Village story teller: Road trip - Paramakudi

Day Five – Wednesday – 600 kms – Madurai to Palani to Chennai

The next morning, we went to the famous Madurai temple and then headed out to Palani. We were keen to experience the ropeway there. But Madurai traffic was such a dampener that our frustration levels increased with every bottleneck. After an hour we were able to get on to a highway and had breakfast on the way before reaching Palani just after 10:30 am. The guy taking the toll at the temple, spoke nicely and told us that the parking was free and gave us directions to the parking lot. It was only later that I realised he took Rs 60 but gave us a Rs 50 receipt! The directions too were not the best and we had to find our way out of a couple of deadends before finding a place to park. The ropeway was closed and the winch train had a huge queue. We were told the fastest way was to take the steps. The steps were on the other side of the hill from where we parked. I remembered reading on some site that it was 150 meters. That should not be too hard, even for us who were on the right side of 50. But the steps were steep and we were exhausted after the first 100 meters. We ploughed on and soon passed the 200 meter mark with no sight of the temple yet. We lost count but I think it is around 300 meters with 40 steps for every 15 meters in height. At the top, we were told the temple was closed at 11:40. We were wondering what to do, when we noticed a counter selling tickets for a special darshan for Rs 100. He said we would make it, if we rushed. We got three tickets and rushed there and it was only 11:50 but he said it was closed. But there was something else available for Rs 150. So we took that and after a long prayer and puja, we came out after an hour. We walked down the stairs again and had coconut water, and fresh lime soda to hydrate ourselves before the marathon drive to Chennai. Lesson 6 – Know the temple timings. In Tamil Nadu, some temples close late mornings and early afternoons. It was already past 1:30 and we had around 400+ kms to cover to Chennai. The roads to Dindigul were not the best but were not bad either. But after that it, was a proper highway. The only thing we expected was the same number of hotels along the way, as we saw between Hosur and Madurai. But as lunch time crept past us, there were no good places to eat. We found a place to eat after 3:30 and still had 300 kms to go. We started after 4 and despite doing 140kmph stretches, we could only average 90 kmph. From Tindivanam we started seeing boards for Kumbakonam Degree Coffee. Around 100 km from Chennai traffic became increasingly heavy and slow. Chengleput and Guduvanchery were blocked and we were wondering if the outer ring road would serve us better to get to Porur. But we knew the Poonamalee High Road would be no better. So we took the bypass and got off at Porur. We did the 450+ kms, with the last 100 kms in heavy crawling traffic in around 7 and a half hours.

We spent the night at an OYO room which was surprisingly inexpensive and very comfortable and spacious. Then we decided to cancel both Tirupati and Kalahasti and head to a relatively lesser known place called Gandi, with an Anjenyaswamy temple next to a dried up river bed.

Weather – Cloudy and humid and hot. Yet weather Gods were still kind. Tolls – Rs 515