Temples in Chennai - 5 - Thiruneermalai

Date : 23/3/2008
People : Mega,Arivoli and Srini

This is the Fifth post in the series Temples in Chennai. Have a look at the previous posts at

Temples in chennai

Thiruneermalai is one of the 108 Divya Desams and is near Tambaram in chennai.
There are two temples in thiruneermalai , Ranganathar Temple and the Neervanna perumal temple.

View of the hill from the Road



The theppakulam



Temple Entrance



The Temple Gopuram



Gopuram amidst the clouds







View of the Temple Tank from the hill



View of the hill along with the Temple tank




How to Go:

On the way from Guindy Kathipara junction to Tambaram, take the right opposite Lakshmi Theater after Pallavaram Bus stand and go straight.

Temples in Chennai - 4 - Kundrathoor Murugan Kovil

Place : Kundrathoor Murugan Kovil
Date : 12/1/2008
People: Mega & Senthilbabu

Kundrathoor Murugan Kovil is one of the old and popular temples in TN and my longtime wish to visit it materialised finally.

The Temple



View of the temple steps. I hear that these steps have been featured in many of the Tamil films.



The temple gopuram



View of the nearby hill from the temple. Ofcourse, After seeing a hill,even though there is nothing on top of it, we cannot not climb it.



We had a nice view of the Kovil from the nearby hill.



How To Go:

From Porur Junction, take the Kundrathoor road and you will reach this temple.

Trip to Tada Falls

Date : 1/12/2007
People : Mega,Satish,Ravi,Shashidhar,Bhadri,Himanshu,Raman
Vehicle : 3 Pulsars and 1 Splendour
Distance : 85 Kms

As a person travelling in and around chennai, I have been wishing to go to TADA falls for a long time and it has taken so much time to materialise. Now the trip was made possible with me getting a new Pulsar for myself. Hnece the plan was hatched to go to TADA falls in bikes from Chennai.

After starting from Chennai at 6.30 AM, we reached Periyapalayam and had our breakfast.

At Breakfast :



To reach Tada falls you had to take the road that goes west before the TADA town.
And ask for the village Varadayya palem. From here the falls would be nearly 5 kms.
On the road from NH5 to Varadayyapalem is the below temple. I heard that it is Kalki Oneness Temple.

Kalki Oneness Temple :



Me with my bike :

My new Pulsar featured in many of the photographs and I am sure that it looked good in all of them.



Base Camp 1 :

This is the place till where the share autos come and drop you by. From here the falls would be some 3 Kms. 2 kms of a pebble road and 1kms of a oneway path.



Base Camp 2 :

This is the last place till where we can take any vehicle. After this its only Walk.
When we went, apart from our vehicles, we had a couple of other bikes and a scorpio to accompany us.



Base Camp 3 :

After walking for sometime from the previous point we will reach this Sivan temple.



Rest in the middle.



The Small Waterfalls :

This is a small waterfalls and for many who are not able to go beyond this point, its good to spend time here.



Butterfly :

For some reason this butterfly was very much interested in us and did not leave us for a long time.



The Final Destination :

This is the final destination in this trek. And the place looks just gorgeous. This place has a waterfalls tucked inside and hidden from outside world.

This place is a natural swimming pool and the depth was unimaginable. The water here is the clearest you can find anywhere though.







The Main waterfalls:

The Last Waterfalls which is unreachable for most of the people. This place is reachable only by swimming, and it was a tough task taking the camera in the water.Thanks to Shashidhar who did the impossible task of carrying the camera above water in one hand and swimming in another hand.



A Photo From Deep inside the Main waterfalls.



After spending a lot of time at this place it was time to return back.

This is the terrain that you will be crossing to reach the falls.



View of the stream from the Top:

A view of the stream that is formed because of the waterfalls.



Flora in TADA:



The Lone Tree:

On the way to NH5 from Varadayyapalem the scenery was good.



After visiting TADA Falls, I would like to mention that TADA is like a Computer game with 7 Levels. Only the fittest can complete all the levels. :-)

Level 1 : Reaching TADA
Level 2 : Reaching the Mud Road
Level 3 : Reaching the Stream where we have to park our vehicles.
Level 4 : Reaching the Sivan Temple
Level 5 : Reaching the point from where there is no specified path and we have to trek only on rocks.
Level 6 : Reaching the small waterfalls.
Level 7 : Reaching the Final Destination.

Like in all games, the difficulty increases as each level progresses :-)

Out of 7, 5 of us including me reached the Final Destination, and 2 opted to stay back at the previous level, the Small waterfalls. There is a bonus level in which you can swim to the Main waterfalls. Though Satish, Ravi and Shashidhar attempted it and reached the half point, I am not sure whether they fully completed it. :-)

So, If you plan to go to TADA , try to complete all the above levels and you will have a feeling of a great accomplishment.

A weekend Gone sour

It was a good weekend to start with .I had plans to go for the tamil movie Kadhal with my friend senthil babu on saturday and to the movie Aitraaz with Sai .. It started just as any other weekend would . On Saturday , the day of Christmas , I woke up in my home as usual . After idling my time till 11.00 , I left my home for Satyam cineplex , where we have to see Kadhal.

The movie went nicely without any hiccups except the climax.
We could not believe the climax would be a real one , but it seems that there
are still people as good as the ones depicted in the movie , live on earth .

After we sat down , it was time to feast ourselves on the treat given by senthil babu . Can you guess what that could be .It was a quarter kg of Aavin Palcova , ( Milk Khoa for non-tamil-speaking audience.) It looked delicious even without opening as you can see it down.

After we finished our treat , ravi and senthil babu went to play in the beach . Me and kumaran did not move an inch and sat talking about the way malayalis live and their chracteristics .( For any malayalis reading this, the summary was that , though god has given them enough in environment , he hasnt given them much in their hearts.)

Senthil babu asked me to take a nice picture of him ( how difficult that would be ....) so that he can show the pictures while chatting to girls. The picture I took is below.

If you are a person with good eyesight , you would instantly
tell that the thing in grey looks bad in the combination with the thing in
Brown .:-)

So we packed on Saturday evening around 6.30 from

Sunday Morning , I woke up late and had a nice bath . When I
switched on the TV , it was shown that there was a earthquake in madras , and
buildings had slight tremors. But I did not hear anything as I was in deep
sleep.

I started around 11.00 to satyam theatre to check for
tickest for Aitraaz. No tickets were avail able even though it has
been runinng for 50 days now , that must be a good film to see . Hence I
returned from satyam theater and made my appearance at my office in
N.M Road

It was there I got the idea that I can go and see the Marina today to see how much it affected . Hence I proceeded from my office to marina .

I went to Ethiraj salai , people were looking down the
bridge over the river cooum . I did not understand why they were seeing the
drainage so earnestly .

After that I went to Wallajah road , the place where I had
been yesterday . It was very much different today . All the people in the town
were walking down Wallajah road , and towards beach . See below .

was turned away near the chepauk palace by the traffic
people .I then went via a shortcut to the road adjoining the chepauk grounds
.The people in the houses were looking with much awe . they havent seen these
many people and vehicles going thru their streets all these years .But today was a different day , isnt it ..Much different than anybody had seen in 50 years.

I finally parked my vehicle , a classic , red Sport , owned
by , only some good people with very good taste , in the whole of Madras.

I went to the marina , the sight there was nothing I had
seen in my entire life. Though marina was nothing new to lakhs of people ,
today all of them were in solemn mood , wondering what happened . To be said in
my friend Divakars way , it was Damage !! Total Damage !!

A damaged Gypy getting all the attention as though it was an
alien space craft directly descended from Space.

The next was the red omni which had been parked in the road
by somebody. But now it was parked in the middle of the beach by no one other
than Mother Nature .

dust bin that was never used ...being washed by nature .

was getting clean nowadays .. but it seems it was never liked by nature , so it put back all the debris in an hour , it would have taken days for humans to generate.

I have nothing to say about this. This is the remains of a
sari. Whether it was in use during the
calamity , I never know ...

People being chased by police men as though they are owners
of this place . they would never visit this side of the shore during normal
days.

Marina - this is a sight to remember . Marina will never be as calm as this on a sunday evening for years to come .

An helicopter surveying the happenings below it . As usual ,
they were just seeing from a more vantage point.

Have you seen the devils colour. See for yourself below . I
would say , The devil is Blue in Colour .

People searching for treasure deposited by Sea goddesses in
these fishing nets .

People searchin for treasure in these fishing nets .

As everyone was searching for something in the sea waters ,I wondered what it was , and I found the answer very soon .All of them were searching for the deposited by the sea the night before .I had collected lots of them in my child days , but it was long time I collected one .This was nature' way of making men do what it wants. So I started searching for a sangu in all the debris , there was , after some time I was able to get my hands on one . See below for my precious find . I went on to find another one after sometime ...

The connection between the sea and the shores .

The place where sea water entered the shores .

As time progressed , the waves increased in strength and
were in full flow . It was the starting of a " Pournami ( a full moon night ) and hence the waves were being aided by the moon .

It was visible as time progressed , and I was getting more
nervous as the time increased .

When my mother had said to return home early to take her to
temple , I was here on marina wandering alone . As thoughts of my family
returned after a long time , I made my way home.

Photos by : Megarajan

Content by : Megarajan