Butterflies in the tummy…. Excitement in the eyes, I looked forward to the weekend… Friday night had us( me and my travel crazy friend S) talking about Tranquebar, and wanting to explore a few of the places around Chidambaram.
It was all set… we had decided to take the bus from CMBT around 11 sat morning and make our way to Chidambaram and take it from there.. Had gathered a bit of info about Tranquebar from a travel guy, so we were confident it shouldn’t be too difficult. Armed with the info from email, a copy of the map of TN and the Chidambaram area, we reached the bus stand around 10.45… hopped on a bus headed to Chidambaram, not deluxe, not ac, but it sure had a TV that screened two interesting movies.

Day 1

Saturday – 28th June

Settled into our seats, grabbed a bottle of water and some eats, we got ready for the journey. In a few mins, the bus left the stand and we were finally on our way. Through the 4 and half hour journey, we saw Sadhu Miranda and Anjaathe; S and i chit chatted loads, enjoyed the beautiful sights enroute and could feel excitement build as we reached Chidambaram… it was 4.45pm

Hopped across the road, Hotel Saradharam, booked ourselves into the only room available, and went over to their restaurant to catch a bite to eat [we’d been starving since morning]… after digging into a plate of warm sambar vada and hot masala dosa, we headed off to freshen up in our room. It was quite nice… two beds, a TV, clean loo (very important)…

Around 5.45, got out, to the auto stand, and had a conversation with the auto drivers on where we could go then… finally zoomed off to pottery village, Kumarmangalam. Enroute we discovered Pichavaram was also close by, so got the auto to turn around and hit the road…

The mangroves neatly lined against the water… the river seeming to flow forever were all breath taking… Even though boating had closed, we walked up the winding tower to catch a glimpse of what the place was all about. You will lose yourself standing there; the view is mind blowing… The sheer expanse the whole area, the way the river winds into the ocean and the mangroves stretching across miles was awesome… Something I can’t quite put in words. Took plenty of pics, and spent some time taking it all in. there is boating, across the river(1hr), and another where you can take a ride to the ocean(4hrs in all).. There are quite a number of bird species there as well. To think, these mangroves can prevent tsunami makes us look at them with a whole newfound respect.[pic from net to show the true beauty of the place]

As we were walking away, 3 girls came running towards us, the tiniest one coming to ask if we wanted a glass of mor (buttermilk)… At Rs2 per cup, she sells about 10-15 over the weekend… Accompanied with 2friends, she said they came to Pichavaram every weekend with Rs40 worth of mor and sold whatever they could. She was all of 4yrs old and from a neighbouring village, we dropped her off half way thru, and the girls said they will take her home from there…All the way on the auto, S and i couldnt help feel so overwhelmed at the kid, who at this small age was going across 7kms every weekend just so she can earn some money and give her mom…

On the way back to Chidambaram, the auto guy took us around to the Aiyappan temple and around the Annamalai University[what a huge campus]

It was nearly 8pm, we retired for the day, went to our room, unwounded a bit over TV and talking about what to do the next day!!

Day 2 shall continue in another post…