Madurai, Rameshwaram Tamilnadu

Madurai, Rameshwaram Tamilnadu

Madurai and Rameshwaram are two popular pilgrimage and holy destinations. APJ has well said, Rameshwaram has been very important and an integral part of Hindu pilgrimage and a must important place to visit in Southern India. Incidentally Rameshwaram hosts a large memorial of our memorable and honorable former president of India, APJ.

"Rameswaram has, since antiquity, been an important pilgrimage destination." By A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

Madurai is quite a modern place which got developed rapidly in the recent past. It is highly visited places of south India. It hosts one of the largest temple premises in India. It has 4 main towers (entrances) and all of which are very huge and magnificent. They are widely spread with 5 to 8 mins of walk between towers, they are termed as, north, south, east and west entrances. 

Pamban Bridge

Places to visit: 

1. Meenakshi Amman Temple

The temple is the centre place of Madurai. It is incredibly popular in Madurai that none can miss to visit and take the blessings of the goddess for your prosperity. It is a massive premises spread in 15 acres of land with 4500 pillars and 12 towers. The south tower is the tallest one and is 170 ft high.

It hosts two main deities, Goddess Meenakshi (also known as Parvati) and the other is the lord Shiva. The temple complex is however well maintained from the inside and houses a large water body called as kalyani or pushkarni. One can spend some memorable moments sitting on nicely surrounded steps.

The temple complex is in the middle of the busy streets. Pay highest caution to the traffic and a very limited parking place. it is not a pleasant experience at all when it comes to managing a self driven vehicle.
There are many shopping centers around the temple complex. One can plan to spend couple of hours walking in the streets for shopping and snacking. 

Temple opens at 5:00am and closes in the first half by 12:30pm, and then reopens at 4:00pm and closes at 10:00pm. One can prefer a guide to save the time considering its vastness and challenges of identifying the main places with in. The charges are nominal. 

Magnificent Temple of Meenakshi

Vast Kalyani

2. Rameshwaram

Rameshwaram is must a visit hindu pilgrimage place, it is also one of the 12 Jyothirlingas in India while others are in AP, Maharashtra etc..Rameshwaram is unique in multiple ways, firstly It is a small island, and a pilgrimage place, a mesmerizing train bridge (pamban) and historical ocean beds and its quite incredible to be at a place which is the end of the land and just 40kms away from there is Srilanka. The Ram Setu, a remarkable history. It is a magnificent to even believe such a massive bridge built by Rama towards Srilanka in the mythology, this is a belief based on our mythological scriptures.
The temple is yet again enormously big in area. The queue is most of the times very long and take few hours to complete the darshana. There is also special darshan queue and can be preferred to save the time.However it is said to bath in Agni Theertham and 22 other wells just around before you proceed to the main temple, it is believed that the number of wells denotes 22 arrows in Ram's quiver. This is the purest form of cleansing yourself and absolve you from the Sins in life. 

Pamban Railway Bridge

The Pamban Road Bridge

The Road that leads to end of the land

The waters in which one can walk...

Rameshwaram is also the birth place of former president Shri APJ Kalam. It houses a huge memorial of Shri APJ and unfortunately is not open whole day. It closes by 6pm in the evening and opens at 10am. So we must plan a visit accordingly.

Beautiful Monument of Shri APJ Abdul Kalam

Memorial of Shri APJ Abdul Kalam

Travel Plan & Stay

This is the most toughest decision as it depends on how long is one's holiday plan. If it is just 2 days with 3rd day return to Bangalore, in such a case the best way one could optimize the time is to plan a stay at a location that forms a triangle with Madurai and Rameshwaram. 

So the idea location would be Dindigul. Start from Bangalore as early in the morning as possible and reach Dindigul (Hosur NH) in 3 and half hours. Reach the hotel and check-in for a quick lunch and refreshments. 

Start to Madurai from Dindigul which is just 68kms and takes little more than an hour. The roads are excellent conditions, it is a pleasure to drive. 

Visit the temple for the rest of the day, be assured your dinner needs will be fulfilled with the temple prasadam itself in case you opt for.

There is a Special Darshan and ordinary darshan. Recommended to opt for special darshan which is also quite long during evening and morning peak hours.

Start back to Dindigul by 8:30pm so that you can reach by 10pm and take a nice rest to plan you Rameshwaram trip the next day. 

Dindigul to Rameshwaram is around 240kms and takes 4 hours as the roads are pretty decent. One can plan to leave Dindigul by 5am and reach Rameshwaram by 10am with breakfast stopover. 

On the way to Rameshwaram watch out for the Pamban Road bridge which is very close to destination Rameshwaram and watch the spectacular Pamban Railway Bridge which is a 100 years old still standing and delivering its services. This bridge is built by the British. 

Once you reach Rameshwaram, take darshan of lord following all the ritual practices if deemed so. Do not miss to see the Jyothirlinga. 

Right across, aboutr 2 to 3 kms there is Ramapada temple, do visit and have a look at the footsteps of Lord Rama.

Once you finish the temple darshans, you must head to Dhanuskodi. This is a splendor! One the way to Dhanushkodi, there are many beaches and one can hop over to any of those to experience the specialty. And drive further towards Dhanushkodi, one will see a sign board stating the most horrifying thing, ROAD ENDS IN 0.5KM. PAY CAUTION.

The road literally ends with no warning any more ( of course not so terrifying as it ends with large structure for the crowd gathering)

The view is indeed spectacular and marvelous. You can walk in to the beach as though it is just vastly spread water bed filling you up to ankle or knee length only. Spend adequate time there and make it a point to pay caution at all time as the waters become shallow and deep to pose risk of life. 

Stay

Hotel PVK Grand Dindigul

Address: 80, Thadicombu Rd, Ashok Nagar, Dindigul, Tamil Nadu 624001

Phone: 0451 242 0009

Nominal Charges (around 2000+)

Best Time to Visit : 

Avoid Summers and Rainy Seasons. Rest any time is fine. Best would be Oct to Jan. 

26th - 28th Dec 2017