Reached Rameshwaram early morning 0500 hrs. Booked a room in Siva lodge and took rest a while. After that went to the sea (agni theertham) took bathing. The sea is polluted to the core. Proceeded to the temple for the 22 theertham. Though it is not exactly what we want it to be there is no complaint as well. Went to hotel room to change the clothes and wore a new dress and went to temple to have a darshan. Bought the special darshan ticket. The darshan is good. Had lunch in the Gujarat Bhavan. The lunch is not upto the mark. Went to the hotel room and took rest for some time. Back in the evening we again visited the temple and this time it is free darshan (sarva darshan), since there is less crowd. The darshan is very good. You keep looking at Lord Shiva for some time. We checked the details of the having darshan of spatika linga. It is in the morning 0500 – 0600 hrs. We had dinner and roamed the area for some time for shopping.
Visited the temple early morning at 0500 hrs for the spatika linga. There is huge crowd, which I never expected. But the spatika linga darshan is worthwhile. Though first we could not recognize the spatika linga (since it is transparent), later with the help of a temple crew, we managed to have beautiful darshan. After breakfast, we proceeded to Ramanathapuram. Rameshwaram to Ramanathapuram is 2 hrs journey. From there to Devipattanam in a town bus. Devipattanam has Navagraha in the sea water, which Lord Rama has worshipped. Some of the navagrahams were fully submerged in the sea. Some of them were visible. We did a small pooja for the Sani, Rahu and Ketu. Taken 9 parikramas. As usual the water and the temple is polluted to the core.
From Devipattanam to Ramanathapuram by town bus. Boarded a bus from Ramanathapuram to Thiruppullanai (one of the 108 Vaishnava sthalam). We had a wonderful darshan in Thiruppullani. The Lord Perumal is deity. Lord Rama has worshipped this Lord Perumal before going to Srilanka for war. This sthalam is popular for Lord Santhanakrishnan. Those who have problems with bearing kids, can offer their prayers to the Lord Santhakrishnan and he bestows them with kids. There was theertam called Chakra theertam, which is full of water. Went to Ramanathapuram again. Had Lunch – though today is New moon day, we had non-veg food in the hotel opposite to the bus stand. Chola hotel is where we had our lunch. It is good.
From Ramanathapuram we took bus to go to Thiru Uttira Kosha Mangai (Uttira means tell; Kosha means secret; Mangai refers to Lord Parvati – this place is where Lord Shiva has revealed the secret to Maa Parvati, therefore, the name Uttira Kosha Mangai). The temple is very old, big and spacious. This temple has a tree Elanthai Maram as its sthala virutcham, which is more than 3000 years old. Under the tree Ved Vyas and Siththar Kakabhujandar have meditated upon. Normally in all the Shiva temple Thazhambu will not be used for offerings to Lord Shiva, because of the curse she had. But this place is considered to be the saap vimochana place for the Thazhambu. Therefore in this temple, thazhambu is offered to the Lord Shiva. To reflect in the main temple, the Lord Ganesh and Lord Muruga have swapped their places, which is a rare sight. Went back to Ramanathapuram.
We proceeded to go to Rameshwaram again. Today is full of hectic day. We had to come to Ramanathapuram every time because all the places Devipattanam, Thiruppullani and Thiru Uttira Kosha Mangai were on different directions, so we had to come to Ramanathapuram and from there change the bus again to go the respective places. Reached Rameshwaram around 2000 hrs and went to hotel room, refreshed and went to have our dinner.
Got up early morning and got ready. We checked out our hotel room and went to Dhanuskhodi. Took bus from the Rameshwaram Kovil itself. The bus goes upto Muthukulaththoor chatram. From there we had to go by van. The van drivers told us that they ferry people once 20 people joined them. Per person will have to pay Rs. 100 for the up and down service. We waited there for quite some time, there was no sign of joining the people, and we had 10 people. We requested them to ferry us but they refused. We waited there for some time after which we decided to go back to Rameshwaram and have a local sightseeing. Otherwise, we may have to miss that too. We took another bus and went to Rameshwaram Kovil and kept our luggage in the locker room. We arranged an auto and proceeded to local sightseeing. We visited
Ramar Patham, satchi Hanuman temple, Kothanda ramar temple (Dhanuskhodi temple), Dr. Abdul Kalam Muesum and Kalam Seashell mart, Ramar Theertham (floating stone), Sita Theertham, Laxman Theertham, Panchamukhi Hanuman Temple (floating Stones). The auto driver charged us Rs. 300/- it took 2 hours for completing the tour. We asked the driver to drop us the Ferry service starting point. The ferry service is though fun, it is utter useless. The charge is about Rs. 60 per person.
We had our lunch after that we were simply roaming near Agni Theertham. Our train time is 1700 hrs. We had 2 hours which we cannot use in a fruitful manner. So decided to rest in the Agni theertham. After that we proceeded to go to Railway station to go Chennai
