TN Trip - Day 2 & 3

Day two started early with us getting up early and heading to Poompuhar to catch sunrise. It is a historic port town which figures prominently in Silapadhikaram - a ancient tamil epic. River Cauvery also flows into the sea at this place. In reality, Poompuhar was a disappointment. The beach was dirty. There was not enough water in Cauvery to flow into the sea. It was just stagnant like a lake. Only saving grace was catching the sunrise. We came back to hotel, got ready and had breakfast and headed to Tarangambadi a.k.a Tranquebar. Now this is another place with a History. Most of us know French (Pondy) and Portugese (Goa) held parts of India in addition to the British. In addition to them, even the Danes had a small strip of India during the 1700s before they sold it to British for 10000 pounds as they could no longer maintain it. As they could not pronounce Tarangambadi, it became Tranquebar. They had built a nice small fort along the beach. Right opposite to that was the Danish governer's bungalow, which is now a hotel called Bungalow on the Beach. We didn't go inside, but it looked very nice. Reading from the happenings during that time, it is clear that corruption was rampant even even during that time. Next we headed towards Kumbakonam, a famous temple town which also happens to be the hometown of my Parents. There were a lot of temples in the town, but we visited swamimalai and dharasuram. The dharasuram temple was grand and impressive. It was like a fort. This temple also didn't have much crowd and I seem to like those temples. After that we had our lunch and headed towards Tanjore. Upon reaching, we checked into the hotel and after refreshing ourselves went to the Big Temple. It was really Big, Grand and Magnificient. No wonder people are still wondering and speculating how it was built and specifically how the huge boulder was taken to the top.
Day three - We had breakfast and started to Trichy. Our agenda was to see Rockfort and Srirangam and head back to Chennai. First we went to a place that looked like Rockfort, but it was not. We then went to the actual Rockfort, walked up the steps to the temple at the top. Then we had lunch and after a brief shopping stopover, we headed to Srirangam. The main temple areas was closed at that time, but we were still able to go in and walk around and see the sculptures and architecture. It was time to start back to Chennai. We took the National Highway to Chennai and with thye roads being good and car maintaining steady 3 digit speeds we reached Chennai late in the evening. Overall it was a very good trip. Was able to see many peoples otherwise I may have never seen.