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.
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
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.
Souce: Trip Advisory Gallery
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.
Source: Ryan - originally posted to Flickr as Kothandaramaswamy Temple, CC BY 2.0,
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 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 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, the 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.
The temples in India are quite rich. I do not understand, why they do not employ a few people to take care of the footwear that the devotees leave outside the temple. Some temples do take care as we saw the next day at Meenakshi Temple in Madurai. In temples in the USA, they do have a place where you can leave your footwear and wash you feet before entering the temple.
In Tirupathi, they flood the main entrance with a stream of water to make sue the devotees feet are clean before entering the temple.
