Travelogue-Pondy aka Pondicherry

We a family of 5 adults, started on a beautiful morning on "Kannum pongal" day (16th Jan,2010)  at 8am to Pondy ashram and Panchavati Anjaneyar temple , Prathyankara temple and 27 feet Saneeswara Bhagawan temple. All these temples are located in the Tindivanam-Pondicherry road within a distance of app. 1.5 km or so between them. The Panchavati Anjaneyar temple is 34 ft Anjaneyar which is constructed by the same Nanganallur anjaneyar temple administrators. This temple is well maintained and it was quite a rush being a saturday. On weekends, a nearby govt. godown is used as parking lot for cars for free! To reach this place from Chennai, need to take the GST Road(NH45) from Chennai and watch out for the sign board for tindivanam town and get into the town and then take the tindivanam-pondy road. Let me warn you, this road is quite bad because of the construction of roads and railway tracks. We reached around 11:30am to panchavadi temple. From the panchavadi anjaneyar temple, there are plenty of share autos to reach the other 2 temples. As we went in car, we proceeded in that. There are not so many visible sign boards of the other 2 temples.So, need to be quite careful , otherwise you might miss them. The Saneeswara bhagawan temple has been constructed and maintained by a single astrologer. Attaching the photo of the magnificient 27 feet tall Saneeswara bhagawan. I will not duplicate the details I read about this place in a blog post "ONE MAN's DREAM". It pretty much covers all the info. about this nice temple.
The other temple we visited was Prathyankara temple. As the approach to this temple is very narrow, it might be difficult to go by car to this place in a crowded day with more visitors. We had to park our car in the beginning of the narrow stretch and had to walk 2km to reach this temple. We found some devotees walking 2km in hot 1pm sun without slippers! Do read this blog post to know more info. about this temple. By the time we finished the 3 temples, it was 1:30pm. We were exhausted and running out of energy. We headed straight to pondy to the ashram with a short break for lunch. I was worried that i might doze off in the ashram in the name of meditation after a good south indian meal at "Hotel Surguru". But, as it was a crowded day, we didnt get a chance to sit near the samadhi. Good for me :) . We headed back with a small stopover in the pondy beach in East Coast Road. I am not very impressed with this road as I was with NH45. It can be maintained much better for the toll thats being charged!!! Was horribly stuck in traffic near mahabalipuram aka mamallapuram for more than 30min!