Madurai welcomed us with the Meenakshi Temple, power cuts and water scarcity. We met up with Kamesh after the night train journey from Trivandrum and then had lunch with him in a nice place (Appa read that as expensive :)) That evening we visited the Meenakshi Temple.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Friday, February 4, 2011
Kanya Kumari to Trivandrum
Our first stop en route was Suchindram. The sapta swaram musical pillars were intriguing and the very tall statue of Anjaneyar smeared with butter was impressive. Especially for an 8 year old, pillars that make music was magic. Looking back, it reaffirms by belief and determination to make travel happen as a regular activity even with kids.
Our second stop is one of my most favorite historical places - the Padmanabhapuram palace preserved as is. It felt as if royalty still lived there. The stone cot that was cool to the touch, the water cooled bedroom with the silk bedspread, the hidden balconies from which women could observe the courtyard where the king conducted the affairs of the state, the ballroom, the punishment areas (and the implements) - there was this very unique punishment where they would tie the victim's legs to arched bamboos and then let the bamboos straighten just splitting the poor guy longitudinally. The highlight was the hidden door to the underground passage that led across a river to the Padamapuram temple in Trivandrum. For a kid reading Enid Blyton just hearing and seeing this was adventure enough. The place has led me to conclude that there is aesthetic and historic value to preserving things in their original location if possible as opposed to a museum setting. Artifacts left in their original site lends to vivid mental imageries and mind movies of how they fitted in the big scheme of life then. I am also reminded of the rancher Waldo Wilcox who preserved the many signs of Indian history in his Range Creek ranch and then revealed and sold it to a historic society. To his dismay, the society wanted to pull out these objects and move them to a museum. It made sense when he said it is disrespectful and callous to dissociate the value of and dislocate these pieces from their original location.
Our next stop was the beautiful Kovalam beach where we frolicked in sand and water and drove our mom crazy with our mud coated clothes and selves. I remember this vividly as a time when our dad frolicked with us too :) We reached our Trivandrum holiday home late in the evening. We did the usual tourist circuit in Trivandrum - the museum, the zoo. Both places meant nothing to me then and I hardly have any memories of them today. Zoos are the most obscene of way of viewing animals as they lead a behaviorally halted life. The beauty of a living being is more than skin deep. It is a sum total of the way they act in the world and live their lives. Will this not apply to animals too? Though I do not remember much of the Padmanabapuram temple, I remember hoping to see or find the other entrance to the underground passage. Heck, I wanted to go down the passage too! I remember the temple as the royal temple where the kings came to be crowned and pray. Such is the power of a story that goes with a place well preserved. As we were from Tamil nadu and foudn the parboiled rice of Kerala unpalatable (I still don't know - that's waht my parents led me to believe :)), we had all our meals in the railway station canteen. O how proud we were of our find - the place we could eat like back home with raw rice, sambhar and rasam.
After 3 days of city sightseeing we left by night bus to Madurai where Kamesh met us.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Tiruchendur to Kanyakumari
This was our first multi-destination trip as a family(that I remember) and an extremely memorable one at that. The trip influenced our perspectives and vacations soon became an integral family bonding tradition that promoted everyone's sanity and welfare :-)
The day dawned and it was a good one. My cousin drove me to see her grandma and she gifted me with a spectacle case which I assumed was a pencilbox and was elated. My cousin also gave me a lot of her old books including a bound volume of amar chitra katha. Then I came home to find more visitors (distant relatives I have not met before) and in my very excited frame of mind entertained them with the few notes of Carnatic music I had learnt and they exclaimed that I would be the light of the family. (Was I thrilled or what)
We had an evening train and we were a whole hour early and the only ones in our compartment for a long time. As with every childhood train journey, I had a blast on this one too. The next morning we made friends with our co-passengers and one of them even gave us the contact details of his very good local friend in Tiruchendur. For me this event is a stamp commemorating the goodness of the human spirit in general and the warmth of Indian hospitatlity in particular.
We landed in Thiruchendur and headed straight to State Bank of India - yes the office and had a shower there :-) After visiting the temple and gawking at the ferocious waves, we decided to check out the contact we had obtained in the train. To my amazement, they took us in and treated us like family .. giving us coffee and refreshments, and letting us rest and relax in their home. That's the beauty of small town living.
We took the evening bus to Kanyakumari and reached Vivekanandapuram to spend a couple of days in one of their comfortable corner guest rooms. My parents got us very good masala dosai from the campus mess (cafeteria) which we devoured before hitting the sack.
Next day morning was sunrise viewing day when we went to the Vivekanandapuram beach to behold for the only time in my life, the unbelievable sight of navy blue-black sand (not the lava type - grayish black sand). I believe it is seasonal and my parents did not see this on a subsequent trip. Then we were off to a boat trip to Vivekananda rock which sans crowds would have been mesmerizing. I still remember how we almost lost a hat to the wind while we were waiting for the boat for the ride back. Meals were all had back in Vivekanandapuram as they were really good. While the rest of the family had a south Indian thali, I went for the North Indian thali every day all meals. Have changed a little bit since then!
Sunset at Gandhi Mandapam was not that impressive, neither do I remember much of Kanya Kumari Temple. We spent the last morning entertaining ourselves in our room while my parents including my dad went out shopping and got us black sozhis (cowri shells) and many other shell collections. I also remember this was the first time I heard the ocean in a conch. How much I romanticized conchs, though could never get to create a sound out of any one of them.
After 3 nights in Kanya Kumari we hired a taxi to take us to Trivandrum.. The trip was more interesting than the destination. Stay tuned!
The day dawned and it was a good one. My cousin drove me to see her grandma and she gifted me with a spectacle case which I assumed was a pencilbox and was elated. My cousin also gave me a lot of her old books including a bound volume of amar chitra katha. Then I came home to find more visitors (distant relatives I have not met before) and in my very excited frame of mind entertained them with the few notes of Carnatic music I had learnt and they exclaimed that I would be the light of the family. (Was I thrilled or what)
We had an evening train and we were a whole hour early and the only ones in our compartment for a long time. As with every childhood train journey, I had a blast on this one too. The next morning we made friends with our co-passengers and one of them even gave us the contact details of his very good local friend in Tiruchendur. For me this event is a stamp commemorating the goodness of the human spirit in general and the warmth of Indian hospitatlity in particular.
We landed in Thiruchendur and headed straight to State Bank of India - yes the office and had a shower there :-) After visiting the temple and gawking at the ferocious waves, we decided to check out the contact we had obtained in the train. To my amazement, they took us in and treated us like family .. giving us coffee and refreshments, and letting us rest and relax in their home. That's the beauty of small town living.
We took the evening bus to Kanyakumari and reached Vivekanandapuram to spend a couple of days in one of their comfortable corner guest rooms. My parents got us very good masala dosai from the campus mess (cafeteria) which we devoured before hitting the sack.
Next day morning was sunrise viewing day when we went to the Vivekanandapuram beach to behold for the only time in my life, the unbelievable sight of navy blue-black sand (not the lava type - grayish black sand). I believe it is seasonal and my parents did not see this on a subsequent trip. Then we were off to a boat trip to Vivekananda rock which sans crowds would have been mesmerizing. I still remember how we almost lost a hat to the wind while we were waiting for the boat for the ride back. Meals were all had back in Vivekanandapuram as they were really good. While the rest of the family had a south Indian thali, I went for the North Indian thali every day all meals. Have changed a little bit since then!
Sunset at Gandhi Mandapam was not that impressive, neither do I remember much of Kanya Kumari Temple. We spent the last morning entertaining ourselves in our room while my parents including my dad went out shopping and got us black sozhis (cowri shells) and many other shell collections. I also remember this was the first time I heard the ocean in a conch. How much I romanticized conchs, though could never get to create a sound out of any one of them.
After 3 nights in Kanya Kumari we hired a taxi to take us to Trivandrum.. The trip was more interesting than the destination. Stay tuned!
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