Visiting South
Indian Temples and Places of Interest
Our trip routes
Fly to
Madurai and drive to Rameshwaram stay there for the night. Drive back to
Madurai and stay in Madurai. Drive to Kumbakonam and Fly back from
Tiruchirappalli to Bengaluru.
October 12, 2019
We four: Jayaram(Blogger), Michiko, Ramamani, and Shyam (my sister
Ramamani’s husband) left home in BTM Layout in Bengaluru at 4:36 A.M. We will
fly to Madurai and then drive to Rameshwaram and Dhanush Kodi our main points
of interest in this leg.
Bengaluru to Madurai
We started very early in the morning, but as it was somewhat
of a long haul and the flight was early, we had no option but to leave home
early. We might have taken anywhere from 1hr 15 minutes to 1hr 30 minutes to
drive the 45 KMs to the airport in Shyam’s Toyota Innova. It is one hell of a
drive.
There was a huge crowd at the airport, and when is that you
do not find a huge crowd in India? Thank
God, the Coronavirus came later, and social distancing meant just a pair of
words.
October 12: Scene
at Kempegowda International Airport (BLR) in Bengaluru around 6:00 AM
After seeing the huge crowd, we were afraid that we may miss
our flight as the queues at the security gates were long. Fortunately, we were
able to get in at the front of security.
There were separate queues for men and women.
Although most of the carry-ons, shoes and, belts can go on
the conveyor belt, umbrellas need to be passed by security agents to be
retrieved at the exit of security. In the process, my wife, in a hurry to pick
up the umbrella, forgot to pick up the watch in the tray. We noticed the loss
after all of us exited from the security and walked away. However, the airport
staff was great, and we had no problem getting it back. I got a new respect for
our Bengalureans.
We had a great breakfast, as we had left home with empty
stomachs. We had delicious idly, vada, dosas, and excellent coffee. The
availability of food at the airport is superb, but it is a little bit expensive
compared to what you can get in the city.
We waited for the flight to be announced
We waited to board the plane for about 20 minutes. Being
senior citizens and with the staff at the boarding gate being very helpful,
boarding was easy. We flew the IndiGo airlines, a low-cost airline. We boarded
the turbo-prob plane, and the flight was turbulent. It takes about an hour to
reach Madurai.
Madurai airport (Madurai vimana Nilayam) is small but nice
with clean toilets. Getting out of the airport was fast and easy. Our
driver/guide was waiting for us outside. He was a soft-spoken, very friendly
Muslim Tamilian.
The outside was verdant green with a blue sky. It was a bright day, and our driver mentioned
it had rained on the previous day. We were equipped with umbrellas. As we drove
on, it got a little cloudier.
At 9:30 AM a few miles from the airport, we stopped for a
coffee break at a restaurant called Annam Bhavan. We had Vada and excellent
filtered coffee.
Bogalur Toll on (NH 87, old NH49), Tamilnadu.
Our driver was local knew all the roads in this area. The
Toyota Innova is very comfortable for four occupants with some luggage.
On the way to
Rameshwaram
Rameshwaram is situated on an island separated from Sri
Lanka. It has a long history stretching back to the 7th or 8th century. Historically
the followers of Islam and Christianity lived here at various times in its long
history. People from all three major religions, Hinduism, Islam, and
Christianity, still live in this region.
On the way to Rameshwaram, you can see many churches and mosques, many
Islamic schools, Islamic charitable institutions, etc.
Highways in India are relatively new compared to many
western countries. They are well maintained in most of the roads we traveled.
As you drive along, you will not fail to notice the passing
villages and hamlets, the animals on the road and the typical Indian
countryside, etc.
It is interesting to see the painted houses with a variety
of colors that do not appear to be coordinated.
I am told, it is a part of the Feng Shui conceptual scheme. I am not
sure if this is true. There is also the Indian equivalent of Feng Shui called
Vaastu.
These are the uniformly designed public toilets in the
national highway. Highway facilities are improving every time I visit, and this
was a scene that made me think things are changing for good.
Using highways is still
very inexpensive!
On approaching Rameshwaram, we stopped and went inside Abdul
Kalam's Museum, which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Modi in July 2017.
The museum is surrounded by a nice but small garden. The
architecture is a fine blend of South Indian and Mughal styles. Entry to the
museum is free. Lots of pictures,
statues, etc. can be found in the immaculately clean museum. Photography and videos are not allowed. President
Dr. Abdul Kalam was also interested in music. There were lots of visitors and
school children from neighboring towns.
“Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam (15 October 1931 – 27
July 2015) was an aerospace scientist who served as the 11th President of India
from 2002 to 2007. He was born and raised in Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, and
studied physics and aerospace engineering.
On display were the replicas of rockets and missiles which
Kalam had worked with. Acrylic paintings about his life were also displayed
along with hundreds of portraits depicting the life of the mass leader. There
is a statue of Kalam in the entrance showing him playing the Veena. There are
two other smaller statues of the leader in sitting and standing posture”
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._P._J._Abdul_Kalam#Memorial
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._P._J._Abdul_Kalam#Memorial
Star Palace Hotel, where we stay for the night, was closeby. Mellon juice was offered as a welcome drink. Only Michiko took it. The reception was staffed with folks from, perhaps Assam, or Nagaland. They hardly spoke the local language. Others in the staff who were not Tamilians, they could understand us somewhat.
Source: Hotels.com
At 1:30, we had lunch at our hotel.
The tables were very clean, and our waitress was from
Kerala. There was no South Indian food on the lunch menu. It is incredible that
in the heartland of Tamilnadu, no South Indian food! The only options available
to us were North Indian, Chinese (Wow! It gets interesting), and Chettinad
food. All these options use garlic. They hotel did have good yogurt (Dahi). My
sister, a strict vegetarian, does not take food with garlic, and it is hard to
find north Indian food without garlic. We had it tough.
At
3:00 PM, we went out for sight-seeing to Dhanush Kodi after visiting the famous
five faced Hanuman temple. The tall idol of Hanuman covered with turmeric is
standing in an open area surrounded by temple walls. On one side is a small house
with a lean-to roof. Here you can find the famous ‘floating stones’ that Rama
and his troop of monkeys used to create a bridge to Lanka.
On the way to Dhanush Kodi
You need to drive on the Pamban bridge almost 14 Km long,
constructed in 1914. It looks easy-going when you start off from Rameshwaram,
but as you approach Dhanush Kodi, it really gets congested. You begin to feel,
‘Why did I come here?’. The problem is, once you get caught in the web of
vehicles (buses, cars, autorickshaws, etc.), it will be difficult to return. It
is not easy to take a U-turn under the existing conditions. I really feel that
the Tamilnadu government should take care of this problem in regulating the
traffic.
We go some 20 km towards Dhanush Kodi, driving on the narrow
bridge. The crowd is impossible, and the traffic is horrendous. We give up
driving to the end although, we are quite near to the destination. It is not
easy to go to the beach on either side of the road, because of rocks.
Of course, we see some adventurous folks on the beach.
Unfortunately, Indian beaches are littered with refuse, and plastic garbage is
everywhere. You can see Shyam (in the picture) trying to call the driver while
the sun is beating on us. The picture shows how it was on October 12.
Darshan at Kodandarama Temple
Reluctantly we turn
back. On our way back, we visit another important Vaishnava temple,
the Kodandaraman temple. We see here, beautifully dressed up idols of Rama with
Sita, Lakshmana, and Hanumanta.
We also see here Vibhishana,
not very common in Rama temples. It appears, after Ravana’s death, Vibhishana
came and prayed to Rama. It is said Rama performed the ‘Pattabishekam
(enthroning ceremony)’ of Vibhishana here. The temple is small, but the idols
are beautiful.
The impossibly huge crowd,
the pouring rain, and the slush make it impossible to enjoy the visit.
The picture of the temple
shown here is devoid of people. You need to imagine the (in the picture) temple
with literally hundreds of pilgrims, stalls selling religious items, and people
generally sitting or standing everywhere to get the real picture.
Darshan at Ramanathaswamy Temple
We will now go to the main attraction of Rameshwaram, the
Ramanathaswamy Temple dedicated to Shiva. The temple is open for “darshan”
(temple service) only after 4:00 PM.
Why God Rama at a Shiva temple? Indian gods may all appear
different, but they are very interactive. That Rama killed Ravana the Rakshasa,
in the great battle of Ramayana, is a well-known episode in Ramayana. Ravana
was a Brahmin besides being a Yaksha. It is a sin to kill a Brahmin. Since Rama
killed a Brahmin, he had to do penance to overcome the stigma. Rama wanted to
build a "Linga of Shiva" to pray, but not finding the suitable
material, he built-it out of the sand. There is yet another Linga at the temple that Hanuman brought,
which arrived a little late from the Himalayas.
Again, the temple is extremely crowded. The footwear the devotees leave outside the
temple is mostly unattended, and unsightly. The crowd had many devotees from
the North. The interior, including the
pillars, was painted in rainbow colors that I detest. It converts a
10th-Century structure into a Bollywood setting. The temple authorities should
be able to rectify this. The natural color of the stone can still be seen in
some places that fortunately give us a feeling for the antiquity of the
structure.
The Ramanathaswamy temple has the longest
corridor in the world. The corridor from East to West is 197 m, and the North to the South is 133 m wide.
The temple also has a gopuram, a pyramidal structure at the
entrance is 38.4 m tall. The pillars and the whole interior are painted in
rainbow colors that hide the antiquity of the structure (compare the two images
in the picture above).
We come out of the temple, and it is beginning to get dark.
We look for our shoes, and Michiko cannot find hers. They were missing in that
mountain of mixed up shoes of all kind. It is not easy to walk barefoot as the
road is full of pebbles, cow dung, etc. Also, traffic is extremely chaotic.
I look for a shoe shop, but unfortunately, there was a blackout. We do not know
when the power will be back. Finally, I locate a shop where some shoes are
sold. I just pick up reasonably sized shoes. Finally, our driver was able to
come back to pick us up.
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