Plenty of valuable suggestions from Sridhar and Gokul- They'll help us enjoy the tour, definitely. I've tried to incorporate them into the existing itinerary.
A few more suggestions from my side: let's keep gold/silver ornaments at a minimum, shall we? One of my aunts once wore a diamond earring to a trip, and promptly lost it.
If any of the people participating in the tour have relations/friends residing in the area we're going to tour, please collect their addresses and Telephone numbers for any kind of emergency.
ROUTE-MAP FOR PS TRIP:
JOURNEY: Follow NH (National Highway) 45 via Tambaram, Madurantakam, Dindivanam- Vikkiravandi. At Vikkiravandi, turn from NH to State Highway (SH), pass through Panrutti(over Kedila nathi), Kadampuliyur (which is probably Kadambur), Viranam Eri. On the way, we pass thru Gangaikonda cholapuram, which lies a bit away from the road. Cross Kollidam, Thirupanandal, down to Kumbakonam. Reach Kudanthai by 5 in the morning. (Rooms will have to be booked).
FEBRUARY 7th (Friday) morning- start roughly at 7 AM (after breakfast):
Tour around Kudanthai. Darasuram, Pazhayaarai are near enough. Someone in the group mentioned that the Padai veedus still existed. These places are directly connected with PS- other places like Patteeswaram etc. aren't. [To be decided - are we visiting those places too?]
Lunch at Kudanthai.
Visit Gangaikonda Cholapuram (Since we'd have passed it at night), other places inside Kudanthai, till dinner. Night halt with dinner at Kumbakonam.
FEBRUARY 8th (Saturday) morning - start early (say, 7 AM or earlier)
Breakfast parceled at Kudanthai, which would be better eaten on the way, since a halt would consume time. On towards Nagappatinam, we 2 options:
1. Come down south about 24 Kms from Kudanthai, towards Nida mangalam, turn east towards Thiruvaarur, onto Nagai. (or)
2. Go to Nannilam, and from there to Thiruvarur and then to Nagai(roughly 60 kms, totally). (We'll have to ask the best option there from the locals).
Reaching Nagai before 10 AM, we could look through the Sivan koil and Vishnu Koil there. I'll add here Gokul's suggestion about Chudaamani Viharam. "...Choodamani viharam survived till 15th century - quite amazing - but succumbed to some Jesuist missionary construction in early 16th century. This info is in KA Neelakanda Sastri's "The Cholas" book. You might still be able to enquire about the vihara in the local museum and see if anything interesting comes up."
Get lunch at Nagai, and start down south towards Kodikarai, a distance of 55 kms. Arrive at roughly 3 PM, and leave towards Vedaranyam at 4 PM (we'll *have* to pass thru Vedaranyam, as per the map). I believe there's a Sivan koil there. Sridhar remarked that "...The return Kodikarai to thanjavur will take you quite some time due to the condition of the roads."
Therefore, we'll have to leave at roughly 4:30 PM (an hour earlier than before)from Vedaranyam. We could turn west,toward Tagattur, Muthupettai, on Thanjavur arrives. (As per map,Pattukottai- Thanjavur -47 kms.)Roughly, the total distance between Vedaranyam and Thanjai would come to 105 kms.
Night halt, dinner at Thanjavur. (we may reach there by 9 PM, I think).
FEBRUARY 9th (Sunday)morning after breakfast:
Thanjavur Periya Koil (this is sure to consume quite some time).
Regarding the Serfoji palaces- they have no connection with PS, since they were built by the Marathas- but still, they're definitely of historical interest. We could visit those too, I think.
Lunch at Thanjai. Say we leave Thanjai around 3 PM.
Sridhar has mentioned that there's nothing of interest regarding Vallam-so a pretty short distance(10 kms or so), so we might catch that. After seeing Thiruvaiyaaru (around 4:30 PM), we've got two options, again:
1. Reach Kil Pazhuvur, which is a distance of 29 kms from Thiruvauyaaru, en route to Ariyalur. As per Gokul's words, "...there are very beautiful ancient chola temples located here - called Avani Ghandharpa Isvaram. These are 2 different villages today...". According to my estimation, we might reach Kil Pazhuvur around 5:30 PM. Spend some time there, and start off towards Ariyalur (12 kms). In which case, we can have dinner at Ariyalur.(roughly 8 PM).
Start from Ariyalur and move towards Perambalur (27 kms)- join NH 45 at that point, and proceed towards Chennai as before, via Thozhuthur, Ulundurpet straight back to Chennai, which might be sometime around monday morning.
2. If, on the other hand, roads are very bad, and we take a long time to simply reach Pazhuvur, we can skip it altogether and proceed straight to join NH 45 at Perambalur (before dark). We'll proceed to Chennai via NH 45.
Kamalakkannan, Sathya, et al...your suggestions are needed here. Do please get back to the group with your input. Once we decide the final route map, I'll draw a fresh map that incorporates all our ideas.
Again, if there're any errors, bear with me. Lets pool our suggestions and if anyone has alternatives, we'll share them.
Inviting Madan would be a great idea. He is a well informed deud. Though not with Vikatan any more, he has lot of clout in the publishing industry. He is a well informed guy and (y)our trip can greatly benifit from him.
The maratha palaces arent that much because most of it is taken up by the administrative offices and schools.HOWEVER THE SARASWATHI MAHAL IN THE PALACE COMPLEX IS WORTH A VISIT iTS A VERY LARGE LIBRARY.
Pavithra's plan is fine and accomodates almost all the places within the available time period. Good work! Pavithra.
Thanks to Anusha for her willingness to help us.
The plan is somehow still abstract. To make it concrete, we need to break down the work into activities and assign responsibilities to all.
The main activities will be
- arranging the transportation..
two of us can take up this and enquire the travel agencies and go for a good deal..
- arranging for the stay in kumbakonam and tanjore..
we need to decide about the place/hotel. People who have been in these places(Anusha and Ram, please) can suggest us some good hotels for the stay. pavithra and subbulakshmi also must be knowing(being in Srirangam).. please suggest..
- arranging food and snacks
two persons can take responsibility of arranging the food and snack throghout the trip. we can have the food expenses also as part of the trip expenses and divide among ourself, instead of each one paying for their own..
- other miscelleneous
the other expenses like entry fees and special fees in some temples and tolls can be taken care by one person..
- deciding boarding point
all except subbulakshmi are boarding at Chennai. We need to know where exactly in chennai each one wants to board. Or else we can fix up a place and ask all of them to come there at a specific time.
Since Subbulakshmi has preferred to board at Tanjore/Srirangam and as per plan we go there at the end of the second day only, Subbulakshmi if possible can join us in Kumbakonam. Subbulakshmi, please do let us know about ur convenience.
- money handling
we will dtaft a rough estimation of expenses and collect money from all.. Somebody has to take up the Cashier role and maintain the invoices..
To discuss and decide about the roles and responsibilites of individual during the trip, we can have another chat session. The Muthal Yathirai Parivarangal, based on your convenience decide about the timings and try to log on to the chat room without fail and make the plan concrete..
I'm glad you approve of the plan...is it agreed that this is the finalised route map? If so, I shall have to draw up the changed version of the map (please delete the older one).
Any suggestions, please share them. If not, I shall post the revised map tomorrow.
I've got a book on Chola temples (discussing the Periya Koil, the temple at Darasuram, and Gangaikonda cholapuram in detail)...and I've decided to xerox the whole thing for tour purposes.