Rameswaram via Madurai

As you enter the temple area, I could see there were many Gopurams other than the four main at the entrances. All Gopurams were colorful. We visited the core temple. The walls stand with beautiful sculptures on them. Although, the temple worships Meenakshi (a form of Parvati) along with Sundareswara (a form of Shiva)and it's a major destination for the Shiva-worshipers in the ancient city Madurai, there were many Vishnu sculptures in the temple as he's considered as Meenakshi's brother. Temple campus encloses total of 14 Gopurams including all the four are at each entrance. The south Gopuram is the tallest one.

Temple courtyard has many Mandapas, one of which has a museum now with a ticket of Rs. 20. It's popularly known as '100 pillared Mandapa'. It hosts large Natraja idol in dancing mudra. I felt very peaceful in that Mandapa looking at Natraja. All the pillars in front of Natraja has somewhat dragon like carvings. Somehow for few moments it felt like I was in 'the Chamber of Secrets' but with positive vibes. Instead of Salazar Slytherin's head, it was Natraja's beautiful idol placed at one end and it gave me the feeling of standing inside the chamber while looking at the idol from the other end.

After visiting main shrine, we left for our next destination, Rameswaram.

Rameswaram is around 170kms away from Madurai. It took us around 3 hrs to reach our hotel. We stopped at one restaurant where we had our brunch and had authentic South-Indian Dosa (obvio!). It was served with 5 different chutneys.

Rameswaram is a town situated at far end of Tamilnadu state. It was quite hot this time of year but it was also pleasant to watch coconut trees pass by on the both sides on most part of our journey. To reach Rameswaram, one needs to use the sea-bridge as it's on Pamban island separated from mainland India.

Rameswaram welcomed us with this beautiful Pamban sea bridge. It's the oldest sea bridge in India and the second longest now (after Bandra-Worli sea link).

Rameswaram can be considered as an island, connected to mainland by the Pamban bridge. We stopped on the bridge for few minutes. Unfortunately, we didn't get any train tickets for the train which uses this bridge. It's one rail only, so the train stops here for some time and leaves again in the evening.

We reached our hotel, rested for few hrs as we hadn't have any sleep since few hours. As it's a small town, we decided to roam only in daytime. So on the first day, we didn't go anywhere. We had our dinner at our hotel.

The next day, we left early in the morning for the famous Rameswaram temple. At one of the entrances, we met a temple pujari who recognized that we were not local but travelers with some language barriers. He agreed to show us the temple campus with all the information.

The Rameswaram temple is a Shiva temple. It is also one of the twelve Jyotirlinga temples. All of its Gopurams are golden. The temple is famous for very long and beautiful corridors.

Rameswaram is one of the four Char Dhamas. Before entering the core temple, we visited all the twenty-two Tirthas (holy water tanks) one by one and washed our hands and feet with it. Then we went for the main temple and prayed in front of the presiding deity, the Lingam of Ramanathaswamy (Shiva). We couldn't go inside the core temple as only the worshipers who want to have the puja and abhishek (which cost more than Rs. 5k ) can enter the core temple. We exited from the back tower of the temple and headed for the Agniteertham. The beach east of the temple is this teertham. It was quite crowded so we didn't waited for long.

As Rameswaram is an island, the atmosphere here is humid and in the month of Feb, it was quite hot too. Being an island that has a Hindu pilgrim, it has many small shops selling sea shells artifacts and Rudrakshas. I bought some shell key chains as souvenirs.

After checking the local market, we hired an auto-rickshaw for few hours. First we went to Panchamukhi Hanuman temple. There in one tank, they have kept a rock on which written was 'Ram' and it was actually floating on the water. A really magnificent thing to witness.

Then we headed for the famous 'Dhanushkodi' - the last road of India. It's at south-eastern point of Pamban island and from here Sri Lanka is only 24 kms away. While going to this last point of India, on the left side it was Bay of Bengal and on the right side, Indian Ocean. Both had different shades of blue. It's an abandoned town which was destroyed during one cyclone in 70's. Only tourists and fishermen were there.

From the parking area, we had to walk over a kilometer to reach the end. Here going down to beach is prohibited. After 5 o'clock, no one can enter the area.

The road with the end point looks like a 'ShivaLingam'. But we can see that image along with the Ram-Setu only with aerial view.

We were there for over an hour, then we headed back. While returning, I had a freshly caught fish at one small local hotel.

Rameswaram being a very important town in Ramayana, has many temples of Ram, Sugreeva, Vibhishana. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to visit all. We visited only few. I missed a visit to APJ Abdul Kalam's museum and home also. In the evening, we headed for our next destination. We stopped at the Pamban bridge once more when I said a fond adieu to this town.