When I saw a travel report about Viatheeswaram Kovil in a weekly, I'm so interested to go there. I talked this matter with my friend Sreehari, he is also interested. Checking in internet about more details we get noticed about another place "Pillayar petti" and we include this palce with in our tour, and we planned to visit these places.
On Thursday (22/01/09) evening we started our travel from Trivandrum, Kerala by Train. We reserved out seats in Anathapurai Express (4.20pm ). It was my first train journey to Nagarkovil (Tamil Nadu) side and there are so many beautiful palces on the way we enjoyed the jounery and we reached Trichy at 2:30am (23/01/09) from there we want to go to "Karaikudi", but the passenger train from Trichy to Karaikudi was on 6:30am. So we went out the station and had a tea. Trichy rly. station is very large and very clean, we started from there at 6:30am to Karikudi, on the way we saw beautiful places and some villages, paddy field etc. Reached at Karikudi at 8:15 am and went to Pillayarpetti by bus. Pillayarpetti "Karpaka Vinayakar Temple is an ancient rock-cut cave shrine dedicated to Ganesha. The Vinayagar sannidhi (Sanctom Sanctorum) is a cave where the 6 feet Karpaga Vinayagar, whole idol is covered with gold. From there we want to go to "Mailaduthurai" for that we find (in internet) there was a train from Karikudi and its going through a meter gauge track. We are very much happy because its our first time journery through a meter gauge track. But due to our unluck. the strain was stopped the journey for the gauge conversion process. Then we planned to go by bus, we go an information that there was no direct bus to Karaikudi to Mailaduthurai, but Puthukotta there was some direct buses and we go to putukotta. After 1.5 hrs journey we reached Puthukottai but there is also no direct bus and then we moved to Thanjavur its 68 KMs from there we go a neat bus and the driver was good in his driving skills and we wondered the bus charges in Tamilnadu compared to Kerala. Here in Kerala bus charge for 70KMs it cost around 45 - 55 range but there 18 rupees only. We reached Thanjaur and from there also the no bus to Mailaduthurai so we went to Kumbakonam and from there we got Mailaduthurai bus. After reached Mailaduthurai we took a room near to the bus stand. Its a good hotel there are so many hotels near to the stand. We are so tired so we went to sleep after the dinner. Food in the hotel is very good.
On morning (24/01/09) we go to Vaitheeswaram kovil by bus its only 8KMs from there. The Vaitheeswaram Temple is very big and the temple is famous for the Siva temple dedicated to Lord Vaidyanatheeswarar, the healer of all diseases and his consort Thaiyalnayaki. It is believed that a bath in the holy waters of the Siddhamirtham tank within the temple complex will cure all diseases. After the temple visit we gone to Trichy by train from Mailaduthurai and from Trichy we reched trivandrum by airbus (25/01/06).
