May 28, 2012
Akon - Right Now (Na Na) ringing.
Close. Snoozing, Close. Another alarm. With eyes full of sleep, saw the time, it was 0600 hours. Let’s try to watch the sunrise, so I tried waking up Arjit and Prashant. Their response was good. None of them woke up. So I slept again.
By 09:00 hours, the three of us woke up and after the morning chores, left for city view.
Kanyakumari: Kanyakumari district, which lies in the southernmost tip of Peninsular India, is famous for its majestic hills, virgin beaches, pristine rivers and meandering rivulets and where Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal and Indian ocean meet. The place takes its name from the goddess Devi Kanya Kumari. The goddess is believed to be the one who removes the rigidity of our mind. This is one of the rare places (temples) in India where Devi (Mother Goddess) is worshipped as a child. Now in KANYAKUMARI first things first. Breakfast. This place is famous because of three exalted people: Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi and Tamil saint–poet Thiruvalluvar.
Vivekanand Memorial and Thiruvalluvar Statue from a distance.
Famous tourist places: Kumari Amman temple, Vivekananda Rock Memorial, and the 133 feet (41 m) tall statue of Tamil saint–poet Thiruvalluvar, one of the biggest statues in Asia among others.
After reaching the market, we saw a very long queue of people standing for something. Not knowing what it was, we thought it was for the temple, so we enquired about the way to Vivekananda memorial and how to reach there as it was within the sea. To our shock this queue was of people waiting to get on the boat to the memorial. So while one of us joined the queue, the other two went for breakfast. So after 1 hour and 30 minutes we reached the counters, bought tickets and went for the boat to the memorial.
And after waiting in long queues above finally we got the ticket.
Vivekananda Rock Memorial: a sacred monument, built by the Vivekananda Rock Memorial Committee to commemorate the visit of Swamy Vivekananda to “Shripada Parai” during 24th, 25th and 26th December 1892 for deep meditation and enlightenment.
Thiruvalluvar Statue: Thiruvalluvar is the immortal poet of Tamil Nadu and has given to the world Thirukkural. The pedestal of the statue is 38 feet high and the statue over it is 95 feet tall with a grand total of 133 feet for the entire sculpture.
Where the three water bodies converge!!
After that we went to Mahatma Gandhi Memorial, View Tower and Telescope House and Vattakottai Fort.
Gandhi Memorial
View tower and telescope house
View from Vattakotai fort - one side its wind mills and other...
Mathur Aqueduct or Mathur Hanging Trough, is an Aqueduct in Southern India, in Kanyakumari District of Tamil Nadu state. Built over the Pahrali River (also called Parazhiyar), it takes its name from Mathur, a hamlet near the Aqueduct. It is one of the longest and highest aqueducts in South Asia and is also a popular tourist spot in Kanyakumari District.
Mathur Aqueduct
After a sweaty day, we headed towards Thirparappu falls for a refreshing bath. Finding the way was quite tough even though we were using google maps on one of my friend’s android mobile phones. But eventually after asking many people we finally reached. Though it wasn’t a bit like we had imagined. Water in the falls was less. So after some clicks we checked the time as we wanted to see the famed sunset at KANYAKUMARI. So it was around 1645 hours and we expected sunset at 1745 hours, right or wrong, there was no time to think about that.
Thirparappu falls
Mosque on the way to Muttam beach
Now the place where we needed to go was Muttam beach, one of the best points to see a sunset and it was around 45 kms from the current location. So with too less time on our hands and with narrow and crowded roads en route we began to hurry. My friend as a pillion rider was on google maps on his mobile guiding us through the route and the race against time began. We rode hard, asking people on the way. The place Muttam was nowhere to be found b’coz local people call it as mootam beach. So after this correction we headed to our place and reached around 1740 hours. Sun was still above the horizon and was slowly descending. After some clicks we began to recall the moments of the journey so far: discussing, singing and relaxing.
An Evening At Muttam beach
The sun set and night dawned on us, so we headed back to our hotel as we had to leave the next morning back for Pune. So by 2300 hours, we were on our beds preparing for a tough task for tomorrow i.e. to wake up next morning at 5:00 to catch a sun rise.
Devi Kanya Kumari possession at night
May 29, 2012
So after trying hard we finally woke up at 5:30 and took our rides and left for the beach straightaway. We were thinking we would be the only people there but no, there was a large crowd there waiting for the phenomenon known as sun rise. So we found a proper place for snaps and waited. And then it began to happen. Beautiful, mesmerising. The sunrise which we didn’t even bother to see back at our places, here it was just beautiful.
Swarm of people waiting for sun rise
And finally ... the sun rise!!
We then headed back to our hotel, packed our stuff and began our return journey. On the way back there were still a few places to cover. Chotavillai beach and Suchindrum. So we headed towards Suchindrum.
Our lady of ransom church
Suchindrum : a small village about 12 km. from Kanyakumari. This holy place is located on the bank of the river Pazhayar, and the temple is dedicated to Sri Sthanumalayan. The word denotes Siva, Vishnu and Brahma as - Sthanu represents Siva, Mal represents Vishnu while Ayan represents Brahma i.e. Siva, Vishnu and Brahma in “One Form”. It is said that Thanumalaya Swamy temple is the only shrine dedicated to the Trinity in India and it’s a place where Indra attained ‘Suchi’ i.e., purification.
Suchindram Temple
Customs say that one has to attend the temple bare bodied, wearing pants/dhoti only. Since none of us were in this mood so we headed towards our next destination Chothavilai beach. An awesome beach with blue water on one side and high sand dunes in the background. The beach here stretches over 4 km which makes it amongst the longest beaches in Tamil Nadu. It seems we found moksha out there.
Chothavillai beach
None of us were in the mood to go back but what starts has to end. So bidding adieu to the beach we started our end journey.
The route we took back was almost the south-west coastline. Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, Kozikhode, Mangalore towards Goa. Now the trip would be incomplete if we didn’t go to the Western Ghats. So at Thiruvananthapuram we headed towards Neyyar Dam. Now seeing the water Prashant wanted to go for a swim. At the foot of the dam there was a pool made for such kind of people. So after a refreshing bath we headed towards Kozhikode where my friend Prashant left for Bangalore and us, Arjit and me, towards Goa.
Neyyar Dam
Holy Dip!!
On way back to kozikode
Seeing off Prashant!!
Onwards journey .....
An actor in disguise!!
We reached Mangalore at around 2100 hours. While we were crossing Mangalore both of us began to feel sleepy and tired. Since I did most of the riding, I asked Arjit to take the handle while I rested at the back. After riding around 100 kms more, both of us were damn tired. So we thought of taking any hotel on the roadside. First we stopped at Bhatkal for a break and enquired about hotels in that area. As it was already 2300 hours he asked us to check the next town for hotel. Next we stopped at Murudeshwara, honavar, Kumta and Gokarna to check for hotels. These were all small towns with no hotels, it seemed. Dead tired we didn’t know what to do. So at a security checkpoint, we enquired a constable for any hotels. He asked us to check for hotels in Karwar. So we went into the town, but as it was already 0030 hours, all the hotels were closed.
May 30, 2012
None of the hotels were open at that hour. Exhausted and tired we slept on the stairs of some hotel. After resting for about an hour, we thought of making it to Goa but after riding some kms I again felt sleepy and asked my friend to ride. Since he was also exhausted we stopped again and slept on a roadside closed shop. We lost track of what was happening around us and went off to sleep. After we woke up we were shivering with fear as to what might have happened if someone stole our stuff. It was all there on the bike and the bike itself was unlocked. God be on our side. Again on our bike, we promised to not sleep like this anywhere. But again we felt sleepy, so we stopped at a nearby temple and slept on its benches. Finally we recovered some strength to go on and headed towards Goa.
We changed positions on our way to Goa and by 0730 hours we reached Goa. What a relief!!! We reached Baga beach and went to a shack for breakfast. It wasn’t open and he told us that it would open at around 0900 and only then they could serve food. In the meantime, we freshened up. But the waiter came to us and told us that there was an India Bandh due to petrol hike and the restaurant will be closed for the day.
Now hearing that bandh is there we thought that the petrol pumps might be closed as well. So we headed to nearest pump, refilled the tank and headed back to Pune, which was around 500 kms from there. We took the Goa-Mumbai route. A single lane highway passing through the Konkan belt. Best scenery and natural beauty en-route. So for Pune we took a diversion at Chiplun and rode towards Karad to take the NH4 highway. After crossing the pass, I heard some breaking noise from the bike but didn’t care about it much as I wanted to reach the national highway badly. Again that sound came. When we reached the highway I stopped to check what the problem was. After some inspection i saw a broken spoke in rear wheel of my bike. I lost three of them in the struggle to reach the highway. Still unbothered we rode hard back to Pune. Again twice the sound came which now began to worry me. So after reaching the Katraj toll, I stopped at a hotel and called my mechanic to ask him if it could cause some serious damage to my bike. He asked me to ride solo and at a slow speed. So I asked Arjit to call someone to pick him up and me riding solo, back to my flat. He did so and we reached home safely.
What a journey!! Tiring yet memorable, riding non-stop for 2 days, sleeping on footpaths and yes covering the southernmost point of Indian mainland were the main gains from this ride. As my body and brain regained some life, so did the zeal to cover other extremes of India.
Final moments before we took our own ways!!
At Karad, near Pune
Journey ends but neither the memories nor the zeal to cover the unknown ends.
This trip was first published on http://theroadandtherider.blogspot.in/.