Tiruvannamalai trip

After quite some time, I went for a trip last weekend (Dec 11 and 12, 2010) with my friends Senthil and Vinodh. We went in Vinodh's car.

Day 1: Dec 11, 2010

It was 9:30 AM when we started at electronic city. We took Bangalore-Hosur-Krishnagiri-Tiruvannamalai route (200 Kms). Road till Krishnagiri (NH7) was very good (90kms) but the 110Kms from Krishnagiri to Tiruvannamalai was horrible. Road was badly damaged due to recent rain.

We reached Tiruvannamalai at 2PM. Lunch was not very great but didn't mind much about it since we were pretty hungry. We booked a room in Ramana Towers hotel for a rent of Rs. 1400/- per day. The facilities were very nice and worth for the money given.

We started girivalam (14 kms walk around Arunachala hill) at 3:30 PM and completed it at around 7PM. There are 8 lingams in that perimeter and few more temples. After visiting the main temple (Annamalai and Unnamalai are the main deities), we ended the day.



 Day 2: Dec 12, 2010

We started from room at 8AM. It was very wet outside and when enquired, we came to know that there was heavy rain from 2AM to 6AM. We went to Ramanashram and started our Arunachala hill trek from the way behind Ramanashram.

Our initial plan was to see Skandashram, Virupaksha, return back to Ashram by 11:30, have lunch and then leave to Bangalore. But near Skandashram we met a person by name Jothi who gave us some information about Tiruvannamalai and how the whole worship was earlier (right from his great grandfather's time). It seems he is one among the persons who light the Jyothi at Arunachala hill top during Karthigai month.

When I asked him about his take on Vijay TV program which was spreading some information that the annamalai jyothi went off, he gave some explanations and called it as a rumor. We asked curiously if we can go to the place where jothi is lightened, he said that he can take us. While Vinodh was not able to proceed further up, he went down to Ramanashram. Myself and Senthil along with our guide Mr. Jyothi started climbing to the top of hill.

It took around 3hrs from Skandashram to the top of hill and the climb was pretty tiring. But as soon as we reached the peak, all the tiredness vanished and we were so happy to be in that place. We were physically on a place which we were just seeing on the TV for 20+ years during every Karthigai Deepam.

After taking some photographs, we met some youngsters who are sishyas of Narayana Guru Swami. It seems Narayana Guru swami is a saint from Kanyakumari who did Thapas in Arunachala hill for 16 years and then went back to Kanyakumari again. They served us herbal tea.



Our guide Jothi asked us to get down by our self. We started climbing down. But only after some time (around 45 mins) we realised that we were getting down in a route which we didn't see while climbing up. But still we proceeded in the path of a water falls with the belief that we will get down somewhere. We got to see a person on the middle and came to know that we were climbing down on the other side of hill.

We were kind of happy that there was some exploration element in the trip. We got down on the other side of hill at 2 PM and went back to our starting point (Ramanshram) in auto. We had a surprise news over there. It seems music director Karthik Raja (son of Isaignani Ilayaraaja) visited Ashram at 11:30 AM and Vinodh took some pics with him. I would have felt jealous if I had missed a meeting with Ilayaraaja. Karthik Raja.. Worth missing for that nice trek ;).

Weather at Tiruvannamalai was cool and that was really the best part in this trip. 

We had lunch in Ramakrishna hotel (Taste was good) and took alternate Tiruvannamalai-Vellore-Krishnagiri-Hosur-Bangalore route while returning back. Though we had to travel extra 80Kms, the roads were pretty good.

I actually went to to this trip without any expectation. But it turned up to be one of my best trips. Thank you Vinodh and Senthil for the nice company!