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My South India
Tour Experience (26th Dec 2015
to 31st Dec 2015):
Initial plan in Hyderabad was to go to coorg hilly station
and from there hire taxi to “Phalani” also called Palani and return back to Hyderabad.
So I wanted to make reservation bookings of transport
(bus/train) and boarding in all these places.
Enquired various private buses like kesineni etc., and
learnt that the bus fare are bit costly Rs 1800/- per head (including for kids)
Approached “Sothern Travels” as they are one of ace tour
package providers. Unfortunately their network hotel bookings are completely
booked one month before the Christmas time. Someone from the travels staff advised
me to make self arrangements instead of relying on any tour packages. I heeded
to the advice and started to plan my tour.
I do not have any particular plan in my mind as such; I am
not a good planner. I am confused of how and what the plan should look like. I
have many challenges:
- Funds
- Travelling with kids is no joke
- Getting leave approval from my office is next to
impossible task. As I never took a day of leave in my four years of tenure in the
current engagement (I H S), as our management doesn’t care about the health or
priorities of employees.I wanted to plan my tour in the day time, and take a night
halt for rest wherever/whichever city I am in, in this way I can give rest to
kids, and driver. As, if kids are happy during the tour I will have sigh of
relief and take the comfortable breath.
At First, I planned to book bus tickets towards coorg, and
check nearby temples like Mysore, Sringeri Subramanyeswara temple which will be
near to coorg. I discussed the same with my friends (Kranthi degree college
friends troop), but none of them responded to my tour plan. Then I cut down the
plan to coorg instead I wanted directly go to Palani Via Coimbatore (nearest
town of access point).
Coimbatore is really a good place for business. My team
member and a good friend of mine Sundaram Mahadevan in Satyam Computers is based
out of Coimbatore. He left the organization, and started a small scale industry,
he is not only self sufficient by now, but also gives employment for 16 people
locally in Coimbatore, I felt happy seeing him in this position. Which is very
good sign. May God bless him with more business opportunities and give more employment
I enquired him about good taxi with any good deals for my 5
days trip.
I wanted to plan Palani directly From Coimbatore, but
distance between Coimbatore to Palani is 108 KMs, which may take around 3 hrs
to reach the town. The challenge here is that, we can’t afford to travel 3 hrs
after night long journey from Hyderabad, hence it would be better I would plan
a nearby place to Coimbatore and take a night halt there and travel Palani next
day.
So Ooty (Nilgiri Hills) was ideal place for this, which became
my first day trip. Ooty is a very good hilly station, it was originally called Udhagai or odhaga mandalam,
during British rule, General Wellington visited this place and renamed as Ooty as
a place to rest in summer or weekends.
Wanted to know more about who is wellington?
I suggest to the readers to book any hotels through Oyo app.
This can offer free breakfast as complimentary services. The Hotel price
shouldn’t cross more than Rs 2500 /- per day. Warning over the online bookings,
as they may show very attractive hotel rooms, but to the fact they might not be
as clean and hygiene as they show in the photos for displays over their
website.
I have booked a cab through royal travels (
support@royaltravels.in)
at first this seemed to be an ideal deal of all the cabs I have seen. 1300
rent per day + 250 driver bartha + 100 kms free + afterwards 6 /- per km. Much
to my surprise when I was travelling to Coimbatore over the Orange Bus the
manager declined my booking saying there are no available cabs as it was
Christmas time. This made me little disappointed but immediately I called
Mahadevan and asked if he has any good cabs available. Out of his busy schedule
he managed to provide me one. Mr Raja Pathy (8012388855). He has similar rental
as royal travels but no free kms per day. And 6.50 per km. I had no choice
other than to accept it.
The driver vignesh was also very good to cooperate wherever
I wanted to stop. The challenge with driver Vignesh is that he doesn’t know English,
telugu or hindi except for tamil, and I know all of these except for tamil.
There was communication problem but somehow I learnt to speak broken tamil with
him, and he was able to understand the English bit by bit. By the end of the
tour I became very fluent with broken tamil, doesn’t it look paradox?
This credit goes to Mahadevan for providing me a cab whose
hospitality was much praised by Prafulla. In spite of all modern cultures which
has diluted the good old traditional culture, their family still stick on to
the old customs and traditions. He prepared “Pongal” by himself, which I
cherished a lot. Not even left kari patta in it. He also provided few organic
products to me.
Our Journey started thus with a good note. First we
travelled to Ooty as planned.
There were many Tea estates, Coco trees, carrots and corn in
the market. Because of plenty coco plants shopkeepers prepare chocolates by
themselves. Lots of Home made chocolates. This market in front of Botanical
garden was also shown in Mani Ratnam’s movie Geethanjali
Conoor is spledid in nature couldn't describe the beauties of the place, just keeping some of the pictures here
(Near Conoor Railway Station)
We missed few other places like rose garden, boat house
etc., we couldn't afford a second day in Ooty so we started to Day 2 of our
planned trip which is Palani. We liked the morning breakfast provided from Oyo. All varieties of breakfast as a complimentary service:
1. Bread Toast
2. Poori
3. Idly
4. Eggs
5. Appam
6. Tea n Coffee
Day 2 (27th
Dec 2015): Palani temple
We started at 9 AM from Ooty and reached Palani by 2:30 pm (
off course with many biological halts etc).
I booked Abhirami residency hotel through Booking.com App. This was reasonable
good with 1500 /- per day. It was not very difficult to trace this hotel, got
freshup and immediately went for a darshan to Lord Dandayudha Pani,
Subramanyeswara swami. The Major reason for my south India trip was motivated
to visit this Lord in the hill.
This is Just my belief, a story goes like this:
When Lord Kumara Swamy was disappointed for not getting the
Adhi Patya Phalam, which was awarded to Lord Ganesha, by doing 3 times of
pradakshana to his parents with-in the kailasam. And thus Ganesha won this
tricky game.
Adhi Yogi Ishwara, tried to convince Shanumga by saying, my
child don’t get disappointed for not getting this phalam, as you yourself is a
phalam, how can fruit is need of another fruit. This HE said “Ni Phalam”
Phalani, so the Lord Murugan who got pleased with this
anwser wanted this mountain be shifted to South India in which Lord Shiva has
himself praised with such words to Murugan. So this mountain is named as
Phalani or Palani. And it is said that the mountain got wings and it was moved
out here.
To support my belief, the Garba gudi of Lord Murugan is
faced towards west, with a pleasantful face
Probably every devotee who visit the swamy resembles Lord
shiva, as every jeevatma has paramatma in him.
I am fortunate to climb the hill with bare footsteps, along
with entire family. There are around 700 steps and get down with the same steps
from this auspicious hill. Had a good darshan of the Lord and stayed for a night
halt in the hotel.
Day 3 (28th Dec 2015):
As usual we woke up early in the morning and got fresh up by
7:00 AM along with kids, had a breakfast in the same hotel which was not so
good.
Reached Madurai by 11:15 AM as it took bit time for us to
trace the Hotel (Heritage Residency near Fathima College). As soon as we
checked-in to the hotel we enquired about the Madhura meenakshi darshan
details, and they told us that, the temple would be opened at 5:00Am in the
morning and will be closed at 12:00 noon. Did not have much time to hurry up
for darshan hence stayed back at hotel till 2:00 PM. The hotel was excellent of
all the trips we had. Good restaurant, and hospitality. Kids didn’t liked to
come out of the room. They charge around 1600/- per day which is worth of it.
Booked this Hotel through OYO app, got 30% discount.
We first started out to see Nayagar’s Palace which was
awesome gigantic pillars and structure, the maintenance was very good, spent
around 2 hrs there and reached Temple by 4:00 PM, by the time the temple was
just about to reopen. Had to do little bit of shopping outside the temple
premises, the shopping is much similar to Trichy’s sri ranga patnam temple.
There are many attractions in the temple, it would have been good if I would
have took help of a guide over there. It’s worth of knowing the facts about
temple from the guide.
This temple was very old, the reference of Madurai city in
mythological scriptures was also mentioned, at those days this city was called
by “Kadambavanam” may be there might have been a forest of most of Kadamba
Pushpam at those days. History says that, Pandian King has erected this city
and later chola dynasty, and after that Krishna devaraya, Nayagar’s province
has restructured and contributed the city and the temple.
It was also believed that Divine Mother Parvathi devi used
to stay over here, awaiting for Lord shiva who left kailsam to south India for
meditation.
We had a very good darshan at the temple as we were one
among early birds while reopening the temple services at this evening. Later
saw there was more and more rush.
Came back to Hotel by 6:45 PM and slept early that night,
probably 8:30 PM. I woke up late night again, as that’s my ideal time to think
and plan anything, if kids are sleeping. I thought of cutting down 2 days of
trip to Munnar instead one day I wanted to plan to Guruvayur, checked for any
good deals in OYO app, and found one. I think divine mother made me think in
this way and I really thank her for we enjoyed the next day trip to Guruvayur
Via Thrissur. It’s our fortune to visit Guruvayoor Lord SriKrishna next day
evening
Day 4 (29th Dec 2015):
For some reasons we didn’t have much rush even though it was
an Ayyappa season and many swamy’s are expected to come, since Sabarimala was
closed for 3 days. Our Darshan got completed in an hour temple staff has asked
to wear only traditional dresses for men (myself and sriram) took a dhoti outside
the temple and cell phones strictly are prohibited inside, and now its time for
us to visit God’s own countries awesome beauties.
There was greenery everywhere in Kerala, at least 10 banyan
trees and 10 coconut trees in each house. Probably that’s the reason I couldn’t
find any coconut sale outside in the streets
There were many rivers on the journey like Periyar, Poorna rivers etc.,
Our stay in Hotel was bit OK, not as good as it was in
Madurai.
We went to chavkot beach after Darshan, the slang pronounced
at Kerala is quite different from what it shows in the direction boards. The
beach is actually called Chavakkad Beach, which is an Arabian Ocean, border of
India. We had a good sunset view at Beach, took few snaps over there. Took a
night halt in Hotel Sopanam heritage. This hotel seems to be very old one, restructured
to have a new look, but somehow it was not so grand staying there.
Next day wanted to visit the temple premises again to do
some more shopping, and take few snaps outside the temple. We wanted to visit
the temple without having our own commutation, as the temple was very nearest
to the hotel. It would be very convenient to go by auto rikshaw. While returning
back the auto rikshaw man told us about few more places to visit, like
Parathasarathy Temple, Parthasarathy Temple, Venkitachalapathy Temple, Mammiyur
Mahadeva Kshetram, Punnathur Kotta (Anakkotta) etc.,
We just visited Ana Kota, there were around 56 elephants,
each and every elephant looks so gigantic and very intelligent. It was a very
good place to visit.
Please see below (bottom of Page) for more details of Guruvayur Punyakshetra
We can't stick onto good places more than day, now time to go to Munnar our final day of the tour.
Day 5 (30th Dec 2015):
It is an hilly station like ooty, not as cold as ooty
though. As we haven’t spent another day in ooty, we thought this time we may
visit some more places in hilly station which we couldn’t afford in ooty.
Immediately we have to rush to Munnar otherwise we might miss
to see any places to visit in Munnar.
It was very far away from this location, as we felt. We didn't
liked neither the travels nor Munnar hilly station. To our surprise the Oyo
room which I booked and paid in Munnar “Hotel Heritage Inn” was not
good nor looks hygiene on top of that, they charged around 4000/- per day, its not worth of it. This hotel was not even worth to sleep a night. Munnar
was a total upset for us, instead we should have spent a night halt at Kalady.
Having spent a night there, next day we started as early as
possible (7:00 AM) to Aluva railway station return back to Hyderabad through
Sabari Express 17229. I should have booked a flight from Kochi to Hyderabad, as
we got tired. I couldn't manage kids for 26 hrs long trip in the train back to
Hyderabad.
I suggest readers to make the halt at Eastern hotel in Munnar, which looks good from outside. And never pay the hotel charges upfront before going to Munnar.
Guruvayur:
