We got plenty of rest to recover from the day of flying and driving. 

A few pictures from Day 1... 

just when we were asking ourselves "how do people live in this heat?" saw this.. 

apparently this is going to be a museum soon..

A gallery of photos of the park and other structures on our drive to Page.

A very different structure we saw right before we hit the town of Page.

A short video of the hike.. I provided humming bgm for the hike.. let us just say it was not a good idea.

If San was normal, and it was a cloudy day, we would have hiked the entire 5 mile trail to all the vista points. It was extremely hot and we were happy with the small hike.

This trip was being taken one step at a time.

The first step was to make it to Page without making San's back worse than where it was. That was done successfully!