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Friday, March 25, 2016

Trip to Sabaimalai and Guruvayoor

Trip members: Karthik, Sankar, Murugan and others
Trip date: 17,18,19, 20 Mar 2016
Trip Plan : Chennai - Chengannur - Pamba - Sabarimalai - Chengannur- Trissur - Guruvayoor - Trissur - Chennai

A regular trip of Sabarimalai for anyone and nothing different in this blog. Just blogging as a reference in my travelogue.

Day-1

We were 6 people and had planned the spiritual trip in ample time. The plan was to visit Sabarimalai and Guruvayoor. We had train tickets booked across Chennai-Chengannur, Chengannur-Trissur and Trissur-Chennai segments.

We reached Chengannur by 5 AM in the morning and took a pre-booked cab to Pamba. Pamba is 88 kms from Chengannur railway station. We stopped for breakfast on the way in a small shop around 6:45 and had hot idlies and kal dosas with sambhar and chutney. The food was very yummy and satisfactory. We reached Pamba by 8:00. Compared to regular Nov-Dec-Jan season, the crowd is not even 1%. We could see the river as such and take bath at wish.

Pamba river
Shed at Pamba river...
By 8:30, we started the walk on the Kazuthai pathai and reached Sannithaanam by 10:00. There were hardly few hundreds of people and to great satisfaction we climbed the 18-Steps touching each step and telling Saranam.

Pathinettam Padi - no people !!!
Basma Kulam
Sannidhanam place
Agni Kundam
Unfortunately, Nei Abhisekam was closed by 09:30 itself owing to someone contributing Diamond Kreedom. Guided by our Gurusamy, we reached out to Melshanthi to share our ghee for next day Nei Abhishekam and get some Nei Prasadham from him. It worked out. We did have 4-5 rounds of dharshan of Lord Ayappa and decided to do more in the evening before getting down. The sun was scorching and we decided to rest in rooms. We also had lunch in an Annadhanam by the group that donated the Diamond Kreedom. Excellent food.




We took some rest and heard that Sannidhanam would be open by 5 PM. Around 3 PM, three of us went to Basmakulam and took bath and refreshed ourselves well. By 4:45 PM we went to have Dharshan 3 times, one included Karpoora Dharshanam - very fortunate; Gurusamy, having visited for 22 years, said, this is first time he saw Karpoora Dharshanam. We started back to walk to Pamba and reached around 19:30.

We had dinner at the same place where we had breakfast. The dosas were very good and dropped in Chengannur railway station by 11 PM. Our train was at 00:40 and reached Trissur by 5 AM.

Day-2

We took bus from Trissur railway station to Guruvayoor and reached by 6:45. We stayed at Akshaya Warriar Samajam - around 400m from temple. In 15 minutes we refreshed and got ready to go to temple. We got to know that it takes 2-3 hours to have dharshan at Guruvayoor. We had breakfast at Hotel Ramakrishna Lunch Home. Tiffen items were average. Coffee was good.

We reached the queue by 7:45 and had a great dharshan of Lord Guruvayoorappan by 10:00. We had Paal Payasam in the temple, sold at Rs.60 per 500 ml (plastic containers sold for Rs.10 by devasthanam in Prasadham counter). Other popular prasadams are Butter and Naatu Sakarai-Banana.

We came out and did some local shopping on the temple road. We had lunch at Hotel Saravana Bhavan - quite costly in A.C, but the food was okay - unlimited S.I.meals for Rs.175. We started back from Guruvayoor at 2:30 PM and reached Trissur around 3:45 in scorching sun. We gulped in lots of water and juices all through the trip.

We had packed dinner for Hotel Dwaraka. The food was excellent - Chappati, Kuruma and Kadalai curry - we ran out of food and wanted more! For the very tiredness, all we needed was great food - and we had it! Got back to Chennai next day morning by 6 AM. Very satisfactory trip !

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