On 25th
Dec’17, 6:30 AM – Innova Crysta arrived at the door step with driver from
Mandya by name Manju dressed in white and white. Later in the discussion we
realized he owned the vehicle and has 2 more. Mandya people are rich!. Crysta
was very much required to accommodate the healthy travel freaks except me who
has maintained lean structure over the years.
Breakfast was at
A2B on the highway with usual combo that is prevalent in Tamilnadu. Old Hindi
and Kannada songs gave us company which made the drive soothing. On the way to
Madurai we took short deviation to Nammakal to visit Hanuman temple. There
is no roof over the sanctum and Anjaneyar has a unique iconography sporting a
sword in his waist and holding a garland made of saligrama. In past centuries,
many people tried many times to build roof for Sri Hanuman, but Lord Hanuman
didn’t accept it.
Reached Madurai, 1:30 PM – Did not have patience to
wait for one more room allocation on same floor. Quickly dumped the luggage in
the allotted room and rushed to lunch. Gorged on Sambar Sadam with Pappad and
curd rice. After lunch visited “Jigar Thanda” shop and requested for one
ice-cream to taste and that was last one in the whole trip. May be that outlet
was not good – first one left a bad taste in the mouth. As usual, diversity
wanted to shop in the afternoon after heavy lunch. I excused myself and slept
in the hotel. The group was not to be seen in the evening and was asked to meet
at “Pothys” in rickshaw with upper limit of Rs.50/- as fare. The first bid was
Rs.250/- and was reduced to Rs.150/- after crossing the road. After negotiation
with multiple drivers, reached destination at Rs.80/-. My wife had zeroed down
on A2B for early dinner and had to walk about KM to reach after sign language
with people on the way since none of us knew Tamil.
Visit to Meenakshi temple was planned on 26th
morning. Again A2B was selected for breakfast since we knew only that place
where we could get quality food. Driver sorry Owner lost his way despite google
map. We stopped and asked, “where is Adyar Anand Bhavan?” he put his
investigate hat and called one more person and slowly there was group
discussion among 4. By then we slowly moved out from that place and found A2B
on our own. We were early birds to A2B at 7 in the morning and had to wait for
the food. Opted for special darshan in Meenakshi temple and more time was spent
on photos in thousand pillars museum.
In North Gate hotel, to avoid the delay for lunch
we preordered sambar sadam, biriyani and one more item for 7 people. At 1 PM we
find that only 1 plate each is prepared then we realized that requirements must
be explicit not implicit.
Reached Rameswaram at 5:30 PM which is around 4 hrs.
journey from Madurai. Manager at Kasi mutt changed our entire plan in the
initial discussion. 2 days Rameswaram stay was cut to 1 day. Visit to temple
happened in the evening instead of Morning. Before taking bath in 22 wells
there is pre-requisite to take bath in sea water. Sea has turned black and we
did not dare to take dip but just sprayed little water. Even the 22 wells are
unkept but we ignored it the name of divinity. We completed special darshan of
Shiva in the night. “Saravana Bhavan” had mad rush for food without any queue
system. We should help ourselves by shamelessly standing next to the table
which is about to get empty.
27th plan was to visit “Dhanushkodi”
and return to Bangalore. “Saravana Bhavan” as usual had mad rush even for
breakfast and we thought of giving business “Geetha Mess” which turned out to
be better. Dhanushkodi was aha moment where straight road strip cuts across
Arabian sea and Bay of Bengal. It is once in life time drive one must be part
of. Spent some time on the beach and visited the temple where Vibhishana was crowned.
On the way back the lunch at “Amman hotel” in vicinity of Madurai was good and
first time we could see smiling faces serving the food.
4 days trip was cut short to 3 days but we
compensated with movie “Tiger Zinda hai” and new year get together where entire
travel freak folks were present.
