A great coastal road trip

 We closed the  year gone by with a great road trip  and crossing out many items off our  bucket list.  After many deliberations of what to do, where to go, how to go , we decided to travel down and camp at our uncle’s place in Neyveli a mining and power generation township. This was a  final opportunity(?) for us to camp at Neyveli since our uncle would be retiring this Jan 31^st  and as visitors we would never have access this town again. We decided to make this our centre and travel to Tranquebar, Thanjavur and the chettinad region.

 We gave the flights a miss, rested the trains but we took a  comfortable sleeper Volvo  bus  journey to Chennai since we would not be returning as a family. The hubby was to end his vacation with his college alumni meet at Yelagiri a hill station close to vellore,  while we decided to return for the new year party @Hyd. So, we did not take our car,  from Chennai we took SIL’s Spark and tested its endurance on The east coat road till Tranqebar via ECR through Pondicherry.   

Some of the places we visited were on my wish list for long like in the photos below. Will make a detailed post about them in leisure.( click on the photos to feel the place)

A 15 day Punjabi fest was on @ Dakshin chitra

A typical tamil brahmin community row homes called agraharam in Dakshin chitra, there are many such homes like that of karnataka, AP and kerala along with homes of potters, weavers. Will share them with photos. This is a mini heritage village showcasing arts, crafts and architecture. Watched in awe and wonderment by foreign tourist. A must visit.

On the East cost road(ECR) - a fishing hamlet where we stopped by for sometime to click photos and enjoy the mid morning sea waves( around 8), we enjoyed interacting here with a fisherman's son. Will share that too.

 Enroute Mahabalipuram, on the ECR, there are many craftsmen sculpting stone crafts like these. Infact, Mahabalipuram has many such artisans some are trained through their family, some learn it at arts college. This stone art  too deserves a separate post from me.

The shore temple as seen from the viewing gallery of the light house. Don't miss the difference between sky blue and seablue.

  From Mahabalipuram as we drove towards Pondicherry on the ECR, we took a detour of 1.5 kms to experience rural life at Kadampadi rural tourism village.

 The neyveli lignite mines which i was planning for the last 16 years happened this time. We went to the thermal plant too. Lots of lives are lost in the mines and at thermal plants while generating electricity. While here, our  mama said " We loose lives and after a lot of hard work generate a unit of power, while you people simply leave the switches on even when not in use".

 This is the home of the great mathmatician Srinivas Ramnujam @ kumbakonam, which is now beautifully maintained as a international monument by SASTRA university. We could not click the interiors since we needed the permission of the university. The window you see was the window through which ramunajam sat often while the platform in the forefront was where he solved many mathematical problems. Glad to have visited it in the same year which celebrated his 125th birth anniversary(2012)

The rear end of Dansborg Castle at Trankbar(Dutch)/ Tranqebar( English). This place was gifted to the Dutch in the 16th century and so this is a 16th century monuments. this place attracts lot of european visitors especially, the dutch and the french.

The front  view from the beach

 Tranqebar is called Tarangambadi in tamil meaning the land of singing waves. but the day we visited the waves were lashing and the beach winds were fierce as evident from the coconut glades. The winds were fierce to push my heavy frame too. Incidentally it was exactly 8 years and 3 days after the great Tsunami struck.

the landing where the dutch loaded their goods and the brick pier leading to the fort on the shore. India traded pepper with the Dutch.

The masilamani nathar kovil( shiv temple) parallel to the Dutch fort. The priest of the temple hugged the shivling the day Tsunami struck and held on to it till the water receded. The same priest did the puja the day we visited. The rear end of the temple.

The interiors of the Neemrana hotel on the Beach where many tourists stay. This group projects its heritage hotels as 'non-hotel' hotel and is beautifully perched on the shores of the beach and is called "the house on the beach".

 Each of these places deserves a separate post from me.

 Glad to have made many beautiful personal memories in 2012 and crossed off many items 

of my bucket list and my bucket isn’t empty. There is still a wealth of things , events,

activities, experiences and memories to make. 

Hoping for a great year ahead, while wishing all who pass my blog a great year. God bless you all.

                      With prayers to God for a better peaceful world. 

(havn't added The thanjavur photos. will eta)