Here are notes from a recent holiday that I just had to take to retain my senses.
Date | Program | Highlights |
28.5.2011 | Train from Egmore to Kodai | Went by car, Unni drove. Paid Rs. 80 for hardly 100 ft walk to the porter. Went by first class after nearly 30 years! |
29.5.2011 | Arrived in Kodai | Went to Sabari Resorts. From there took a walk to the town and a small ride by bus to the lake. Walked to Bryant Park where there was annual flower show. After photo shoots, took a bicycle road. Sandhya and Smruthi took a horse ride. Got caught in the rain and then we took a cab ride back to the hotel. Skipped lunch and had hi-tea instead. |
30.5.2011 | Kodai day 2 | Took a cab from the hotel at a cost of Rs. 1050 for a day trip to sightseeing spots in Kodai – including Kurinji Andavar koil, chettiyar park, jain temple, coaker’s walk, upper lake view, pine forest, Guna Point and Pillar Rock – took some good snaps along the way. Bought some good home made chocolates. Had late lunch at a veg joint Rasoi near Seven Road junction and returned to the Hotel |
31.5.2011 | Kodai day 3 | Decided to go to lake area and spend the day there. Boating first. Went to Bryant Park and relaxed for an hour watching some 3rd rate cine dance programme. From there walked along the lake and took bicycle ride for an hour around the lake. Thereafter walked uphill to seven road junction back to Rasoi where all of us had a hearty meal. On the way from there had a cup of hot chocolate and Smruthi and I had a tiff over who should have the remainder of the cup. After the meal, went back to lake area and sat by the lake and attended to some office calls. Thereafter got back to hotel. |
1.6.11 | Kodai-madurai | Mahesh, the driver arranged by Travel House, promptly arrived at 945 am to take us to Madurai. Jayashree had a tough time throwing up while descending from the hills. Arrived at Athai’s place by 1 pm and had a good lunch. Thereafter left for Meenakshi temple by 3:30 pm. Had a good darshan there and then went to a perumal temple about a km away. After that went to Pappa periamma’s house where met Kittu Anna and Balu Anna and perima. After a brief stay returned to Athai’s place. |
2.6.11 | Madurai-Rameshwaram | Left early at 6 am by road all the way to Rameshwaram. Had a dip in the sea, then 22 teerthams and had a darshan of the lord there. After lunch at a Marwari bhojnalaya, went to Dhanushkodi. On the way back saw Abdul Kalam’s house at Rameshwaram and returned. Reached Athai’s place by 730 in the evening |
3.6.11 | Madurai-Nagercoil | Left around 8 am to go to Azhagar koil and then onward to Nupur Gangai and to Pazhamudhir cholai. Saw hordes of monkeys in all these places. Returned to athai’s place by 12 noon itself, had lunch and packed off to the station by 3:30 pm. Waited at the station for nearly an hour before we took the NCJ train to Nagercoil. Train reached around 10 pm and we checked into the Tamil Nadu Hotel around 1045 pm |
4.6.11 | Kanyakumari | After a disappointing early morning when the scenic sunrise was denied by cloud cover, had the pleasure of shooting some peacocks right next to the cottage room. Thereafter made a trip to the nearby places such as Vivekananda Rock Memorial, Gandhi memorial, Kamarajar memorial, and returned to the hotel for lunch. In the evening went to Kanyakumari temple, the sunset point where we had a good view of the sunset and then went to Susindram temple. Surprised to see how good and neat this temple was. |
5.6.11 | Kanyakumari-chennai | Left at 7 in the morning and went straight to Tirupirappu falls. The boat ride was disappointing for a tourist spot, but the waterfall shower was good. Facilities are below average, but it was good to strip down to bare essentials in the open. Carried on from there to Mathur Palam, which is a narrow footbridge about 40 ft from ground level with some breathtaking views. The footbridge’s construction seemed to elevate the spirit of adventure. Then onto Padmanabhapuram palace where we spent about an hour listening to some good govt sponsored tourist guides who gave us a walkthrough of the palace rooms. Went to a Udipi hotel at Nagercoil for lunch and decided that we would like our dinner also packed by the same hotel. After some suspense on whether we’ll get the reservation or not as 3 out of 4 tickets were waitlisted, got the tickets confirmed with some help from Jayashree’s mama. The pack for dinner proved to be a tight call as we reached the station minutes before arrival of the train. |
6.6.11 | Chennai Egmore, Vettuvangeni guest house | Arrived at 730 am and was received by Prakash. Had home food for the first time in 10 days and enjoyed whatever it was. Had a nap and then drove to the beach guest house at Vettuvangeni. Had a good time at the quiet beach there. Thunder showers greeted the evening. |
7.6.11 | Pondicherry | Left after Breakfast from the guest house and arrived at Pondicherry by 12 noon. Had a brief rest after which went to Chunnambar boat house. The boat ride was average. Then kids frolicked for a while at the nearby park. In the evening took a stroll around beach area and went to Ambedkar’s memorial, a Notre Dame church, the light house and Gandhi Statue at the beach. Dinner at Le Café right at the beach. |
8.6.11 | Pondicherry | 11th Wedding anniversary, got calls from Appa, Amma, Rajesh, Priya right at the beginning of the day. Went to Manakula Vinayagar temple and took a good snap of the temple elephant on the blackberry. Thereafter had a quiet visit to Aurobindo Ashram and a sumptuous breakfast at Hot Breads. Somehow kids seemed to really enjoy the visit to Hot Breads. Thereafter went to Auroville, where one had to take a trek of about a km to go to a viewing point to see Matrimandir a conceptual architectural structure. With visitors not allowed beyond this point, it seemed a little disappointing. Thereafter went to Pachavati where there is a panchamukha anjaneyar temple, but the temple was closed. Had lunch at Surguru spot and returned to the Hotel. In the evening Ganesh Anna had called us over for dinner but unfortunately his son Sriram had had a fall and severe pain at the back of the head. Went to, you guessed it, Hot Breads for dinner as well. Thereafter Ganesh Anna picked us up from there and took us to his house where we stayed for about an hour. Returned to hotel by around 1030 pm. |
9.6.11 | Pondicherry-Chennai | Last day of the holiday. In many ways an unforgettable adventure packed day which one would like to forget as soon as possible. After breakfast left the hotel by 9am and went to a petrol pump, where an absent minded attendant poured diesel in a petrol tank. It took nearly 3 hours of work thereafter with help of an industrious mechanic to get the entire tank drained and replaced. Left from there to be greeted by a Rasta Roko about 1 km down from the toll plaza. Had to brief appa, and Ganesh Anna about it as it was already 1 pm and kids were beginning to feel hungry. As it got cleared and we had hardly gone another 1 km down the road that we had an accident. One indica swerved from the left all of a sudden and in order to avoid it, I curved to the right and a speeding car came from behind and hit my front wheel. The damage to the front of the car is not much, but certainly can’t be ignored. The wheel alignment was disturbed. After this had to resort to some more calls to get help to get the car into a garage and take another car and come back to the city. Got home around 6:30 pm, about 5 hours behind plan. Man proposes, God Disposes. In the end, we were lucky it wasn’t a much bigger vehicle and weren’t caught in further drama involving police etc. |
Kodai
Train : 3000, stay 23000, local exps 2000 : 28k
Madurai, rameshwaram etc : 8000 by car (only tax component will be the eventual exp), local expenditure approx 1000, total : 4k
Kanyakumari
Hotel 4000, car exps should be around 5000, local exps about 2000, train from Madurai 3000, train to Chennai 6000. Total 16k
Pondicherry
Car to Pondicherry : petrol 2500, car back from Pondy 1600, Hotel 4500, local exps 2500 : total 12K
Grand total : 60K
