Monday Sep 21, 2009

Ride to Thirukazhukundram

Karthikeyan and me were on the third day of a 3 day weekend and we hadn't done anything. This was normally not my style so decided to take my pulsar for a road-trip. My earlier plan was to ride till Gingee hills about 150 kms south of Chennai and do little trekking there, but later went against that plan since Karthikeyan had to return earlier in the evening. Then it stuck me to visit the hill-top mountain of Thirukazhukundram which is about 70 kms south of Chennai. I had last been there 18 yrs back on a school field trip.

Me and Karthikeyan met up at Anna Nagar round-tana and decided to take the OMR (Old Mahabalipuram Road) on our onward journey. We hit the OMR at 11:00 a.m and went cruising on that road. We took a couple of stops to enquire the route to the temple and to buy ourselves gum and cold-drink. Riding on the road, we brushed past countless software firms. These companies are the main reason for Chennai's accelerated growth and subsequently price-hikes and dynamicity. I'm one among them too, so no complaining. It's ironical that the government claims that work on OMR is completed till Siruseri, but riding on this road makes one realise work is not even 50% complete, hope work expedites in the coming months. An hour later we reach SIPCOT the SEZ hosting the large software firms. Riding further it's the slew of apartment complexes along the road-side this time. Again it's ironical, these builders charge 40-50 lakh INR for a 2 BHK apartment about 30km outside of Chennai, crazy city I must say.

We had instructions to keep riding for 9 kms more to reach Thiruporur and take a right from there and then a km later take a left and that would take us to our destination. We didn't feel like it was the outskirts till the time we crossed Thiruporur. Suddenly we got the feeling we were riding amidst the forest's lonely lean road, occasionally some vehicles brushing our side. The road quality here was bad, so we had to slow down. We had to travel 19 kms on this road before we could finally see the temple at a distance. We were even stopped by a gang of rogue looking boys in this highway. We thought we were done, but the guys just demanded some contribution to their village temple and I obliged with a smile. We reached the temple footsteps at 12:50 pm. and parked our bike. We got instructions to reach the temple-top in 10 mins because the temple shuts at 1:00 pm sharp. Now we had to make our ascent ASAP. Karthikeyan seemed to climb effortlessly while I stuggled to complete the 400 odd steps in 10 minutes.

We managed to reach the dark hill-top temple at the nick of time and got the darshan of the Siva Lingam. Grabbed some prasadam, took pics of the monkeys around there and rested for a while before starting our descent. I was somehow amazed to see how unpopular and crowdless this temple was, may be they lacked the right kind of marketing, but then it's hard to find such traditional temples these days. We drank some fruit juice at the parking lot and began our ride back to Chennai. In all, it took us less than an hour to climb, pray and descend the hill. This time we took the ECR (East Coast Road) on our way back. ECR entry was 15 kms from this temple point and we covered this distance in short time, it was good roads too. Riding down the ECR was a cruise and we managed to reach our home at 4 pm, with just one break this time.

Routes:

Route-1: Mogappair - OMR (12km) - Siruseri (29km) - Thiruporur (9km) - Thirukazhukundram (20km)

Directions: Reach Madhya Kailash, ride on the OMR till Siruseri SIPCOT, ride further 9 km till Thiruporur take a right, ride for another 1 km, take the left and ride for 19 kms. Follow directions to reach the temple. (Approx time - 2 hours and Bad road beyond Thiruporur)

Route-2: Mogappair - Thiruvanmayur (15 km) - Mahabalipuram (30km) - Thirukazhukundram (15km)

Directions: Ride along the ECR till Mahabalipuram - Take the Pondicherry road instead of entering Mahabalipuram - Take the State Highway which is the second major right after crossing Mahabalipuram and follow directions to reach Thirukazhukundram. (Approx time - 2 hours and good roads)