India Travel

Eating to Udhagamandalam in Central Tamil Nadu

Related Properties from Gurgaon

Eating to Rameshwaram in Central Tamil Nadu

Eating in Rameshwaram is more about survival than delighting the taste buds. Most places serve up fairly unexciting "meals". Arya Bhavan and Kumbakonam, W Car Street. Both places are run by the same family and dish up standard, inexpensive veg “meals”. Ashok Bhavan, W Car Street. Offers cheap, regional varieties of thalis. TTDC Hotel Tamil Nadu, near the beach. Gigantic, noisy, high-ceilinged glasshouse near the sea, serving good south Indian snacks and "meals:: - many items on the menu are unavailable, however.

Kanniyakumari in Central Tamil Nadu

KANNIYAKUMARI, at the southernmost extremity of India, is almost as compelling for Hindus as Rameshwaram. It is significant, not only for its association with a virgin goddess, Kanya Devi, but also as the meeting point of the Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea. Watching the sun rise and set from here is the big attraction, especially on full-moon day in April, when it's possible to see both the setting sun and rising moon on the same horizon. Although Kanniyakumari is in the state of Tamil Nadu, most foreign visitors arrive on day-trips from Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala,

Eating of Kumbakonam in Central Tamil Nadu

There's nothing very exciting about eating out in Kumbakonam, and most visitors stick to their hotel restaurant. For a change of scene, though, a few places stand out. Archana Big Bazaar Street. Right in the thick of the market. Popular among shoppers for its good-value south Indian "meals", and great uttapams, although it can get hot and stuffy inside, Foreigners appear to cause quite a stir here, but are made very welcome. Ariya Bavan TSR Big Street. Convenient if you're staying in VPR/Siva two doors down, and a dependable all-rounder, serving the usual south Indian menu, with tasty biriyani, and piping hot

Practicalities of Sabhanayaka Temple in Central Tamil Nadu

Chidambaram revolves around the Sabhanayaka Temple and the busy market area that surrounds it, along North, East, South and West Car streets. Though little more than a country halt, the railway station, 2km southeast of the centre, has good connections both north and south, and boasts retiring rooms and, on platform 1, a post office (Mon-Sat 9am-lpm & 1.30-5pm). Frequent buses from Chennai,Thanjavur, Mamallapprarn, and Madurai pull in at the bus stand, also in the southeast, but nearer the centre, about lkm from the temple. Staff at the TTDC tourist office, next Co TTDC Tamil Nadu hotel on Railway Feeder Road,

Accommodation to Rameshwaram in Central Tamil Nadu

Apart from the TTDC hotels, accommodation m Rameshwaram is restricted to basic lodges, mostly in the Car streets around the temple. The temple authorities have a range of rooms for pilgrims; ask at the Devasthanam Office, E Car Street. The railway retiring rooms consist of six large double and three triple rooms, generally cleaner (and quieter) than town lodges for the same price, plus a dorm (Rs40). Ctiola Lodge, N Car Stteet, A basic pilgrim place in the quietest of the Car streets. Maharaja's, 7 Middle St, Located next to the temple's west gale. Good clean rooms with attached bathrooms, two

Tiruchirapalli and around in Central Tamil Nadu

TIRUCHIRAPALLI - more commonly referred to as Trichy - stands in the plains between the Shevaroy and Palani hills, just under 100km north of Madurai. Dominated by the dramatic Rock Fort, it's a sprawling cominerc, centre with a modern feel; the town melt holds little attraction, but pilgrim flock through en route to the spectacular Ranganathaswamy Temple : Srirangam. 6km north. The precise date of Trichy s foundation is uncertain, but though little early architecture remains, it is clear that between 200 and 1000 AD control of the city passed between the Pallavas and Pandyas.

Eating to Kanniyakumari in Central Tamil Nadu

Aside from the usual "meals" places and hotel dining rooms, there are a few popular veg and non-veg restaurants in the centre of town, most of them attached to one or another of the hotels. Archana, Maadhini Hotel, E Car Street, An extensive veg and non-veg multi-cuisine menu served inside a well-ventilated dining hall, or alfresco on a sea-facing terrace (evenings only). They also serve the town's best selection of ice creams. Saravana, just north of the Kamari Amman Temple, on the main bazaar. Arguably Kanniyakumari’s best “meals” restaurant, serving all the usual smacks, cold drinks, and thalis at lunchtime, to hoards

Central Tamil Nadu: The Chola heartland in Tamil Nadu

Continuing south of Pondicherry along the Coromandel coast, you enter the flat landscape of the Kaveri (aka Cauvery) Delta, a watery world of canals, dams, dykes and rivulets that has been intensively farmed since ancient times. Only a hundred miles in diameter, it forms the verdant rice-bowl core of Tamil Nadu, crossed by more than thirty major rivers and countless streams. The largest of them, die River Kaveri, known in Tamil as Pontri. "The Lady of Gold" (a form of the Mother Goddess), is revered as a conduit of liquid shakti, the primordial female energy that nurtures the millions of farmers

Practicalities of Kumbakonam in Central Tamil Nadu

Kumbakonam's small railway station, in the southeast, 2km from the main bazaar, is well served by trains both north and south, and has a left-luggage office (24hr) and decent retiring rooms (Rs100). The hectic Moffussil (local) and Aringannar (long-distance) bus stands are opposite each other in the southeast of town, between the railway station and the Mahamakham tank. All the timetables are in Tamil, but there's a 24-hour enquiry office. Buses leave for Gangaikondacholapuram, Pondicherry, and Thanjavur every five to ten minutes, many via Darasuram. Frequent services run to Chennai, Trichy and several daily to Bangalore.

Accommodation and eating to Coimbatore in Central Tamil Nadu

Most of Coimbatore's accommodation is concentrated around the bus stands. The cheapest places line Nehru Street and Shastri Road, but whatever you do avoid the rock-bottom places facing the bus stand it self, which are plagued with traffic noise from around 4am onwards. As for eating, your best bets are the bigger hotels such as the City Tower, whose excellent rooftop restaurant, Cloud 9, serves a top-notch multi-cuisine menu to a predominantly business clientele. The Malabar, on the first floor of the KK Residency, is a less pricey option, popular with visitors from across the Ghats for its quality non-veg Keralan

Accommodation and eating in Central Tamil Nadu

To cope with the influx of tourists and pilgrims, Chidambaram abounds in budget accommodation, but there are few upper-bracket options beyond the Samdharam hotel, near the bus stand, and the Aksha Plaza, a brand new place on South Car Street between the bus stand and temple. The railway retiring rooms offer the best deal in town, with huge clean rooms, though the bathrooms arc a little dilapidated; ask at the Station Master's Office on platform 1 (Rsl50). As for eating, there are plenty of basic, wholesome "meals" places on and around the Car streets - the Sri Ganesa BUavcm, on West

Little Mount Caves in Tamil Nadu

St Thomas is said to have sought refuge from persecution in the Little Mount Caves, 8km south of the city centre (bus #18A, #18B, or #52C from Anna Salai), now 200m off the road between the Maraimalai Adigal Bridge and the residence of the governor of Tamil Nadu. Entrance to the caves is beside steps leading to a statue of Our Lady of Good Health. Inside, next to a small natural window in the rock, are impressions of what are believed to be St Thomas' handprints, created when he made his escape through this tiny opening. Behind the new circular church

Coimbatore in Central Tamil Nadu

Visitors tend only to use the busy industrial city of COIMBATORE as a stopover on the way to Ooty, 90km northwest. Once you've climbed up to your hotel rooftop to admire the blue, cloud-capped haze of the Nilgiris in the west, there's little to do here other than kill time wandering through the nuts-and-bolts bazaars, lined with look a like textile showrooms, "General Traders" and shops selling motor parts.

Visiting Tamil Nadu

Temperatures in Tamil Nadu, which usually hover around 30°C, peak in May and June, when they often soar above 40°C, and the overpowering heat makes anything but sittmg in a shaded cafe exhausting. The state is barely affected by the southwest monsoon that pounds much of India from June to September: 11 receives most of its rain between October and December, when the odd may well make an appearance. The cooler, rainy days, however, bring their own problems: widescale flooding can disrupt road and rail links and1 imbue everything with an all-pervasive dampness. Accommodation throughout the state is good and plentiful;

Palakkad in Kerala

PALAKKAD (Palghat), surrounded by paddy fields, lies on NH-47 between Thrissur (79km) and Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu (54km), and on the railway line from Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Historically, thanks to the natural 20km-wide Palakkad Gap in the Western Ghats, this area has been one of the chief entry points into Kerala. The environs are beautiful, but the town itself doesn't warrant a stop, other than to break a journey. Arriving from Tamil Nadu, Palakkad, with its dry, Deccan-like landscape, unlike most of the state, gives a misleading first impression of Kerala. The well-preserved fort, built in 1766 by Haider Ali

Tirukalikundram in Tamil Nadu

The village of TIRUKALIKUNDRAM, 16km east on the road to Kanchipuram, is locally famous for its hilltop Shiva Temple, where a pair of white neophran vultures, believed to be reincarnated saints on their way between Varanasi and Rameswaram, used to swoop down at noon to be fed by the priests. No one knew how long these visits had been going on, or why, in 1994, the vultures suddenly stopped coming. Their absence, however, was taken as a bad omen, and, sure enough, that year massive cyclones ravaged the Tamil Nadu coast. Four hundred hot stone steps need to be scaled to

The Ghats in Central Tamil Nadu

Sixty or more million years ago, what we know today as peninsular India was a separate land mass drifting northwest across the ocean towards central Asia Current geological thinking has it that this mass must originally have broken off the African continent along a fault line that is today discernible as a north-south ridge of volcanic mountains, stretching 1400km down the west coast of India known as the Western Ghats. The range rises to a height of around 2500m making it India's second-highest mountain chain after the Himalayas. Forming a natural barrier between the Tamil plains and coastal Kerala and Karnataka,

Dakshina Chitra in Tamil Nadu

Occupying a patch of sand dunes midway between Chennai and Mamallapuram, Dakshina Chitra (daily except Tues 10am-6pm; Rs5), literally "Vision of the South", is one of India's best-conceived folk museums, devoted to the rich architectural and artistic heritage of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The museum, set up by the Chennai Craft Foundation, exposes visitors to many disappearing traditions of the region which you might otherwise not be aware of, from tribal fertility cults and Ayyannar field deities to pottery and leather shadow puppets. A selection of traditional buildings from across peninsular India has been painstakingly reconstructed using original

The City of Tiruchirapalli in Central Tamil Nadu

Although considerably enlarged and extended over the years, the overall layout of Madurai's old city, south of the River Vaigai, has remained largely unchanged since the first centuries AD, comprising a series of concentric squares centred on the massive Meenakshi Temple. Aligned with the cardinal points, the street plan forms a giant mandala, or magical diagram, whose sacred properites are believed to be activated during mass circumambulations of the central temple, always conducted in a clockwise direction. North of the river, Madurai becomes markedly more mundane and irregular. You're only likely to cross the Vaigai to reach the city's more expensive

Accommodation of Kanniyakumari in Central Tamil Nadu

As Kanniyakumari is a "must-see" for Indian tourists and pilgrims, hotels can fill up early. However, recent developments have raised standards, and relieved the pressure on space. Kerala House, seafront, A large colonial-era building, converted into a rest house for Keralan civil servants, whose cavernous doubles (two of them are a/c) have dressing rooms and bathrooms; some rooms have sea views. Book in advance through the Political Department of the State Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram. Lakshmi Tourist Home, E Car Street. The rooms are smart, some are sea-facing and have swish a/c There's an excellent non-veg restaurant. Maadhini, E Car Street. Large,