Well, this was a very planned Bike ride from Banglore to Dhanushkodi! My childhood dream to ride on the roads of Dhanuskodi came true.
We are a group of four guys and two bikes, trying to explore the roads of India! So it took us 4 leaves from office, a lot of excitement, body pains and a few litres of petrol to complete this ride.
We started at around 7 AM from Banglore and were stuck at the Hosur exit for about half an hour to leave the city. We have planned to take our first stop in Krishnagiri, which is abouy 100 kms from Banglore. We reached Krishnagiri at 9:30 Am. We had our breakfast there and left for a non-stop ride to Madurai.
Actually to reach Rameshwaram you need not pass through the town of Madurai, but we had to get our bike serviced. We reached Madurai at 2PM and had an amazing lunch. We visited the Madurai Meenakshi temple. The temple was quite crowded but it was worth waiting. We picked up our vehicle at 7PM and started off to Rameshwaram.
It was still 300 kms to go and it was dark already. We exited Madurai at around 7:30 PM. It was a very long ride as it was dark and we maintained an average speed of 60. We reached Rameshwaram at 12:30 AM.
So if you are travelling to Rameshwaram from Banglore, it may take roughly 10 hrs to complete the trip, with some breaks!
We had a tight sleep! Dhanushkodi here I come!
We woke up late and had our breakfast.
We started driving towards Dhanushkodi at 10AM. We were very excited to see two different oceans at two side of the road. And finally that breath taking moment came when we entered the roads of Dhanushkodi.
You can clearly observe the difference in the appearance of the seas at two sides. One was a pale greenish sea spread accross miles from your sight and on the other side was a dark blue sea looking magnificient under the sky.
We reached the last point of Dhanushkodi passing across a lot of beautiful scenic locations. There are a lot of damaged monuments and offices which you can see in Dhanushkodi. Some of them are the damaged Church of Dhanushkodi, a post office and railway station. So before you visit this place just go through the history of Dhanushkodi and read about the cyclone that struck this place on 22nd December 1964. You feel a different vibe when you know about that place before travelling.
We met two guys from France who were travelling many places in India. We shopped some authentic costal stuff. You can find a lot of stalls serving amazing fish fry.
We returned back from Dhanushkodi at 3:00 PM and had a great lunch at a Punjabi Dhaba.
We took some rest and visited the Rameshwaram temple. The vibes were so nice that we spent around 2 hours in the temple itself. The Ramanathaswamy Swamy temple is one of the 12 Jyothirlingas in India and is considered a very special Shiva Temple.
We visited the Rameshwaram Beach at around 7PM and spent some time there. There are a lot of nice Restaurants in this area but try some small Restaurants which serves very tasty food at good prices.
We visited the Rameshwaram bridge also known as the Adam's Bridge at 10PM and could manage to watch a train traveling on the rail route. The wind was strong and was very cold at night. Spend some nice time on the bridge.
We woke up early and started off to Banglore at around 9 AM. We visited the Kalam Museum in Rameshwaram which was best of its kind. You may have a feeling that how a person can achieve so much in life. APJ Abdul Kalam's life teaches us amazing lessons and his achievements and honors makes you feel proud.
We faced a terrible traffic jam at the Rameshwaram Bridge, but that jam was worth as we could spend some more time on the bridge enjoying beautiful view of the sea.
We reached back to Banglore at 12AM.
So the total trip was of 1500 kms and I would suggest to visit Kanyakumari which is around 300 kms from Rameshwaram. You can also consider visiting places like Coimbatore and Pondichery which are at a small distance considerably.
Hope my post was helpful!
Thanks
Karteek
