Trivandrum-Kanyakumari-Rameshwaram-Madurai Post 2 of 4

This was the second stop on a journey which -

Was spread across a distance of 1,720 km

covered two states - Tamil Nadu and Kerala

comprised of three means of transport - air, water and road

Visited in : Dec 2011

Distance from Trivandrum (Thiruvanathapuram) : 85 km

Best way to reach there : By road (approx. 2 hrs)

Good place to stay at : We stayed at Sparsa resort

Places to See :

1. Vivekananda Rock Memorial

The story goes like this - This is the place which make the young monk Vivekananda - the Swami Vivekananda in 1892. He meditated for three days and nights and attained enlightenment on his life's mission here. He dedicated his life to arouse the nation from its deep slumber from slavery and bigotry.

The idea of constructing a memorial to honour Swami Vivekananda was mooted in 1962 and the memorial was dedicated to the nation in 1970.

Do not miss spending some time in the meditation hall. There is a store which sells books and souvenirs. 

2. Thiruvalluvar Statue

This photo of Thiruvalluvar Statue is courtesy of TripAdvisor

The 133 feet stone sculpture of Tamil saint and poet Thiruvalluvar stands tall at the meeting point of two seas and an ocean - the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. The statue is installed on a tiny island adjacent to Vivekananda Rock. The ferry service from mainland to Vivekananda Rock Memorial stops for a while at the Thiruvalluvar Statue.

3. Vattakottai Fort

About 7 km from Kanyakumari, this fort was built in 18th century as a coastal defence for the Travancore Kingdom at that time. The elevated portions of the fort offer magnificent views of Bay of Bengal, numerous windmills and vast expanse of green blanket.

    4. You can take a stroll along the coastline. 

Important Tips :

1. The queue for the ferry which takes you to the Vivkananda Memorial Rock is usually very long so budget the time well for the same. 
2. Life jackets are not in a good state though the ferry ride is just for 5-7 min.
3. Do not miss the sunrise time early in the morning at Kanyakumari. It is beautiful there.
4. If planning to stay in Sparsa Resort, request for the room which has a sunset view from the room itself. Some of their rooms overlook the Indian Ocean or go to the sunset tower for a breathtaking sunset spectacle.
   

Trivandrum-Kanyakumari-Rameshwaram-Madurai : Post I of 4

We had slotted seven days to visit these four places. We took the air route from Bangalore to Trivendrum (Kerala) and did the road trips to the rest of the places. Our return journey from Maduari was also by air. Obviously it is not mandatory to cover all these places in one trip but we had the whole week for this trip and we distributed eight days and seven nights in this manner - one night in Trivandrum (Kerala) and two nights each in Kanayakumari(TN) , Rameshwaram (TN)and Madurai (TN).

For the readers convenience, I will describe our experience in each of these places separately across 4 posts, first being devoted to Trivandrum.

Trivendrum - the main objective here was to see the backwaters. Since we added this leg at the very last moment, wthere are some beautiful places  where you must make reservations well in advance to take the best out of your trip.

You can see the backwaters either at Allepey and Kumarakom (for which, coming from Kochi would be more appropriate). This I will cover in another post describing about our trip to Allepey.

The other option is to go to Trivandrum and then see the backwaters at Poovar. Poovar backwaters are beautiful and at many places you can even see the poovar river merging into the ocean and that is an awesome sight.  If you plan to come to Poovar then staying in the floating cottages must not be missed.

Must see places in and around Trivandrum:

1. Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple :

This is a very famous Hindu temple in the city. Lord Vishnu in a sleeping position is worshiped here. It is an old temple built in the traditional Dravidian style architecture and has 365 pillars adorning it.

Since it is an old temple and not much modifications have been done as far as the sanctum is concerned, the lighting is not very good. The black colour of the idol did not help either. With great difficulty we could see the idol in parts. The view gets obstructed by the pillars which stand at regular intervals even in front of the idol.

Image courtesy : HolidayCheck

Note:

Men have to remove the upper body clothes and need to change into a lungi (long skirt) to enter the temple. Women also need to drape a saree or wear a long skirt, but I saw many women following a short-cut method, they just tied the lungi on top of their pants/salwar/churidar and apparently that was fine.

2. Backwaters :

You can see the beauty of backwaters either at Allepey/Kumarakom or at  Poovar island. For Allepey and Kumarakom, Kochi airport is much closer while to see Poovar, it makes more sense to reach Trivendrum first. During this particular visit since we were in Trivandrum, we drove down to Poovar and took a boat ride through the backwaters. It was a two hour ride but was a wonderful experience. We could even see the small openings of Kollar river into the Ocean and that is really picturesque. You can actually witness ocean inviting the river in its many waves.

You can spot many birds here.

Important Tips:

1. Book much in advance if you are visiting Kerala in peak season which is practically all the months in a year except monsoon period. Since we added the Trivandrum leg of the trip at the very last moment, we did not have many good lodging options to choose from on a Christmas eve (which is anyway a very busy time in Kerala). But there are some really beautiful resorts in close proximity to the city.

2. My personal suggestion : travel less and relax more. Avoid road travel as much as possible. Why would anybody want to go away from the serene environs of backwaters to the concrete and gravel. Do not try to pack too many places in one trip. We planned a trip of four days dedicated to the backwaters of Allepey and Kumarakom. (Covered in a separate post)

3. I think a good rule of thumb could be to not travel every day. If you are covering more than one places in a single trip, spend at least two nights at one place. Give yourself sometime to unwind and relax. 

Una-Kangra-Palampur (Himachal Pradesh)

In spite of being born and brought up in Chandigarh, never got an opportunity to visit any place in Himachal Pradesh, so last December planned a short trip to the state of beautiful hills.


Initially our plan was to stay at Palampur for three nights and do the day trips from there but then we included one more night at Jawalaji before going to Palampur so that we have ample time to offer prayers at the famous Shaktipeeths in Hiamchal.


Story of Shaktipeeths - Out of total of 51 Shatipeeths in India, 5 are in Himachal Pradesh. It is believed that 51 different charred body parts of Sati (wife of Lord Shiva) fell at these locations which were later transformed into Shaktipeeths. These five are in Himachal:


Chintpurni temple in Una district (severed feet of Goddess Sati fell here)
Chamunda temple in Kangra temple
Brijeshwari temple in Kangra temple (charred breast)
Jawalaji temple in Kangra district (burning tongue)
Naina devi temple in Bilaspur district (eyes)


Began our journey on 28th Dec, 2012 at 12:00 pm by car and reached Chintpurni at around 4:00 p.m. On the way we had a short stop for lunch at some roadside eating joint. However, recommended eating joint is - Haveli (only negative thing about this place is that it comes too early in the journey, just after 30 km from Chandigarh).


First stop - Chintpurni Temple
Distance from Chandigarh -  175 km
Travel time - 4 hrs (with one short stop on the way)
Recommended eating joint on the way - Haveli
Things to buy  : Aam Paapad


At this time of the year and that particular day there wasn’t much crowd in the temple (quite unlike the case otherwise) so we could actually be in front of the deity for a while rather than being shoved from the spot instantaneously. We decided to travel to Jawalamukhi the same day and spend night there.


Second Stop : Jawalamukhi temple
Distance from Chintpurni - 35 Km
Travel Time - 45 min
Place to stay - HPTDC
Recommended eating places - Dhabbas are good and the restaurant inside HPTDC was decent too.
Things to buy : Aam Paapad


By the time we reached Jawalamukhi it was 7:30 pm so we just checked in HPTDC hotel, relaxed for a while and decided to step out of the hotel for the authentic Himachali food. We ended up eating at a roadside dhabba, very close to the entrance to the temple and the food was good.


The next day early morning after breakfast (at HPTDC restaurant itself) went to the temple. The queues were long in the temple so it took us around 2 hrs inside the premises. From there we began our road journey of the day towards Brijeshwari temple and Chamundeshwari temple. Both these temples did not have much of crowd. The view of snow capped mountains in the background was breathtaking from the Brijeshwari temple.





Third Stop : Brijeshwari temple (Kangra district)
Distance from Jawalamukhi temple - 40 km
Travel time : 1 hr
Things to buy : More Aap Papad (if you still haven't bought enough)


Fourth Stop : Chamunda Temple (700 years old temple)
Distance from Brijeshwari temple - 20 km
Travel time : 35 min
Things to buy - You can guess now :) There is one Govt. shop within the premises which has a few interesting items - straw paintings, Kangra tea of various grades, various pickles and chutneys. We bought bamboo pickle from there and it tastes really good.


After offering our prayers at these Shaktipeeths we reached our destination - Taragarh Palace. This property belongs to the royal family of the erstwhile Princely state of Jammu and Kashmir.






Fifth Stop - Palampur
Distance from Chamunda Temple - 35 km
Travel time : 1 hr
Places to stay at : Taragarh Palace
Recommended eating places - Inside Taragarh Palace






The entrance to the property was quite unassuming but as we crossed the gates of the Palace, the verdant greenery was there to invite us. 





First day we decided to do a day trip to Billing (2290 m)- the site for take-off of paragliding and Bir (1400 m) is the landing site. The paragliding site at Bir-Billing in Kangra district is regarded as one among the best in the world for this sport. The road distance between the two points is 14 km. Bir is surrounded by the Dhauladhar mountains. It was a bit scary initially when knowingly you just have to jump from the hill top but then it is quite comfortable ride down. The wind was extremely chilly high up in the sky so must have a jacket and gloves on when going for this sport in winters.







For the next day a trip to McLeodganj was planned and we visited the Namgyal monastery there. The road leading to the monastery is very narrow and parking place gets too cramped so it helped that we had the taxi driver to take care of that part.












There are many more activities which you can engage in if you do not want to step out of the property - badminton, tennis, table tennis, board games, swimming, horse riding or just relaxing in the beautifully manicured lawns.


Notes:
1. Roads are good barring a few segments throughout this road travel.
2. Best period to visit these places would be Feb-March and Oct-Nov weather wise but the good part in Dec was that there was very less crowd so we saved a lot of time by not standing in queues.
3. Taragarh Palace was also almost empty so we could get places like badminton courts, tennis courts just to ourselves without having to wait for our turn.
4. Must do paragliding here. Initially the price quoted was Rs. 2,500 per person but it got settled at Rs. 2000 per person.
5. If you missed eating at Haveli while coming out of Chandigarh, make it up by eating while on the return journey so plan accordingly.