For a long time I had been wanting to go to Dhanushkodi (DKD) which is about 20km from Rameswaram (RMM) in Tamil Nadu.
In an earlier post, I had written about going on a budget trip by train in India. One of the places I had identified as worth visiting was DKD. And considering that it is only about 600km from Chennai, overnight travel from Chennai, I decided one weekend should be enough. When I started to pack I decided, this time I will not take any bag. All that I had was a pouch, given by a friend, about 10 inches tall and slim with a few pockets to hold odds and ends. This comes in very handy in any trip.
I packed by toothbrush, paste, and phone but left my shaving kit and chargers at home (this was only going to be a 40 hour trip). My train from Egmore station was to depart at 5PM. I left home at 3PM went to a nearby station took the train to Egmore station. I reached Egmore at 4PM as I had anticipated. I had an hour. The train had already arrived by then. I settled into my seat. The train left on dot at 5PM.
Of late I have been pleasantly surprised, all trains that I traveled on had left and arrived right on time. Even the train back from RMM to Chennai was almost on time.
Within no time I had unpacked my dinner that a friend had packed for me. Curd rice and thenga thoheyal tasted yummy. And dinner was over before we passed Mambalam station (about 7km from Egmore). Then I started reading a book. The evening passed pleasantly by. I had no bed sheet or pillows. And Indian Railways does not provide bedding to 2nd class sleeper travelers. I was traveling within Tamil Nadu and it rarely gets cold at any time of the day on any day of the year in these parts, especially in the plains. We reached Trichy at about 11PM, I had two cups of milk. I rarely drink milk but while traveling I have found it safe to rely on a hot cup of milk to quench my thirst and hunger.
Around 3:45AM I woke up. There was a full moon up in the sky - I could see nothing else. The train slowed down to a crawl when we got to Pamban bridge.
We were now over the Bay of Bengal, traveling in pitch darkness. It was very windy, I thought I could hear the waves and the rhythmic sound of the train's wheels over the track. It was beautiful. Soon we reached the other side - the island of Rameswaram. I alighted and thought about my return trip about 12 hours later.
I wanted a cheap place to stay during the day. The railway retiring room in India is a great place to spend a day, if all that you want is a place to keep your bags and stretch out and have a bath before you checkout. They charge about Rs100-450 per day depending on the station and on whether it's an A/C room or a non A/C room. I walked to the station master's office and inquired there. The few rooms they had were all booked and none was available. I should have booked (online) a month before the trip. Unfortunately I had not and that was that. I decided I would not rent a room on this trip.
I came out of the station and to my surprise found a bus ready to depart for the temple. I was told that the temple was right next to the beach. And my earlier inquiries had revealed that buses to Dhanushkodi (DKD) depart frequently from the bus stand near the temple. The bus was crowded, even at 5AM, only standing room was available. The bus reached the destination in about 10 minutes. The ticket cost only Rs5. I had extended a Rs 10 note to the bus conductor. He told me he didn't have change and he retained the balance Rs 5 with him. I wonder how many passengers he didn't return the balance money to!
Once I got down at the temple, I was told that buses to DKD were available only at 7AM or so. So I had a couple of hours to kill. I decided to go to the beach, there being nothing else to do. A kind young policeman directed me to the beach which was just half a km away to the east. There were quite a few people there at the beach, some having a bath, some offering their prayers - RMM being considered a very holy place for Hindus.
I took the picture of the beach, it was still very dark, there was not much light close by and I had no flash.
There was a police station just behind - with a loud speaker that kept blaring in Tamil: "Be very careful with your belongings and your children. Don't come to the police station and cry" - the voice was now mocking a wailing woman - it was quite unbelievable. Essentially the police was harping on prevention of theft but to such an extent as though cure (catching a thief and getting the belongings back) was almost impossible.
I waited for an hour, I thought I would see the sun rising over the horizon. Well it didn't rise over the horizon I mean the sun did rise - but not the way it does in artsy photos. I took a series of photos of the same place. Shown below is the photo taken around 6AM.
Soon I located the bus that would take us to DKD (Dhanushkodi) about 20km away. I got into it and got myself a comfortable seat by the window. The roads were nice.
At last I did see the sunrise I was hoping to see but then I was on a bus and the sea was a little beyond the trees.
A little about the geography of the island now. On the west, RMM is connected by rail and road to the Indian mainland - picture below is from Google maps. You may choose to open the picture in a separate window and increase the zoom.
At the center of the map is the island of RMM connected to the Indian mainland though a bridge which is the small strip to the west of it. To the east of RMM across Palk Strait is Srilanka (SL). The part sticking out to the left like a thumb (at bottom right of map) from SL towards DKD is the island of Talaimannar, which is a part of SL. You can also see there is a thin strip of land between RMM heading towards Talaimannar. The northwestern tip of this strip is DKD. The southeastern tip of Dhanushkodi, the point nearest to Talaimannar is DSL (Short for Dhanushkodi, closest point to SL).
After about half an hour we reached DKD. DKD is the last point served by government transport. Government is planning to construct a highway from DKD to DSL. This will be NH49 (at least one end of it).
DKD is beautiful. The sea is everywhere, rather there is little else besides the sea. Local folks are mostly involved in fishing or in some way connected with tourism. There are huts, shanties but very few buildings or any permanent structure for that matter.
There is also a watch tower, though it seems to be abandoned. No one climbed it, neither did I. I do wonder what the view from the top would be like.
From here, there are private vehicles -16 seaters - that charge a round trip fare of Rs 150 to take tourists to DSL and back to DKD.
The "road" to DSL is quite narrow, probably 2 km in width, with sea on both the north and south sides. There is no real road. They just drive over tracks left by vehicles that had earlier passed that way.
An interesting thing was that mobile connectivity was there all the way to DSL. I tried to see whether my phone picked up any Srilankan operator but all I could find was Aircel, Airtel, BSNL, Tata Docomo, Vodafone etc. This was very surprising that all networks were available considering there were hardly any people who live there. I don't know why my phone didn't pick up any Srilankan mobile operator. Aren't the towers at Talaimannar powerful enough, it's only 30km away.
I wonder what the structure below is.
The road is quite bumpy. The driver carefully drove over the tracks created on the sand. Many times he would make an S shape instead of driving straight.
We went over stagnant pools of water. You can see a crane there in the center of the picture.
After a 45 minute drive we reached the destination (DSL). We were given an hour to look around and get back to the vehicle. Some of the guys had a dip in the sea, they had brought change of clothes. I only had my pouch. Wherever you walked, there was only sand and sea. Out here, the land between the sea on either side is only 200m wide. This is a peninsula - sea on all sides except the north. North takes you back to DKD and, if you remember, from there one goes west to RMM and the mainland. You may want to look up the map once again.
There were a few jeeps and motorcycles parked there.
And a few shanties. My father often used to joke about wanting to build a house with all 4 walls open. I was reminded of it when I saw these. You get mineral water, some packaged stuff like chips, biscuits and local souvenirs. And nothing else. God help you if you suddenly need medical attention.
I bought some shells (சோழி)- they were sold at Rs10/dozen from the shop below. The seller also is a fisherman who fishes on the east side of DSL and has to pay Rs 65,000 per week as tax to Srilankan authorities. Either he or I must have got the numbers wrong. I asked him why he didn't fish on the western side (India is on the west). He replied that one fishes where there are plenty of fish. Common sense.
You can see sun's reflection on the water in the center of the picture below.
You can see sun's reflection on the water in the center of the picture below.
There are plenty of tourists here. Safety doesn't seem to be an issue. There are no police, no permanent buildings. I did see a couple of temples and the ruins of train tracks and a church, post office that were washed away when a typhoon hit this place fifty years back and washed away a whole train with 100 passengers and most of the then thriving town of DSL.
You can see a strip of sand going from left to right where two people are standing a little way out into the sea, in the picture below. That's supposed to be Adam's bridge which connects to Talaimannar in SL. Apparently this stretch is not very deep - max 10m at any point.
These were the ruins of the DSL town. I wish to see a prosperous town once again with the boat mail train from Chennai to DSL as before.
Aren't the waves nice? Bay of Bengal is usually rougher than its quiescent counterpart off the west coast, the Arabian sea.
We then returned to DKD and then took a bus back to RMM. It was about 11AM when I reached RMM. I was hungry, I had not had anything to eat since the previous night. I chose this hotel - a hut. All the other huts served non-vegetarian food, especially fish.
I had 2 idlis and 2 dosas. The sambar and chutney weren't good but the brunch cost me all of Rs 40. They didn't have tea or coffee in their menu.
I had 2 idlis and 2 dosas. The sambar and chutney weren't good but the brunch cost me all of Rs 40. They didn't have tea or coffee in their menu.
There was one another thing I wanted to do. I wanted to visit Abdul Kalam's house which was just half a km from the place where I had lunch. See the approach path below. The "road" that leads to his house is about 10ft wide.
See the bike above and autorickshaw below to get an idea of the width of the road where Abdul Kalam's house is.
And this is his house below. A cycle and a bike parked inside his house, very unpretentious, as I understand the man himself was.
There was a mosque with nice minarets at the entrance of the road that led to Abdul Kalam's house. I had missed it on the way to his house. I spotted it on the way back. The colors used in the mosque are very pleasing, unlike the garish dark green that one normally sees.
I was back at the station by about 11AM. My train was at 5PM. I washed myself in the station waiting room and then I thought I will spend the next few hours there. Unfortunately after about 15 minutes, a bunch of railway employees barged in. They seemed to be communist party members and they had a party meeting with loudspeakers on. Though they didn't ask me to leave, I still found it necessary to leave in a hurry. I can't stand noise. I found a nice bench on the railway platform. And I slept till the time I got into the train that would take me back to Chennai. Not having any bags helped in this endeavor.
My train for Chennai departed at 5PM. Pretty soon we were crossing the Pamba bridge. They were bunch of boats on the south side. I guess these are parked boats. I wonder how people come to their boats. Do they swim from the shore?
My train for Chennai departed at 5PM. Pretty soon we were crossing the Pamba bridge. They were bunch of boats on the south side. I guess these are parked boats. I wonder how people come to their boats. Do they swim from the shore?
The picture above was taken from the train as we were traveling west towards the mainland - the boat is on the north side. The road in the picture below is on the south side of the rail track. And people there were taking pictures of the train going over the sea, while I took pictures of them.
After we crossed the bridge we were in the mainland - the scenery was similar to what you see anywhere else in India. Except that we passed through Chettinad - I spotted various towns that I had only heard of but never been to: Ramanathapuram, Manamadurai, Devakottai, Karaikudi, Pudukottai etc. I must have passed these towns on the onward journey but we must have reached them around midnight when I was asleep. On the return journey, we passed these towns one by one.. I was awake till about 8:30PM after which I curled down to sleep.
The train reached Chennai about 5 minutes late. I got down from the train. I had earlier decided to walk back home from the station. I had estimated the distance to be about 4km and that it would take me an hour. It took me 50 minutes. End of a very pleasant journey, a journey that took about 40 hours - one that was easy on my pockets. A cheap trip with no luggage and no stay in any hotel.
Note:
Most of my photos are taken while on the move. Sometimes I would be walking when I click a photo, sometimes I would be on a moving vehicle or train. If the photos are any good, it's primarily because of the beauty inherent in the object being shot.
Additional reading:
