FAMILY & GROUP 23 DAYS PILGRIMAGE TOUR TO TAMIL NADU - 2009 - PART 3

Part Three : Continuation of Our Journey......

After a wonderful feeling leaving Murugan temple....our next stop was to be at the famous (9) Manakula Vinayagar Temple in Pondicherry. This would be the second time my family and I are visiting this wonderful temple and yet the feeling of being excited was the same as being here for the first time. The sight of the elephant at the entrance still gives us a good feeling...and lets out a nice vibration of the temple itself. Entrance to the temple is at the left side and as we enter..one could see paintings and carving on the walls, it was beautiful to say the least as we waited to be ushered into the queue..

At the Entrance of the Temple.

After our guide got us the special darshan tickets, we queued and waited for our turn for the darshan.After darshan we went round the temple, i must admit this was one of the most cleanest temple we have seen thus far and yet it was still crowded with devotee's too. I suppose mostly were people from the North of India were here for prayers.

Group Picture after darshan with the Elephant on the background.

                                                    
Our itinerary states that after this temple, we were to adjourn to the beach area as it has a nice view with Mahatma Gandhi Statue by the side of the road. However to our dismay, light did not permit it as it was too dark for us to go for that visit. The children were also all hungry and tired from a quite a long journey as well.As such we decided to just go straight to the Hotel and rest for the next day journey.

Our hotel in Pondicherry was Hotel Annamalai International. Must say that it was a nice and pleasant hotel and one of few that did not delay our check in process but assignment of rooms was definitely bad. Another sleepless night for us due to the bad assignment of rooms.

Lobby of the Annamalai International Hotel - Pondicherry.

                        
08th December 2009 - (04th day of Pilgrimage)

Breakfast at 7.00 am was good..we had normal indian breakfast...your idly, ponggal, sambar, vadai, toast etc..must say that breakfast we had at Hotel Fortune Kences in Tirupathi was still the best thus far...We checked to see if all our bags were in the bus and then we were off to our next temple at about 7.45 AM ..to Sri Mushnam.

Arrived approximately about 10.45 AM, we arrived to (10) Sri Bhuvaraha Temple. Journey was rough along the road....most were not feeling too well..due to tiredness for various reasons. The bus then enters into a village road and the road was bouncy but the scenery was good...paddy fields to the both sides of the road..however we did not anyone working on the fields....either here people work very very early in the morning for short hours or they work very very late at night....no idea what so ever....

Now i was wondering, "hmmm seeing how the roads are small and we are just passing by small streams, small bridges and small villages..the temple could not be that big as i cant even see the Gopuram of the temple anywhere around as i look around 360 degrees .nothing at all...no visibility of any big temple around ..hilltops were clean...no temple too...so...where is this temple.."

Everyone's eyes was to the window as we were on the lookout for the temple..suddenly the bus came into a village and it was a small ordinary village like hundreds we have passed by over the days. The bus maneuvered over a few corners slowly..and then when it turned into a parking lot...there is was ...a Huge Temple in front of us....now as soon as the bus stopped....the very first thing happen was that, we were greeted by little children running towards the bus begging for money..not much so asking us to buy either flower garlands or some prayers item but downright they were begging..it was very annoying indeed but i guess for the children's there every tourist bus that arrived here was their chance of begging for their rice bowl..

We headed into the temple with full of energy and eagerness of wanting to have a darshan of Lord Vishnu in his avatharam form.This must be the only temple in India dedicated for Lord Vishnu's Avatharam Form..I for one never heard of any other avatharam temples in India. There were not many people in the temple. Our guide went to meet the priest and also to get our special darshan tickets. We were surprised when we were greeted by the priest as he took us into the temple for the prayers. We later found out that our guide has told the priest that we were part of the Tamil Nadu Tourism Board and we were here for our official tour.

Group Picture taken with the Temple Priest, background of the Behind Gopuram of the Temple.

Temple was obviously not a small one..it was incredibly big either..but it was spaced out well. Although as from the name, Lord Vishnu is in the wild boar avatar but his statue is not made to as a wild boar but is of a stone form known as Saligarama ( Black Round Rock) which face of a wild boar only.

This is a temple where all the deities are known as Varaha MurthisVaraha what he wanted for helping the Lord ; all that was asked was for a 9 feet of land by his side. As such, here we will see the statues of Lord Varahi and his consorts in that small land not facing the temple.

Group Picture after Prayers...at the entrance of the temple.

Now i must also say that, here the Lord accepts all religion to his temple. Lord Consort here is known as Ambujavalli Thayar. Here Muslim are allowed to come into the temple on every thursday's and pray to her. They will light up "sudom" / "champor" and they are allowed to recite their Quran. Apparently, when its festival season, the chariot of the Lord would stop at the Mosque to accept offerings from the Imam of the Mosque.

Picture of the Entrance of this Temple.

Leaving the temple with nice feeling of recharged energy. Must say that to visit a unique temple like this was worth the bouncy trip. All the tiredness was forgotten and we were looking forward heading to our next destination ahead of us... Chidambaram.

Our Next town was Chidambaram. Travel time was about an hour an half. We were supposed to visit the temple directly but due to our late arrival to the town, we had to change our program to accommodate for our late arrival. So we decided to have lunch first. It was hot and humid, as such after lunch almost everyone hit the toilet to relieve themselves as next our program is quite full.

As to kill time we decided to go for boating at a nearing place so that the children would not feel restless.So we arrived to this boating area where by it was lake off the sea.We were told that due to this mangrove lake, the villages were saved during the tsunami hit.

This lake was also used to film the movie ' Dasavathram".So we took the boat ride for about 30 minutes just to relax and kill time to visit the next temple.

View front of the boat travelling through a small river stream of the brackish water lake. 

We took a boat which did not have the cover on the top. The guide told us that..boat with tops are difficult to move in between of the river stream. So we braced the heat and wind and off we went. Boat was not moving fast as we had a lot of time. As we moved, grass carp fish were jumping and saw eagles flying and waiting on the tree branches to catch fishes..it was a nice boat ride...indeed..

Wife and Son enjoying the wind.

After our boat ride, we boarded back onto our bus and headed back to town for our temple visit. Our next temple to visit was (11) Nadarajar Temple. This is a famous and old temple. This would be my second visit to the temple but the feeling was like this was my first trip anyway.Entrance to this temple is grand indeed...nice peaceful feeling indeed..although outside of the temple needs a good clean up..

Before Entering the Temple for our Darshan.

As we have arrived early..we had a long wait till the inner temple was opened...there were so many other people same as us..waiting for the inner temple to be opened..we took this time to just wander around the temple compound and also inside the temple too..

Gopuram Picture at the background.

Full View of the Entrance Gopuram

As soon as the temple was open at about 4.30 PM, we went in and did our darshan..among the crowd and after which we slowly made our way out of the temple and went around it too..

Old Natarajar Hall where dance session are held every year.

Vinayagar Temple by the Side of the Main Temple.

After our prayers and darshan..we then proceeded to our next temple not far away....Our Next temple was (12) Thilai Kaliamman Temple.. Bus parked by the main road as it cant go in into the small road leading to the temple. We all got down and walked towards the temple. We walked through a small village like street and turning left at the junction, we saw a temple at the end of the road...so we walked eagerly towards the temple.

Arriving at the temple, our guide found a person in the temple to brief us to history of the temple and also what is known here at this temple. After hearing the story..we made our rounds around the temple and the carvings around the temple was very good and in bright colours. As it was dusk and getting darker..we found the weather was getting cooler too..

Carvings on Gopuram of the Temple is Pretty Indeed.

Bright Newly Painted Statues 

As we leave the temple, we were coming out in groups..as my family group came out..there was this old lady with a kungumam in a size of a football field on her forehead sitting by the side of our slippers. She started to demand for money for taking care of our slippers and shoes. However she was not there when we enter into the temple and to top it off there is a big sign in tamil which reads " there is NO charge for slippers storing". She began to get loud and abusive when we refused to give her any money and started to follow behind us while we were walking back and yet still with her abuses..

Trying to stop her loud abuses and begging for money..my wife took out some coins in the dark and gave it to the the lady and asked her to go...but now the lady looked at the coins and become more abusive and saying that the coins were a one cent coins and made the motion of throwing it to my wife's face..now this made me mad and i then shouted back at her..as soon as she realised that now i was getting angrier she back off but still with her abuses and even curses that our airplane would explode in midair and we would all die without reaching back to Malaysia.

This is a new one for me indeed..i did not realise that nowadays..beggars demand for money and also curse and abuse for money...gone are the days of normal begging..now its a tactic of scaring people with ones appearance and abusing and cursing until they get what they want..

Now i was furious for 2 reasons..one of course this ladies attitude and second our guide did not even do anything...he was not even there, god knows what he was doing or where he was...i felt at that precise moment that it was a sheer waste of hiring a guide is not even going to care for his customers. I dare not think what would have happened if i was not there or if i had walked in front a few paces of my family....

View of the temple as we were walking back after the prayers and as the incident was happening.

So as we heading back to the bus, my wife was really shaken off by the actions of the woman.She was worried what if the curses of the woman would happen..I told her that no curses of a beggar who demands for money and does not appreciate any demonetization given to her is going to happen..however i could still see that my wife was still worried until we reached the hotel....Hotel Le Garden in Kumbakonam.

To Be Continued ........