Temples around Nagercoil

Trip Plan

Trip members: Karthik, Sanjeev

Trip date:  31 Aug - 1 Sep 2024

Trip Plan : Chennai - Nagercoil - Thiruvattaru - Chengal - Kanyakumari - Suchindram - Nagercoil- Thirparapu - Nagercoil - Chennai

The plan was to visit couple of 108 Divya Desam temples in and around Nagercoil and extended it to a complete 2 day trip covering few more popular temples and tourist spots.

Started by Anantapuri express and reached Nagercoil Town station around 8 AM. 

Day-1

Weather at Nagercoil welcomed us with great delight - mild rains, grey clouds, lush green hills and chill winds - a great start to the trip!

Reached Sanjeev's house to refresh and we started with a breakfast at Hotel Aaryas. Our first objective was to visit the Thiruvattaru temple, the longest distance of the whole plan first.

Thiruvattaru Adikesava Perumal Temple

The temple is located 25 kms from Nagercoil town and around 8 kms from Marthandam. One of the 108 Divya Desam temples, Lord Sri Adi Kesava Perumal is a massive 22 feet long in Bhujanga Sayanam and to be worshipped across 3 parts of feet, body (navel) and face through three different doors. This is alike Srirangam and Padmanabhaswamy temples. The temple is surrounded by 3 rivers and one has to climb 18 steps to reach the first prakaram of the temple. The temple timings are 4:30 am – 11:00 am; 5:00 pm – 8:00 pm. The temple has ample parking space and rest rooms.

We visited the temple at 10:45 and it was almost closing time. Next, we visited one of our colleague's place to collect some honey and then proceeded to a popular Mahadeva temple.

Chenkal Mahadeva Temple

Chenkal is 25 kms from Thirvattaru enroute to Trivandrum. The Chenkal Maheswaram Sri Sivaparvathi Temple is one of the tallest Shiva Linga in India. The Shivalingam is at a record height of 111.2 feet, and also built with 8 floors inside. One has to buy a ticket to visit these floors for Rs.150 per person. Each floor is dedicated to each of the energy centers of human body - Muladharam, Svadhistanam, Manipuragam, Anahatam, Vishuddhi, Angya and Shashrara.

The temple is said to be built with water, sand and soil from various holy places like Kashi, Rishikesh, Gangotri, Rameswaram, Danushkodi, Badrinath, Gomukh, and Kailash were also mixed with the construction materials.

Reaching Kanyakumari

We came out of the temple around 1 PM and going back to Nagercoil could be waste of time. We planned to visit temples in Kanyakumari area and drive towards Madaikadu Bagavathi amman temple. The curvy roads and sea view at times made it an interesting drive and reached the place by 2:45 PM. The temple was suppose to be open only by 5 PM and we planned to have lunch. We had lunch at a veg restaurant - around 5-6 kms from Madaikadu at Hotel Venkateswara Bhavan and Thingal Market.

The drive all the way in this area is very exciting and the views are refreshing.

Post lunch, we drive towards Kanyakumari and reached the Kanya Bagavathy Amman temple around 4:45 PM. We spent few mins in the temple and cherished the divine blessings of the Balambika. The temple timings are 6:00 am – 11:00 pm and 4:00 pm – 8:00 pm.

We then spent some time seeing the views from Kanyakumari beach of Vivekananda Rock and Thiruvalluvar statue and walked back to the car.

Chothavilai beach 

We drove down to Chothavilai beach for the Sunset view. Chothavilai beach is around 9-10 kms from the main tourist area of Kanyakumari. The beach is very scenic and beautiful, given its elevated sands and the lengthy coast line view. Truly a not so crowded beach and we sat down and relaxed for some time enjoying the sunset view.

Around 6:30 PM, we decided the return and stopped at Suchindram.

Thanumalayan Temple

Thanumalayan Temple at Suchindram is a big temple in the district and very popular. The main deity at the temple is the trinity of Lord Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva together. There are separate main sanctums for Lord Shiva as Lingam and Lord Vishnu as Perumal apart from almost 30+ sanctums around the prakaram including a very tall Anjenayar.

The day we went to the temple was very aspicious - Sani Pradhosham and it was crowded with thousands of devotees - almost all of the locals around were in the temple. We spent time going around the temple and visited the surrounding sanctums and seeking blessings from the Urchavar who was going around the inner prakaram. The temple was decorated with so many lamps and it looked absolutely stunning and divine.

We spent around 30-40 mins and decided to come back the next day to see the moolavars as the the presiding deity of utsavars were still being carried around and celebrated.

We returned back home, had dinner and hit the bed really tired.

Day-2

This day was actually suppose to be light, but the day being Ayilya natchatra was special for Lord Adishesha.

Nagaraja Temple

We were in Nagercoil and what better than visiting the Nagaraja Temple on his birth star day!

We were urged to goto the temple by 4 AM so as we complete the dharshan well before massive swelling of the crowd from around Nagercoil. We obliged and reached the temple around 04:30 AM. We joined the dharshan queue and had a fantastic dharshan of Nagaraja, Lord Ananthakrishna and Lord Shiva - the three important sanctums. We were fortunate to come out by 5 AM, by which massive crowds starting making to the temple.

The temple timings are 4:30 am – 12:00 pm and 5:00 pm – 8:00 pm.

We had couple of more temples to visit apart from the pending Suchindram temple. The first one was to visit one of the two Divya Desam temples as per the actual trip plan - Thirupathisaaram.

We also very blessed to see a beautiful sunrise!

Thirupathisaaram Temple

Thirupathisaaram Temple is one of the 108 Divya Desams and hosts Lord Vishnu as Sri Kuralappa Perumal / Thiru Vazh Marban. The temple is around 7-8 kms from Nagercoil.

The main diety is of 9 ft tall and made of stone, lime, jaggery and mustard (Kadu Sarkarai Yogam). This is also the birth place of Nammalvar's mother. Perumal is called so as Goddess Lakshmi lives in the chest of Lord Vishnu. The temple timings are 4:30 am – 12:30 pm; 5:00 pm – 8:00 pm.

Suchindram again

After a great dharshan at Divya Desam temple, we visited the Suchindram temple again. This temple, void of almost any sort of crowd, we visited every sanctum and leisure and had a great dharshan. The temple timings at Suchindram are 5:00 am – 12:00 pm; 4:30 pm – 9:00 pm.

We then had breakfast in Hotel Aaryas in Nagercoil and planned to go to Kumarcoil.

Kumaracoil

Kumaracoil is a very ancient temple hosting Lord Subramanya. The temple is approachable from Nagercoil at a distance of 10-11 kms. There are around 40 steps to climb and reach the main temple. The place is also called Veelimalai. Here, Lord Muruga is in the form of married with Valli.

The beautiful 10 foot Murugan in Valli Kalyana Kolam is stunning to see and one cannot resist to see more than one time. The place is popular for offering hair, first food for new borns and many more prosperous moments in life and seek his blessings. The temple was slightly crowded given that it was Sunday, yet, we had great dharshan.

Having exhausted all our list of temples, we decided to give it a shot to visit the very popular waterfalls in the district - Thirparapu.

Thirparappu Waterfalls

Thirparappu Waterfalls is actually closer to Thiruvattaru, and we skipped on Saturday as we were visiting multiple temples. This waterfalls is around 28 kms from Nagercoil and was a 45 min drive for us from Kumaracoil.

This is cascading waterfall from the surplus of river Khodaiyaru. There is an entry ticket to entry to waterfalls area. The waterfall was at its fullest best to take bath. Even a little more water would not let tourists take a bath. We used the locker facility to keep our belongings and got into the water.

We spent close to 20-25 mins in the water and had amazing time. There was not much crowd and it was indeed a great experience in the waters. We started our journey back to Nagercoil - stopped inbetween and tasted the very famous Nungu Sarbath.

We also bought lot of local snacks - Nendram chips, chakkai (pala) chips, Mudiri kothu, thattai and the native fruit - Matti palam. We returned back to Chennai by the Kanyakumarai Express around 18:20 PM.