Travelogue-Kanyakumari,TamilNadu,India

Here is a travelogue of our recent visit to the southern most tip of India,Kanyakumari and places in and around that.


As we decided last minute to take off combining a weekend, we couldn’t get train ticket booking directly from Chennai to KK. We had booked to tirunelveli in Ananthapuri and had thought of taking a bus to KK. We got to know from our close relative who is a retired railway employee that we can get down at nagerkoil and take a connecting passenger which goes to KK from there. I used a passenger train for the first time as far as my memory goes. It cost only 3Rs per head(!!). Less than 5Rs still has some value here! We actually reached KK around 10am much earlier than what we anticipated . It was perfect for our hotel checkin at 10am. We didn’t expect much from TTDC hotel Tamilnadu. But, it was a pretty decent hotel and we got a seaview first floor hotel room. As we had the whole of morning at our disposal, we decided to venture out in the hot sun by going to thiruparapoor falls and boating. Though, the water flow didn’t look that great, we liked the boating very much. It did help us to cool down a little(temperament wise) and to test the falls. As we had luggage to take care,S first offered to look after them while I enjoyed the falls and vice versa. The water force was good and had a good natural massage of our head and back J. On our return, we stopped at Susindram anjaneyar temple. It’s a 15ft tall anjaneyar statue and a very old temple. I got irritated with commercialization by the temple priests that if you offer oil lamps/ Betel garland whatever you wish will come true!! I have stopped believing in all that and feel heart felt prayers are good enough and we will definitely get what we deserve. As we still had time for sunset, we headed back to the hotel and freshened up a little and then went to the viewing tower close to the beach. We had to pay a nominal entrance fee to use the viewing tower to get a superb view of the sangamam of Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal and to enjoy the beautiful sunset from there. I feel the natural occurrence of Sun finishing his day duty in one part of the world and proceeding to duty in another part of world has been made commercial by we “MAN”! The ocean makes as realize that we are just mortals!! We headed to see the Kanyakumari amman in Bhagavathi amman Temple and rested after a long day!



The day-2 of our trip started with a beautiful sunrise, visiting Vivekananda rock and 133ft tiruvallur statue in the sea! The Vivekananda rock and tiruvallur statue is open between 8 am and 4pm only. There was a long queue to take the first boat trip to visit these places! We managed to get there on time after a heavy breakfast in Hotel Tamilnadu. Next, we headed to Tiruchendur(Lord Muruga).Its again a seashore temple. The coastal route from KK to Tiruchendur doesn’t have very frequent bus services and taking a longer route of KK to tirunelveli and tirunelveli to Tiruchendur would take a lot of time. As we wanted to save time we hired a taxi to drop us in Tiruchendur. The journey was peaceful with little stop overs for Tender Cocunut water and Nattu Vazhaipazham(a type of banana with lots of fiber content! If anyone happen to know the English name of this banana variety, do let me know!). I was reminded of my childhood days in Tuticorin, where my father used to buy this almost everyday! It’s quite sweet Banana and helps to reduce the heat in the body and to help for good bowel movements. We understand that Tiruchendur temple is open from early morning till 9pm in the night. We managed to reach there before lunch and had a good darshan. Again, this temple has also become very commercialized with priests trying to get make ppl use the special darshan! As the crowd was less and we didn’t feel like paying money and having a shortcut darshan of Lord, we waited in dharma darshan queue and had a good peaceful darshan. We saw a 80 year old man celebrating his birthday along with his entire family called “Sadhabishekkam” in the temple premises. We also got blessings from the elderly couple. I always admire any old couple. I don’t want to get into details, I feel the attachment shared at young age in a husband and wife is quite different to that shared by old couple. We headed straight to Spicnagar(the place I was born and brought up till my tenth) after a good south indian meal at “Hotel Mani Iyer”. The hotel was suggested by our taxi driver and I felt it was worth for 50 INR per meal.

In evening, headed to show the places I grew up to S. I was not very happy about the roads and maintanence of plants there, as I knew how the town-ship was earlier. I could feel the shutdown of SPIC plant being reflected in their maintanence of the township! But, S liked them as he has not seen many townships before. I took him to my school and went to all floors of the building. As it was late evening, could not find a single teacher who had taught me. Then, went to Officer’s club-which is a nice place with good indoor games facilty. Played a round of Table tennis and met the caretaker whom I knew since my childhood .We also visited the hospital where I was born and also had a good darshan at Balambigai Temple. As my friend in office told, I had lots of “Autographs” running in my mind while visiting each and every place .The irony is when I was there in SPIC during my school days, I felt that to be first class jail. We were in a very protected environment and felt I had not got much of outside exposure. Now, when I went there, after almost fifteen years, I feel if we could settle down in such a calm place with office and home closeby and all amenities within the reach! I wish some point in my life, I get to be in a much calm quiet place unlike the tier-1 cities I have lived so far! Myself and S always have a discussion about not being in a city during childhood. We feel there are many advantages about not being in a city. Being a township, helped me to grow without much peer pressure and not too much of exposure to outside world. I found it a little difficult to adjust to attitude and mentality of city brought up kids once I moved to Chennai. I feel the discipline and attitude which I developed being in a township has helped me to be more focused on education and not distracted by other less important stuff!

We got up early the next day to visit my father’s native place Kalakad and visit the temples there. We hired a taxi for the whole day,as we wanted to cover more places. We used NH7 to reach Nanguneri. My father’s village Kalakad is quite close to Nanguneri and took a small diversion from NH7 to reach there. We first visited the “Periya Koil” of Kalakad. To know more about the history about this village check out this site. The temple closes by 9:30 am. Hence, we had a quick darshan and headed to my father’s family diety “Darma Sastha” temple. Went to see my grandfather’s house which is on rent now. Things have changed for the good and so is my grandfather’s house. It has now got a closed toilet/bathroom. I have never ever stayed in that house for the reason that it didn’t have a toilet! We used to use another house which had a neat toilet facility whenever we visit my grandfather’s house. They happened to be my father’s distant relative and my marriage alliance got clicked as they were also related to S family, and vouched more about our family and me! “Marriages are made in ……“.:) We went next to meet that common relative who is currently put up in another village called “Pathai”. That family still holds lot of land and does rice cultivation in their lands. He was giving us updates about the new modern techniques in farming etc and as I being interested in organic farming, was getting his opinion on organic farming etc. From his talks, I gather that the middle men are making lot of money in getting goods to market from the farmers! I wish my dream of getting quality organic food stuff with right price is available for everyone everywhere is realized soon if more and more farmers get into organic farming and realize that they are not polluting the land and environment. I wish more awareness is obtained among consumers as well about the benefits of organic farming for own health.  We proceeded next to visit my maternal grandfather's village or rather the village where they bought a house and settled for long. My maternal grandfather(late) came to this village called "Ariyanayakipuram" , located in the banks of "Thamirabarani" river close to Tirunelveli as a Headmaster for a Tamilnadu government school in 1970's. Even now, we, his grandchildren are called "Headmaster (paethi)grandchild" by the village people :). It was nice to chat with a few of the old ladies of my grandmother's buddies and to see the huge house (with almost 30-40 windows) which was till very recent times my grandfather's(late). I was happy taking S around in that house and recollecting some of the old fond memories of that house :). We headed next to "Nellaiappar" temple in Tirunelveli. Its a huge temple and maintained decently well.  We were happy that we were able to cover most of the places as planned and now headed to the tirunelveli station to catch the train. We stopped over in "Central cafe" hotel which is very close to the station. This places serves good tiffin and coffee!