Bengaluru - Thanjavur - Kanyakumari Express

Life has it own course, No matter, How good you have planned, it will take it's own course.

This is story of a journey to the much awaited tour and this also with different sets of friends. I believe, it is good to go to the place when you can and enjoy instead of waiting for right sets of friends to carry out the trip. In this world of uncertainty, we don't know, when it will be closed.

This is a extended weekend journey to the Southern most point of India, The Indira Point. This is not that simple, there is much more twist and turns in this journey.

As to my surprise, this journey also has some known faces and unknown faces. We have planned to go to The Big temple in Thanjavur before setting our journey to the Kanyakumari.

As planned, we booked our train seats to Thanjavur, by Friday morning 5 AM. We have not booked any hotels as we have not planned for any night stay at Thanjavur, Train station has usual looks of any small Tourist place station, auto and taxi drivers going behind the travellers and same old bargaining tactics. We went to the small hotel within a walking distance of the Sri Brihideshwar Temple. Though, it is obvious that, Tamilnadu weather in March is very hot, it is no surprise that, Morning time weather is very cool and peaceful at every place. Some of our friends set out for Tea and coffee to the near by shop. After little rest, we started our journey to the Temple. The temple is a architectural marvelous. The history and hype matches to the real. We are awestruck by it. To feel such a gem by hand and being submerged in the history of it can not be expressed by word. Please click here to know about the Temple,Thanjavur

We are lucky enough to see the Morning Aarti inside the main temple. Though it took most of our time, we have checked all the temples in Temple complex and every inch of it is a architectural genius. It is difficult to digest that, There is no granite rock in the near by vicinity. There should be in your passion to carry out such a Monument with so much difficulty. After spending ample amount of time in the temple, we checked out the other famous thing, the hand made WoodenToys mainly Dancing Dolls inside the temple complex. Price is little bit in the high range but, it is ok for someone to keep it as a souvenir.

We don't have much of time to roam around the city, so we decided to go to the Famous places in the city, The Maratha Palace and housed Saraswati Library. There is a small charge for entrace in to the palace. Also, there is a museum to house ancient coins. We are dissapointed with the maintenance of such a precious things in the history and culture. It is not clean and there is no identifiers to understand the value of it. Only thing, which will satisfy the entrance fee is the AC Digital Library at Saraswati library. One of oldest artifacts and wrtings are housed in it.

After that, We are ready to go to Kanyakumari through Madurai.

Me and one of my friend already saw the most famous Meenakshi Temple. So we were just trying to pass the Madurai Bus stop to get the bus to Kanyakumari and with the less time in hand, it looks like only option.

It is a 3 hours journey through normal bus service to Madurai from Thanjavur. It was already late in the evening and we are ready to take any bus to Kanyakumari. We had our dinner at the Madurai Bus stand. With the much of discussion to stay or to go to Kanyakumari at night, we decided to leave. Luckily we got the overnight bus to Kanyakumari. We reached Kanyakumari by dawn. The meeting point of Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean. The city is named after the Virgin goddess Devi Kanyakumari. The temple is near the shores of the town. One can see the temple from the sunrise point.

Though the Indian Ocean is 1 Km from the bus stop, we can hear the surreal sound of Sea. Surrise and Sunset is famous in Kanyakumari. We set ourselves to the Sunrise point. There is still time for the Sunrise and crowd is gathering. We witness the famous Sunrise of Kanyakumari. The Old city is suprisingly small and less chaotic. 

We already booked the hotels in advance to avoid the surge in price at posh tourist location. It was a quite a view from the balcony. After breakfast and bath, we went to see the Vivekanada Memorial. The Memorial stands on one of the two rocks located at a distance of 500 meters. The only way of communication is Jetty service provided by the Government.There was a Day tour offer from Hotel owner for just 110 Indian Rupees. 

In the walking distance of our Hotel, Jetty starting point was available. There was a charge of 50 rupees for the travel. It took 20 mins to reach the Island and the View from the Jetty is awesome. There was 3 old Jettys working for the tourist service but there is clear requirement of service for the jettys. There is 20 Indian Rupees charge for the Entry in to the Vivekananda Memorial. It is clean and calm. It is built around 1970 in the memory of Swami Vivekananda. It housed Vivekananda statue. There is a Meditation hall which allows tourist to carry out Meditation. The view of the open blue sea and beyond is awesome. 

We missed to visit to the Temple and other attractions. We came back to Bengaluru by Bus from Nagercoil.

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