I'm back after a much needed, highly rejuvenating, extremely fun-tastic road trip with my hubby!
Location : Chennai --> Pondy --> Gangaikondacholapuram(henceforth referred to as GCK)-->Kumbakonam-->Thanjavur--> Pondy--> Chennai!
We left at 5 am on Saturday morning(both of us shot out of beds like bunnies, it was so cute!). We headed straight to Pondy - the drive was beautiful and we had some lovely music playing in the background as well. Orey the romance only! :P
We were there around 7ish, gobbled down some breakfast and hit the road again. We reached GCK around 11:30 - For my ignorant friends, GCK has the replica of the "Big Temple" at Thanjavur and it is now a world heritage monument. The temple was beautiful - it was huge, clean, quiet and had some brillant architecture. We walked around in the heat, K was busy taking his snaps, he didn't even come into the temple - I was on my own, I climbed the walls, monkeyed around like a little kid, K caught me on camera as well! :P
It was time to move onto the next location - Kumbakonam. I've never been to this place as well and for some weird reason I've always thought it was a place full of Brahmin priests and only temples. So quite naturally I was shocked to find a whole bunch of Muslims and mosques!! No kidding! All said and done, Kumbi(as I affectionately refer to it post our trip) was simply superb! It was full of pretty looking temples, the people were extremely welcoming and hospitable, the food was outta this world, the weather was just perfect! We checked into our hotel around 2ish, had lunch and rested a bit - We then set out to a nearby place called "Dharasuram" - again a small temple, with nice architecture and a beautiful garden surrounding it. I posed, K clicked pictures and we had a blast! The next destination was "Swamimalai", a small beautiful temple on the banks of the Kaveri, in a small hill. Was a very pretty place. It was a temple dedicated to Murugan and we had to do some small puja in there per my FIL's orders. We then headed back to the hotel and took a small walk by the temple tank - was very peaceful.
Next day, we woke up late, ate a lazy breakfast and decided to set out to a proper temple whereby we had to do a proper puja again per FIL's orders. It was crowded and hot and both K and I were pissed off! lol. We ran outta there as soon as we could, came back to the hotel and lazed around. The plan for the evening was to drive to Thanjavur. The drive to Thanjavur from Kumbi was real fun - the road was curvy and it was great fun especially at times when K would zip across the road like we owned it! One thing I realized this trip was that K was a brillant driver - I was so proud of the way he drove, very responsible, very safe even when he was doing a 140! Those who came in his way at the wrong time couldn't get away easily! He would hunt them down it was lots of fun sitting next to him! Drama King, I'd say! :P
We reached Thanjavur around 5ish - I just gaped with my mouth wide open - the Big Temple was BIG! It was HUGE! And so BEAUTIFUL! K has some amazing pictures - will post them once he works on it -but seriously though, I felt stupid for not having seen such a beautiful monument before this. A must see for all Indians, I'd say. Again a world heritage monument, it was similar to the temple at GCK - except that it was bigger, noisier, dirtier and had hordes of people! I still liked this one better unlike K. The sun was slowly setting and it presented a very pretty picture - Again, K clicked his snaps, I walked and walked and walked, he gave me some gyan about the temple, showed me interesting sights to see etc etc. Good fun!
Before I knew it, it was getting darker and it was time to go :-( He drove me to a spot in town from where we could get a lovely view of the magnificent temple - Aahh. Very nice :-) We then drove back to Kumbi and I was getting sad that the trip was coming to an end. We ordered in lots of food, watched some TV, relaxed and were in delirium :-) Left to Pondy next day around 11ish after breakfast, snacked at Rendezvous in Pondy, it was nice to go back there after a long time, the place was still quite nice and we promised to go back there sometime for a weekend! We drove by the beach and headed back to Chennai. Waahh! It wasn't enough. Like any other trip, I hated going back, thinking of all the work there is to be done, thinking of going to work the next day.. Waaahh! I hated it!
Small things that made me very happy in this trip --
--Watching the Kaveri river up close especially during sunsets - was tres jolie! There was so much water in there, I am thinking what the hell are people complaining about!
-- The lovely winding roads on our drive - I must say I'm impressed. I thought the roads would be terrible, but I was soo wrong. Most places it was a pleasure driving aka zipping across!
-- Nice weather - Pretty decent for this time of year I'd say!
-- Sitting as close as possible to K in the gypsy for more than 9 hours each day, - Blissful. I've been dying to do a road trip with him and it finally happened! Couldn't have asked for anything more :-)
-- Getting to pose for pictures - Yep. I'm still quite shameless about it ;-)
-- Driving the gypsy! Yaayy! Even if it was for about 30 minutes, I still did it! Thanks K! :)
Things I didn't like
-- I couldn't find my own camera, I love to take pics when I'm in the car and I felt so bad I couldn't find it!
-- Coming back to Chennai, I didn't wanna.... I wanted to stay on there, just like how it was just the two of us together always, no parents, no in laws, no cooking, no cleaning, no squabbling, no arguing, no working... no nothing!
I'm already planning our next trip, but looks like it will be a while before the next one though :-(
Pictures from this trip will follow soon, all depends on K!
Thank you K for planning this entire thing out so well, you're the bestest, I couldn't have asked for anything more! Muah! =)
