South India Tour - Kanyakumari

3 June - Trivanthapurum and Kanyakumari  

No rush to get up today. Had idli again for breakfast and then vent for a little shopping. Visited “Kairali”, above the Triveni superstore. Got some really good handicraft stuff. Went back towards Padmanabhaswamy temple. We thought there was a handicraft market there but not really – it was just a general market. And then we went to SMSM Institute – amazing handicraft store. I found some beautiful hand crafted diaries made with handmade paper and painting made of gem stones. Exquisite. The other great buy here was the paper painting hanging. It was paintings inside paintings. Just amazing! Originally it is from Orissa.  

Sunset at Kanyakumari

Came back and left for Kanyakumari. Arrived at 5:30 pm. Got a nice big room in the railway station guest house. I love these guest houses – so convenient and most of them quite well kept. Went to see the sunset by the Gandhi memorial on the beach. Really lovely. The sunset point is obviously very popular – first the bus wala was calling out and then the beach was quite crowded. This sea was the Arabian Sea.  It was a beautiful sight – the beach, the coconut trees and the mountain ranges. 

We had gotten just in the nick of time to see the sunset. Lovely. After it, went shopping on the beach. The market was huge! Bought some shell stuff. Prices were really cheap. Had a different kind of dinner today – saag and naan. Sleep was little tough since there were too many mosquitos and I was sticky all over (one of the disadvantages of staying in railway guest houses, they may not always have AC rooms). 

4 June - Kanyakumari

Sunrise at Kanyakumari

Got up early, as we have to go and see the sunrise. Reached the sunrise point at 5:40 am. People were already there. Sunrise was at 6:02 and lasted just about 4 mins. Most beautiful. I would have needed a really good camera to capture the beautiful moments. 

Triveni Point - Papa and I

Had good breakfast and then went past the Kanyakumari temple to Triveni point where three oceans meet: the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal. Good point. But despite that being a good point, there was too much garbage around. Then we took the bus to go to Suchindrum temple. It was not far from Kanyakumari. The temple was designed just like a south Indian temple. Surprisingly this time Bhaiya went in! The visit was nice. Pretty temple but cannot take pictures inside – why? Who knows? I just don’t like the priests anywhere. They make their own rules for no good reason. 

Got back to Kanyakumari and then bought tickets to go and see the Vivekanand memorial. We could not take a bag so somehow we had to manage. All these rules in India just drive me crazy! A ferry ride would take us to the memorial. Everywhere was dirty, even the waiting area. The ferry was really crowded and on time. The ferry made a stop at Tiruvelu statue, a great poet.  We stopped there for a few minutes and then we were dropped off at the Vivekanand memorial. 

Tiruvelu Statue - majestic!

We listened a little bit to the story of Kanyakumari and then started touring the memorial. It is a beautiful building of white and black stone (or marble?). There was an 8 ft. statue of Vivekanand and a smaller one of his guru, Paramhansa. Enjoyed the scenery and the breeze. Time to go back. Had lunch and then went to the reservations office to make reservation for future travels.  

Vivekanand Memorial

India has no sense of personal space. By the time Bhaiya reached the counter to buy tickets he was surrounded by people like bees! I cannot imagine a woman in that position. We got everything set and packed up. Took the train to Madurai. Reached Madurai by 10:30 pm. Checked into New College House.  I don’t care for all these places Bhaiya is selecting to stay in. Some of them are not all that clean. Went off for dinner and came back to sleep. It was noisy….but we were tired.