A visit to Great living chola temples from the land of God’s own Country
Bike Travelling has becoming a trend in current generation, especially among youth and I am no exception to backpacking. I have been travelling around India for many years, visited a range of places from Kanyakumari in the south to Himalayas in the north and Siliguri in east to the Jaipur in the west. In this travelogue I will share one of my rides in 2019 which I considered special. The journey is about 2 bankers living in Kerala aka God’s own country, riding out to experience marvel of Indian Temples collectively called Great Living Chola temples. Yes, we embarked on the journey to Tanjore to visit Millennium old three temples. It is important to note that all three temples are recognized UNESCO heritage sites.
Our Ride starts at Valanchery, Malappuram, Kerala where presently I residing, and my friend Raja had joined wiht me, together we started our expedition in my bike Royal Enfield Signals Sandstorm. We made our first pitstop at Malapuzha dam at Palakkad. The dam has well managed flower garden and watered through sprinkler well-enough to keep it fresh as possible. On the farther end of dam, we found a rope station and decided to hop on it and enjoyed the aerial view of dam and garden. We managed to click some photos.
No other interesting activity found in the dam and we decided to have breakfast and left to Coimbatore through Walayar which is State-border Check post. Coimbatore is entry point to Tamil Nadu through central Kerala. One can’t miss the amazing view of Adhiyogi, located at outskirts of Coimbatore. We went there and took some photos in a broad stone-walled entrance, enjoyed the huge statue of Lord Shiva under the scorching sun. We spend few minutes to enjoy the view, left to take highway after few clicks of photos. Since we already visited this place earlier, we decided to ride toward Tanjore. We took NH 81, were cursing at the speed of 90 kmph and had three pitstop thoughout the journey. And finally, we reached Tanjore at around 9pm. It was a small accommodation with bike parking and we spent our night there. Since Tanjore is our main vacation point. As we were exhausted by the ride, and planned out to cover a lot of places the next day, we decided to hit the bed early.
The next day morning, we had typical Tamilian breakfast which we have been longing so far. It was two Idlis with Vada, Venpongal, Poori and had finishing touch with Kumbakonam filter coffee. The Iconic Brihadeeswarar temple is our first destination. It is also called “The Big Temple” built around a thousand years back by Raja Raja Chola. As the name suggests, the temple is incredibly spacious and marvelous in its art. The wall contains inscription taking about inauguration of the temple. Even though inscription is hardly visible to comprehend, it is still decipherable to archealogist. Stunned at the exquisite sculpture, we took photos. Entered sanctum and got darshan of Lord Shiva in form of Big Shivalinga. On the corridor of temple, we found some murals depicting stories of Kannapa Nayanar, Markandeya and others. It was hot and humid, we decided to hit on next one. Then we came to know that Saraswathi Mahal was near-by and we went there, witnessed amazing paintings, handmade items, belongings of Royal families such as weapons, Rifles, costumes used by Maratha Kings which was still preserved for exhibition to public.
We started our ride towards Darasuram, which is Kumbakonan district, it was country side route, had small pitstop to enjoy village-cottage made chocolates. No 90s kids would forget it. Kammarcut is one of my favorites. The horse with chariot, elephant and bull are the common sculpture found in this temple in large numbers. As the time passed noon, the sanctum was closed, will be opened on only after 4pm. As time was the only constraint, we enjoyed the beauty of temple for some time and left for next temple. This one is special as it is revered for valor. It is the Gangaikonda Cholapuram, which means “The town of chola who took over Ganga”. It was built to mark the victory of Rajendra chola over Pala Dynasty.
The poem “Kalingathu parani” takes about the war chola-pala at kalinga, which happened over a thousand years ago. Since the sun was setting early, we rode back to our hotel at Tanjore, reached within ninety minutes. We packed our bags, vacated the hotel and back on Highways to Kerala to join the duty next day. Riding on the open road, the smell of the rain-fed soil, the touch of the air. It was all we need.