towards rameswaram

We started for Rameswaram at about 2.30 or so... i think, in the afternoon,after having our lunch. We were a party of seven adults and that included the driver of the qualis,sundaram,.. a slim fair middle aged man of few words,or it might be because, he could not speak telugu fluently, though he could understand it quite well.Ofcource there were srinivas "s srujana and jyotsna..both under 10 years of age .Rameswaram is 170 km away from madurai,..sundaram told us,,it could take almost two and half to three hours of driving, allowing for stopovers for tea, coffee etc,so we could hope to reach it around 5 .30 in the evening.... and because it was summer, a lot of time would be there for local visits.


The road to rameswaram runs along , almost parallel to , the vaigai, as it flows towards sea,..though "flow" is a wrong word to use here.It was never more than a stream, sometimes just a trickle, and sometimes not even that.
There were few banana plantations about,i observed,and not too many fields,..this area or atleast most of it belongs to Ramnad district,i believe, and is a or one of the most backward districts of tamilnad , infact i remember reading somewhere,that in early seventies when a famine of sorts broke out ,this district had borne the brunt of it, driving some unfortunate people even to eating leaves and earth.
wWll, now it looked quite normal,the soil giving in to sandy stretches once we passed the towns of Manamadurai, and Ramanathapuram,the vegetation now is,more coconuts and casuarina groves.,air turning slightly sultry.


Rameswaram, is actually an island (the bridge at dhanushkodi being washed away in to the sea) and you cross the sea over the pamban bridge to enter the island.Sundaram stopped the qualis here on the bridge for sometime, allowing us to stretch our, cramped legs, get down to take a look and it was so lovely...The emerald green sea extending endlessly on the right side,and to the right again stretching up to horizon, but now cut intermittently by some small islets here and there.One had to see the faces of the children..they were going mad at the sight of all that sea and beaming from ear to ear(poor kids...those of us ,inland people only know what it is look at the wonder of the nature that is sea.)We spent sometime here..enjoying the heavy breeze as it knocked us back,looking over the railings at the sea ,as it spr ayed us playfully... Later we had to cajole the kids into the qualis,they refused to leave the place.


From ,pamban bridge it was at the most a twenty minutes drive to Rameswaram, and as we drove in i had a strong sense of deja vu,and for one moment thought i was back at Bandar,.worse..not even Bandar..i thought i was in Pedana or Chilakalapudi,,,,well ...the scene was just like that....... old tiled houses in urgent need of repair,..quaint little houses looking like they just were formed that way..never been planned,..wide pillared buildings that seemed to be sinking into the earth,...coconut trees,standing stubbornly high into the air,..narrow dusty streets with open drains,and neatly drawn rangolis just by their side, and when you come past all this,to the end of the land ,stood the mammoth temple with its long prakaram ,massive towers going up in the air, facing away from us (,it has a gateway at the back too)
and brooding over the sprawling sea.Large and sombre though it was, the temple was quite lively inside however,with a constant namahsivayah, chanting, the usual hawkers peddling their wares ,people floating through,. thronging the streets.
Amidst this we looked about and checked into Hotel Saravana,the only hotel with a sea view.. as its name board boasted.

Check this link....You will have literally gone through the whole journey....
http://sss.vn.ua/india/tamilnadu/rameshwaram/indexen.htm