2025 Vacation Diaries - The End (For Now!)

 Read Diaries Of Day 5 Here!

Day 6 – Trichy

Early morning I, my husband and my kid left for the temple of Uchchipulayar. There are around 400 steps to this temple. The steps are placed at a good height from each other, so every step was challenging. We got a good measure of our fitness levels while climbing the steps.

First we visited our Kuladev Thaayamaanavar. This is the deity of Lord Shiva in a feminine form. Legend has it that the Lord came to the help of a pregnant lady about to give birth and assisted in her safe delivery as a midwife. Hence the name Thaayamaanavar (The Lord who is a mother). Lord Shiva is in the form of a majestic lingam here. Flower garlands and entire batches of bananas are offered to the Lord. A devotee who had bought bananas offered some to us as Prasad. Tiny gesture of kindness but immense happiness!

We climbed some more steps from where we got a beautiful view of the entire city of Trichy. 

On one side there was the majestic towering Gopuram of Srirangam temple where Lord Vishnu is in a sleeping pose. Beside the temple flowed the divine river Kaveri. The river has lost much of her substance and is in the form of barely a lake now. But with the advent of rains, she would gain her form and volume.

We had a wonderful glimpse of Lord Ganesha as Uchchipulayaar. He is a benevolent deity and His very sight fills the heart with warmth and serenity. I have been fortunate to visit Trichy and this temple many times and every time it feels like visiting a home. Trichy has grown quite familiar for me.

After having breakfast we left for our Kuladevi’s temple. We had quite a humbling experience here.

Ulaganaayaki Amman is kuladevi to many people but her temple is in urgent need of attention. There is a huge crack that has split one wall of the temple. The premises need to be cleaned. The temple needs to be opened more often. For now, the priest opens the temple as per the requests coming in for worship. The temple not only needs monetary help but personal involvement of people to oversee its repair, renovation and daily functioning. 

The priest devotedly offered Pooja to the Devi on our behalf and adorned Her beautifully. My kid observed all the rituals carefully and there was a sense of awe and wonder in him. By the grace of Amman, I hope we get many more opportunities to visit Her.

We spent around two hours at the temple and returned to the hotel where we had lunch. Thereafter we left for Palakkad by road.

Trichy to Palakkad is a distance of around 5 hours. Just at the entry point of Coimbatore our cab got held due to some server issues for procuring permit. We waited for about half an hour.

We reached Palakkad around 8 in the evening finally. The rest of the tour-group had already assembled there and seeing them, I couldn’t help feeling glad that my vacation hasn’t ended yet.

We spent two blissful days in Palakkad. What should I write about Kalpathy, the village where my parents stay!? Should I write about the fresh air, the clean streets and the blissful pace of life that the people follow there? Should I write about the temples, the several temples that are keeping age-old traditions and customs alive? Should I write about the people for whom mornings start by 4 am and the day ends by 7 pm? Should I write about the evenings which people spend at their homes, either lounging on the front porch of their houses or gathered together at one room in the house, with lights switched off in rest of the rooms? Should I write about the variety of birds that have made home there?

I would definitely mention the brilliant sunset that Palakkad graced us with on a particularly cloudy day. I haven’t seen a sky this brilliant ever and anywhere! I know this sunset will be etched in my memory forever. 

Maybe I will write about the mountain range that lies in direct view of my parents’ home.

I will write about early morning walks that we all had, enjoying the serenity of the village. I will mention the coffee that we all had at the stall where the owner still accepts only cash and laughingly refuses to use GPay when regular customers complain to him. I will write about Palakkad town which is quite a happening place where you can get everything you ever require. The town is in direct contrast to the place where my parents’ house is located. While the former is filled with the hustle-bustle of city life, the later is filled with the solitude and serenity that only rural life can have.

On 18^th May, all of the group left for their respective homes with promises to meet soon.

The advancing age of the seniors, the kids whose holidays are growing lesser and the daily challenges of the middle-aged in the group make it an uncertain path to meet as often as we would like to. But there is hope, there is always hope. Otherwise, how can we ever say goodbye with a straight face and dry eyes!?

Train journeys are best only when they are onward. Return journeys, that too after the end of a vacation, are the very epitome of Blues. Dark gray clouds looming overhead the entire route from Palakkad to Jolarpettai until it got dark, and our first view of Vande Bharat express that was passing beside our train, somewhat dimmed the blues of the return journey home. 

Today as I look back upon the trip from my house in Hyderabad, I realize that although most of our plans went haywire in this trip, we had a lot of experiences. We were blessed with many moments of laughter, togetherness and fun. We could spend some quality time together as a family. And isn’t this the whole purpose of any trip, to make memories that will last for a lifetime!? It is always a vacation when you are with your favorite people!

And thus ends my travelogue of May 2025. Here’s to many more trips ahead, countless memories and precious moments of togetherness, warmth and fun!