We were very excited when we thought about being in Kanyakumari and watching the Sunrise and Sunset.
We started on Sunday (Dec 20)morning and took a flight to Chennai. We reached Chennai airport at around 9:45 AM and went straight to Sailu's (Kala's friend)house in Manapakkam. We had our coffee and went to a park, where Sumu and Sriya played together. After having lunch,we rested for a while and left for Chennai Egmore railway station by 4 PM. We reached there at around 5 PM. Lalita (Kala's friend) came to the railway station to see us. We spent a few minutes with her. The train journey from Chennai to Kanyakumari was very good. Sailu's mother-in-law has packed dinner for us to have it in the train. We went to sleep by 10 in the night.
When we wokeup at around 6 AM, the train was approaching Nagercoil. The co-passengers in our cabin got down at Nagercoil. We reached Kanyakumari at around 6:45 AM. We took an auto rickshaw to go to Hotel Sea View. He charged Rs.20. Kanyakumari is a tiny, small town as we have seen. The hotel room was not ready when we reached there. We waited in the lobby and had some coffee in the meantime. We went to the terrace, from where we can see the Sea and Vivekananda Rock. The hotel offered some beautiful views. 30 minutes later, the room was ready and we checked-in.
After having our bath and breakfast, we went to see the Devi Kumari temple. The temple is situated at the tip of the land, overlooking the sea. The entrace to the temple is through the northern gate, while the eastern gate is always closed. We had our lunch at Hotel Tamilnadu. It was ok.
We went to the boat jetty at around 3 PM and took a ferry to go to the Vivekananda Rock. Amidst the sea, there are two rokcs namely Vivekananda Rock and Tiruvallavur rock, the view was spectacular.
Vivekananda Rock Memorial is another place in Kanyakumari which attracts large number of tourists. As its name implies, it is essentially 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.
I took pleanty of pictures, Sumu was very happy and played a lot there. It was very pleasant and totally a different feeling of being there, awsome! From there, we went to see the Tiruvallavur statue. It was a memorial statue of a tamil poet. The 3 tier pedestal known as Atharapeedam is surrounded by an artistic Mandapa known as Alankara Mandapam with 38 feet height. Surrounding the Alankara Mandapa stand 10 elephant statues signifying 8 directions with earth and space down. The father of Sri. Rama, the hero of Ramayana was called Dasaratha as he was able to charioteer in ten directions. To help the tourists to worship the holy feet of Thiruvalluvar 140 steps are constructed inside the Mandapa. We took the last boat to drop us at boat jetty.
From there, we went to the hotel room as Sumu was sleeping. I packed my photography gear and rushed to the sunset point, which is 2 KM from the hotel sea view. Unfortunately, it was a bit cloudy and I was not able to see the sun set, I was disappointed. But, I took lot of pictures,capturing the sky colous during that time.
Both the rocks were litted brilliantly during the dark and can be seen from our hotel room. It was very pleasant. We had an early dinner.
Next day morning (Mon, Dec 21) we went to see the Vattakottai (Circular Fort).It is a granite fort six kilometres north-east of Kanyakumari cape, forms the terminal of a line of ramparts known as the South Tranvancore lines built by Marthanda Varma to serve as defence for Nanjil Nadu. It is rectangular in shape and covers an area of about three and a half acres. The fort is enclosed by walls 25 to 26 feet high, including the parapet, 29 feet thick at the front, 18 feet at the corners and 6 feet at the rear. From there, we went to Vivekananda puram, where there is a Vivekanda museum (photo gallery). We went to the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial. Mahatma Gandhi visited Kanyakumari in January 1937. In 1948 his ashes were immersed in the sea waters in Kanyakumari. In commemoration of this event a beautiful monument has been constructed here. Its central shape is 79 feet high representing the age of the Mahatma at the time of the sun at Mid day on 2nd October would fall on the peedam through a hole in the roof.
We had our lunch at Hotel Sea view, took some rest and started again at around 5 PM to see the sun set. Once again, it was in vain. There were clouds and the view was obstructed. Sumu enjoyed a lot near the water and boats. In the return, we booked a car for tomorrow's drop at Kovalum.
We checked out the hotel on Tuesday morning (Dec 22)at around 8 AM. We had our breakfast and the car was ready by 9 AM. We went to see the St.Xavier church. The Church of St. Xavier enjoys a great fame as a place of miracles from early times. The annual festival is celebrated during the month of November – December lasting for 10 days.
We went to Suchindram,which is around 12 KM from Kanyakumari. The temple is dedicated to Sri Sthanumalayan. The word denotes Siva, Vishnu and Brahmma as. Sthanu represents Siva, Mal represents Vishnu while Ayan represents Brhamma i.e. Siva, Vishnu and Brhamma in “One Form”. It is said that Thanumalaya Swamy temple is the only shrine dedicated to the Trinity in India. I liked this temple very much.
Later, we went to the Padmanabhapuram palace. The palace with an area of seven acres, is situated in the very centre on the Padmanabhapuram Fort, amidst hills, dales and rivers. It was very sunny in the afternoon. We then left for Kovalum straight from there.
It was almost 2:30 PM when we reached Kovalum and cheked in tot he Swagath Holiday resorts. We dumped our luggage into the room and rushed to the restaurant for lunch. The food was ok, not too bad.
At around 4 PM, we went to the backwaters. It was a 2-hr ride over the back waters, which is really very good. We have seen lot of birds, trees during our ride. We once again were not able to see the sunset. Surprisingly, it is getting cloudy every evening in contrast to the hot day.
In the evening, we went to the Light house beach, which is just behind our resort. We spent some time and came back to the room. We had our lunch on the roof top terrace.
Next day morning (Wed, Dec 23), we went to the Kovalum beach and enjoyed a lot at the beach. Sumu played with the water and sand. After having breakfast, we checked out the hotel at 12 Noon and left for Trivandrum airport. It was a small airport. I bought some souvenirs in the airport. The systems were down and the Air India staff wrote the boarding passes by hand, which took some amount of time. The flight was on time and reached Bangalore at around 4 PM. We had a coffee at the Bangalore airport and spent a few hours before we took the next flight to Hyderabad at 5:55 PM. It was around 7:30 PM, when we reached Hyderabad. Luckily the strike was called off by the time we reached the city. I dont know why, but I felt like landed in a different state!
