I am P.Venkatachalam. This is my first post on Ghumakkar. For this Pongal holidays I and my wife started out on a trip to areas in and around Kanyakumari. I took a train from my town Tiruppur(in Tamilnadu) to Nagercoil, the town nearest to Kanyakumari. Because of the Pongal holiday periods, I could not get a train on the shortest route possible from Tiruppur to Nagercoil, ie through madurai. I could only get a booking on the Kerala bound trains which travel throughout the length of Kerala and end up in Kanyakumari. The journey started at 23.15 hrs from Tiruppur on 13th January and it took almost 13 hours to get to Nagercoil.
After this long journey through beautiful locales of Kerala, I booked a room at Pioneer Paradise, a budget hotel at Tower Junction, the heart of Nagercoil town. That afternoon, we took a bus to Suchindrum temple(just 6 kms from Nagercoil town) and reached there around 4 pm. It is a very famous and old temple and it took around 1 hour to fully cover each little shrines inside. The main diety is opened for darshan around 5 pm in the afternoon session, and we had a good darshan along with lots of North Indian devotees. A temple guide also brought out the sounds from the musical pillars situated inside the main darshan hall. On the whole it was a fulfilling experience.
We came back to Nagercoil town around 6.30 pm and went straight to the famous Nagaraja temple which is right in the heart of the town, just in time for the evening puja. It is one of the famous landmarks of the town(I heard later that the town actually derives its name from the name of the temple). We had an excellent dinner at Ariya Bhavan, just opposite the Anna Bus stand.The food was very tasty and the prices too were not too high.On the way back to my room I made arrangements for the car to travel to the nearby places the next day.
January 15,2011
We started early the next day by our Ambassador Car (Tata Indica which I had wished was rarely seen in Nagercoil) and headed straight to Pechiparai Dam, which was a 55 km drive from Nagercoil. We took the Boothapandi route and the lush green fields and the towering ghats were a sight to behold early in the morning. We stopped enroute to have a closer look at the Rubber Estates and the freshly flowing white juices from the tree stems being collected in cups attached to the trees. We reached Pechiparai Dam at 10am and already there were crowds starting to build up. We were disappointed to know that there wasn’t any boat rides in the dam. We had to be satisfied at the sight of the reservoir filled to its brim. After a short stay at the dam, we headed straight to the famous Thirparappu Falls some 20 kms away. We reached the falls around 11.30 am and had a wonderful bath for almost 45 minutes. The exertions in the waterfalls had made both of us very hungry and we decided to have our lunch at a small hotel near the falls. We were lucky to get some Chicken biriyani and some fried fish, although the cost was a bit on the higher side for such a small place.
Our next stop was the Mathur Thottipalam(Mathur Canal bridge), half an hour drive from Thipparappu falls. This is a very interesting place, where you can see an almost 400 metre bridge constructed across a river, to transport water from one side to the other. The water flows through a roughly 3 feet pathway at the top of the bridge and there is a walkway alongside, where one cross the bridge on foot. The views from the top of the bridge of the surrounding greenery, are amazing. It is a must watch spot.
From Mathur, our next destination was the Padmanabhapuram Palace. But there was disappointment in store for us at the palace, which was locked because the Kerala government had declared a holiday to mourn the victims of the Sabarimala Stampede tragedy the day before. The palace though situated in Tamilnadu, is administered by the Kerala government and revenues from tourism is shared between the two states.
Our next stop was Kanyakumari to watch the sunset. But since we had some time in our hands because of the Padmanabhapuram Palace holiday, we took a detour before Kanyakumari to have a glimpse of Vattakottai fort, some 6 kms north of Kanyakumari. We reached there 20 minutes before the official closing time of 5 pm. And we were really very happy to have made it on time, to see this little known but wonderful place with stunning views of the sea from three sides of the fort. There was also a neat little beach adjoining the fort with a view of the windmills in the distance.
After this pleasant experience, we speeded towards Kanyakumari and reached Sunset Point at around 5.40pm. The whole town was crowded with thousands of Sabarimala devotees. I heard from the locals that even non-descript hotel rooms were going for 1500 to 2000 rupees for a 12 hour night stay. We were very glad that we were going to be at the town for just the Sunset. After watching the sunset, we came back to Nagercoil, had our dinner and returned to our hotel at around 8pm. The cab fare for the day’s travel was 1600 rupees(approximately 160 kms travel) which I thought was pretty reasonable.
16th January, 2011
Since my return journey was at 11 am from Nagercoil, I decided to do some purchases before that in the local garment shops and returned back to Tiruppur after another long journey of 13 h0urs(again through the extened Kerala route) .
Welcome aboard Venkatachalam. Very interesting and informative post and nice pictures, How long is Kanyakumari from Nagarcoil ? We are planning to visit Rameshwaram and Kanyakumari this year. Wel the narration and photographs were fantastic. Baby is so cute, what is her name?
Thanks,
Mukesh Bhalse
Hi Mukesh, thanks for the comments. Nagercoil is 18 kms from Kanyakumari, on the Trivandrum-Kanyakumari highway. It is the biggest town in Kanyakumari District.
Dear Venkatachalam,
I never heard about the “Nagercoil”, thanks for sharing the less explored place with us. It will be a great help for the follow Ghumakkar who are planning to visit Kanyakumari.
Thanks Venkatt for taking us to the lesser known parts of Tamil Nadu. And yes! Welcome to Ghumakkar.
Thanks Vibha. Will try my best to keep posting regular updates.
Hello sir. Nagercoil is my native place and very few people tired to explore its beauty. Though a sleepy town , the richness and abundance of resources in this place is expectional so proud to be a native from this town. Unlike other parts of Tamil Nadu you may find a varied culture and language adding uniqueness to it. Though an occasional visitor to my hometown (since I reside outside Nagercoil for studies) you bought back memories and made nostalgic! This place is still unheard and unseen by many and I m sure it’s none less than the God’s own country. Let the legacy of this place prosper by more travellers
Thank u Sir
Hi venki,
good post. I am from nagercoil and even I haven’t posted about it – shows how much i have been off ghumakkar lately. will try to catch up. Nagercoil is the Dt HQ of Kanyakumari district, the southern most district of the Country. Apart from pioneer paradise you also have Vijeyatha hotel and Hotal Rajam International. For better relaxation there are a number of 2 & 3 star hotels right on the beach overlooking the ocean at Kanyakumari (Cape). When we say Kanyakumari ppl normally associate it with the one beach but as shown in the post, there are many more places to visit.
Good photos venki. good post.
the other Patrick
I had a chance to visit nagalcoil on way from kanyakunari to bangalore way back in 1990.
I still remeber a very big bus stand in the heart of city(Compared to very dirty and small bus stands in mahrashtra)and i also remeber how i kept on walking to get bread and butter for my son and how i managed to get a sada dosa with dry chutney and how my family pounced on me for providing such a frugal meal.
The climax was that in the morning when we wnet to railway station we could get very good idlis and my son still remebers them.
Good write up and pics. Always interesting to read about Tamil Nadu’s many treasures.
Welcome aboard Venkatachalam.
I have also never heard of this place, looks like a better place to stay if one doesnt want to be amid the rush of Kanyakumari. I guess there is some mix-up in photos since I see the first photo repeated. We would have it fixed.
Look fwd to read more. Best Regards.
@ the other Patrick – You are right about being off-ghumakkar :-) Look fwd to read more about your stuff.
The mix-up has been fixed.
And the missing picture has been inserted.
hi,i’m from nagercoil.so happy u enjoyed a stay here.u have missed many other treasures of the state like maruthaval malai,it is few km from kanyakumari,kalikesam ,keeriparai.,every hill in kanyakumari dist is a tourist spot…….u have to be wild enough to explore it.For us locals kanyakumari is the most boring tourist spot.
Dear Sir
We want to go for two day trip to nagsrkoil kanyakumar and madurai. We plane to from salem on Friday night 09.00pm.
Any one can sujjes best place to visit and our tour plan for two day and cover fine places.
RavikumaR
Salem
Kindly suggest one trip from salem to nagarkoil
Assuming you are travelling by car, you will reach Nagercoil in the early hours of Saturday. I would suggest you to reach in time catch the sunrise at Kanyakumari. You can choose either Kanyakumari or Nagercoil as your base. Kanyakumari is generally very crowded during the weekends, so I would suggest Nagercoil as your stay. There are a lot of places worth visiting in this region as I had mentioned in the above post. In my opinion the must visit places are Mathur Hanging Bridge, Thirparappu falls and Padmanabhapuram Palace. If you are religiously inclined then you can try out the fabulous Suchindram temple. Vattaparai Fort in the evenings is a great spot. Two days I suspect, will be insufficient but all the best for a enjoyable trip.