Nomadic Drives : Chettinadu Cusine - Mythological Bridge - Mrs Fisheye & Mr. Charmer

[Nomad]

The only real life exposure for me regarding Chettinadu was Annachi Resturants in Bangalore. I had read in some travel magazines / guide about Chettinadu, it's connection with spice trade, wood trade, connections with burma, historically their patronage and financing relationship with the local rulers etc.

While having the conversation with the cashier in Sangeeta resturant, i learnt that Chettinadu is the name of the province (like district) in the older times, now Chettinadu is only a referral name, not a legal name. The name of the place is Karaikudi and nearby village of Kanadukathan.

So, with great difficulty we could remember the name Kanadukathan, for next couple of hours, the name took several forms or avataars during our conversation, triggering lot of fun and laughter inside the car.

So we went in search of this Kanadukathan, but first we have to reach Dindigul.

NH7 is a wonderful highway. I remember covering the stretch from Kanya Kumari to Home ~ 695 in 7 hours last time when we were on this side of the world. We had started from Kanya Kumari at 6:30 PM and were home 2:15 AM with a 45 minutes dinner break in between. Beauty of this highway is it is almost without much traffic and a wonderful tarmac inviting you to floor the padel.



Wonderful Paddy and Banana Fields, I am green with envy.


Some wonderful landscape, worth sketching


Sun is still trying his luck with hide and seek


a different hue for paddy field, looks like ready for Golden Harvest


Look like Some Temple on the hill top


We see a diversion board for Dindigul


We took a U turn on the left side service road and entered Dindigul town


Dindigul was a busy town.


We found several pilgrims walking on the one side of the road,


some of them were carrying some sort of Paalkhi (Palanquins) on their shoulders


There were large groups, which were carrying their kitchen with them. There were food stalls set up every KM or so where these pilgrims can eat, take rest for a while


The only problem was half of the high was occupied by this sea of pilgrims


None of the pilgrims were wearing any footwear, i can not imagine myself being able to walk on the hot tarmac barefooted.
It might have ended up more as a freestyle dancing performance.

We were busy clicking, I tried to ask some of these pilgrims, what was it all about, but no one could understand us, we could understand what they told us.

it went on like this for another hour or so. The traffic crawled.

On way, i found a IOCL fuel station, i again top up the fuel tank and we restarted, it was almost 11 AM.

[KRRaj]

Ah, the no of Travelogues is increasing here, great . Great narration so far Nomad . The Pilgrims are all walking to the Murugan Temple at Palani. They call the Palanquins as 'Kavadi'.

[Nomad]

The Pilgrims are all walking to the Murugan Temple at Palani. They call the Palanquins as 'Kavadi'.

That i figured it out later when i found out that Palani is some where 50 odd KMs from Dindigul.

This is what i found out about Kavadi. Kavadi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The one we encountered was Vel Kavadi. In North India, around Shivaratri times, similar event called Shiv Kavad happens.
Murugan or ShaktiVelu or Vel being son of Lord Shiva, it is no surprise such events happen down south as well.

The Wiki link shows images of the pilgrims dancing with those Palanquins, we were not that fortunate to witness this holy dance.
Some day, i need to visit Palani to experience the same.

Thanks Shishirbn for bringing this into discussion.

[Nomad]

Soon, the the sea of pilgrims was behind us, traffic eased, we again had the complete road for automobiles.


After the railway over bridge in the above picture, there was a Y fork where we should have taken the right turn, but as we wer enot aware, we followed the vehicle in front of us and took the left turn. We ended up here and stopped


We realized that we had reached some highway, which was not going towards Karaikudi. The view on the left side.


View on the right side, we asked some two wheeler guys, he told us about the Y fork and adviced us to go back few KMs.


Accordingly we took the U turn, and returned to Y fork and drove along the right route towards Karaikudi. On way we found this wonderful stretch, even at noon time, this stretch was cool with complete shade.


Soon we reached a lake on the right side, the view attracted me, so stopped for some clicks.


Some nice mangrove trees


Some birds sitting on tree stumps


Some Snow White Cranes at the distance


and the a solo one


another loner sitting the middest of the tree branches


This is the exact mile stone near the lake front.


after spending some 10 minutes, I drove further.

[Nomad]

Soon we found some more nice views


At last we are in Chettinadu, we first took the left to go towards Kanadukathan


Single lane road, but left hand side of the road was being dug up to lay the pipeline, there were no protector railings, especially for night drives


The dumper is unloading inside the ditch, it took some 5 minutes


Soon we were welcomed inside this village gate


We also found this huge Ganesha on the left hand side


Farmers were using us to seperate the rice from the husk


Suddenly we found ourselves off road due to some road construction


Off roading went on for several KMs


Soon we found ourselves inside a well constructed village, but narrow single lane road that too blocked by cattle


And a very old about to fall house, this reminded of my grand parents house back at our native place


Quickly we reached this railway crossing


I think, as it was a working day, we were the only tourist bakara in this part of the chettinadu today.


At last we reached Kanadukathan by 1:00 PM,



Some 510 odd KMs took 9.5 hours of journey time inclusive of some 3 hours of breakfast + re-fueling + photography time.plus delay due to Vel Kavadi.

Effective drive time of 6.5 hours for 510 KMs, Average speed of 78 KMPH.

Coming up next !... What did we do in Chettinadu ?

[Jelliffe Jeganathan]

Very nice and interesting travelogue Nomad

I love Karaikudi with all its interesting heritage. My aunt lives there and I've visited Karaikudi and some interesting villages nearby, including Kanadukathan, atleast 2 or 3 times.

Eagerly waiting to hear your complete experience, as you are already doing a nice job

[vm_srini]

Nomad
Your writing style is really good and makes it interesting to read.
Which camera do you use? Some of the photos are very nice.continue your TL...

[Nomad]

While having breakfast at Karur, i had done a quick google search for Kanadukathan and it threw up a name Visalam, which had some excellent reviews on trip advisor. While on the way, i gave them a call to check whether they have a resturant and accept walk-in guests.
The receptionist said, yes, they accept walkin guests. So i had reserved a table for ourselves.

So when we arrive at Kanadukathan, I already knew what to look for.


We quickly found what we were looking for


We straight away drove into Visalam


After parking the car, we moved toward the entrance


We made a grand entry into one of the heritage homes in Chettinadu.


Clock was showing 13:00 PM, it has been about 4 hours since our breakfast, we were begining to feel hungry.
As we were expected, we were given a warm welcome with a welcome drink and straight away taken to the resturant.

[Nomad]

This was the lounge where we had our welcome drink


Typical to any traditional homes in India, one can see a guest or vistor even from the fag end of the home.


Inner assembly place where childen could play. natural lighting and ventilation makes it eco friendly


View from the other side


There were several rooms on either side of the assembly area. this was more suitable for the joint family structure where every branch of the family had their own rooms and privacy as needed.


We walk through this door to the rear side of the home


We say "WoW", that is indeed a great thing to have in a home


This is the dining area, pool side


We were offered the table, we placed our order for traditional Chettinadu meal. We were requested to make ourselves comfortable as the meal would take some 30-45 mnutes.

So we decided to take a stroll around, clean water, but today the pool is closed for maintenance. The structure opposite is the rest room or changing room block.


Some rules of the pool


Pool from another angle


View of the Visalam structure from the back side


We went up the terrace


View from the top


Might be staff accomodation area behind the rest room block


We spent some time on those pool side chairs, rested our backs and knees.
Used the rest rooms to freshen up. Rest rooms were super clean, fully equipped and very refreshing after a long drive like ours.

Soon our hunger was begining to speak for itself, so we returned to the dining area, but food was still to arrive.

[Babbanji Franklin]

Superb write-up and pics Nomad.007 !! Very intriguing...