French Colony

Once again it’s nice to catch you all in another post of my tour guide. As already hinted this post is about a French colony which is not actually a part of Tamil Nadu but much allied to it. I hope most of them would have found the place with the hint which I left in my last post. I am writing about Puducherry (Pondicherry). This is a famous place that I could say close to my home town and my travel didn’t leave this place also.

The meaning behind this name Puducherry is new place and this place is not far from my place, it’s around 40KM. This place is close to the sea and it has many tourist spots to attract many tourists around the world. This is also a well planned city like Neyveli and Chandigarh, which is to say road meets each other at right angles. In the heart of the town lies the Samadhi, or the ashram of Shri Aurobindo Ghosh. At the Ashram's hand-made paper factory one can buy the most wonderful paper products. The Ashram also has departments selling hand-painted saris, ties, and dress material. The beach road is like the mall of a hill station, where everyone comes for a stroll. The footpath is interspersed with trees, flower beds and has lots of benches to sit on and enjoy the evening. Here one can even take a ride in a catamaran by requesting the fishermen, as is the practice. The buildings which are reminiscent of the French architectural style are the Samadhi, French Institute, Raj Niwas to name a few. Pondy’s most happening place is Nehru street and it can be called as paradise for shoppers where one can buy leather & pottery goods and other normal stuffs are also available there. Since taxes are comparatively low there, so people from my town would travel there to buy some costly stuffs like car, bike, electronic goods, etc... Pichavaram is another spot near pondy & its famous for backwaters.
I was thrilled when I travelled there first time with my friends and that was a unique experience which I never had in my life till now. I and my friends went to that place after finishing our tennis tournament at Pondicherry and roamed around pondy hiring a rickshaw. We also went to some tunnel which connects cuddalore and pondy. Its just 10 to 15 min walk inside the tunnel to reach cuddalore.
Auroville is another place close to Pondicherry; it wants to be a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony, above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realize human unity. It wants to be bridge between past and future. In the middle of the town is the Matrimandir, which has been acclaimed as an outstanding and original architectural achievement. Pondicherry has couple of famous temples like Manakula vinayagar temple and Varadharaja perumal temple. But this place is more famous for its education and it is the home for PEC (Pondicherry Engg. Coll) & JIPMER (Jawaharlal Institue of Post graduate Medical Research). PEC campus is around 200 acres; imagine the size of that university and this is one of the top universities in India.
If you go to Pondy don’t forget to take a ride in ECR(east coast road). This road connects Pondy and capital city (Chennai) and this is the shortest and easiest way to reach Chennai. Since this road is so smooth you can race on this road. For all bike riders and car racers, this is the spot that you should not miss. Along the coast road you can have a good site of Bay of Bengal and resorts by the side of the coast. Driving is easy in this road because of smooth and straight road; moreover you can enjoy your drive with pleasant sea breeze.

Shopper’s column

Most of the people tour not only to know and see the specialty of that particular place, but also they shop a lot in that place to have a feel how different they feel when they shop here. In that way, this place has a famous Sunday Market. Its open only on Sunday and it is in MG Road. We can buy anything we want, you name it, and they have it. It’s like an exhibition on street. Pondy people come to this place just to walk through the street, even though some won’t have any intension to buy anything. Here things are really cheap but we have to bargain, and the cost of the stuff is totally depends on our tongue. Once I went there to purchase a collage bag, I spotted one and asked for price, you won’t believe it that shopper told me 750Rs and I finally purchased it at Rs 125, which is not a bad price for that bag and I use it everyday till date from the day I purchased it.

Finally I am going to end this where we went to many locations in this Goa identical city. In the next post we will go to our capital city. If you don’t know much about this City, wait till next post to see what this city loaded up with. Thanks for visiting and keep visiting to share my experience.

Temple City to Chola City

I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone Happy and Prosperous New Year 2009.

My travel continues from Neyveli to small places around it like Chidambaram, Vaidheeswarn temple and vadalur and to some big cities and towns like Pondy, Cuddalore, Trichy, Tanjore.
All these are famous and illustrious to everyone.
Chidambaram is called as land of both the Shaivite and Vaishnavite, and it is approximately 40-50 KM from my town & 250KM from Chennai. This place is eminent for couple of reasons, one for temple and other for education as it is the home of Annamalai University. This is a very big university having medical collage and hospital, engineering collage with quarters for its staffs and many hostels for students inside its campus. I have been there couple of times to give my engineering entrance exam about half a dozen years back. Believe me they have made a separate town for this university called Annamalai Nagar which is very close to Chidambaram. Another eminent factor of Chidambaram is its temple. The Chidambaram Temple, dedicated to Lord Shiva in His form of the Cosmic Dancer, Nataraja. It is an ancient and historic temple dedicated to Lord Shiva Nataraja and Lord Govindaraja Perumal, one of the few temples where both the Shaivite and Vaishnavite deities are enshrined in one place. Roof of the sanctum sanctorum is covered with gold plates.It is at the centre of Chidambaram.
Vaitheeswaran Koil is about 24 km from Chidambaram. The place is famous for a Shiva temple dedicated to Vaidyanatheswarar, 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. In this Temple offering Salt and milagu (pepper) are part of their rituals. Even though the proximity to this place from my town is pretty close still i have yet to capitalize on that ... the visits to this place has been far and few between but its definitely worth a visit....

From this temple city I am moving on to chola city (Tanjore) which is about 130KM from my home town. Rice bowl of TamilNadu is the other name to define this city. My uncle used to stay in this place. Kavery River runs thru this city, which keeps the soil so fertile for farming. I am closely attached to this soil as this is my mom’s native. Here there are two famous collages they are Shanmugha (SASTRA) and Tanjore medical collage. Tanjore is well known for its Periya kovil (Sri Brihadeswara temple). I was staggered a bit to see such a big Nandi & Shiva Lingam..But even more surprising information is that Nandi is made of single granite rock. And moreover the dome of that such big temple is also made out of single granite rock. Believe it or not shadow of the top most point of the temple at any time won’t even touch the ground. There are many researches going on about the temple and scientists believe that there are much scientific information is being unrevealed. Having so many amazing factors, this Sri Brihadeswara temple is considered as tourist spot and not as a temple for worshipping. This temple was built by King Raja Raja Chola. The son of king Raja Raja Chola, “Rajendra Chola” had built the temple (Gangaikondacholapuram temple) on the lines of the Big Temple of Thanjavur. Till date even the ruins of the temple are visited for the splendid specimens of the Chola sculpture. The artistic appeal of the carvings is simply put amazing! My dad used to go to this Gangaikondacholapuram temple, every year to serve people who come there to visit. At a distance of 13 kilometers from Thanjavur is the Thiruvaiyaru associated with saint Thyagaraja. In fact Thiruvaiyaru also happens to be the host for the eight-daylong annual Thyagaraja Aradhana music Festival in the month of January as a tribute to saint Thyagaraja. This place has enough tourist spots for entertainment, which is worth to make a visit.

So by this we are coming to an end of this post but will continue with some other place in my next post. My Next post is about a place which is not part of Tamil Nadu but very close to Tamil Nadu and this is also called as French colony or The French Riviera of the East. I hope you got what’s next, if not please wait for my next post and thanks for visiting and keep visiting to share my travel information.

India & Travel Tips

"Life is Fast, don’t get Lost”- Ramakrishnan. This is today’s quote about life. So in this fast life an ordinary man like me have to travel to many places to survive and make it meaningful. In the last couple of post I have shared few information and knowledge about Neyveli. Let’s continue our travel.

During my stay in Neyveli, to break our monotonous life we used to go to several places in India. In that way, I have been to places like Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, Manali, Kullu, Shimla, Chandigarh, chidhambaram, Tanjore, Coimbatore, kodaikkanal etc… and sometime to abroad to places like London, Singapore, Malaysia. “Traveling tends to magnify all human emotions “now I am magnifying and sharing my emotions of my life. “The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page” these pages of mine gets life only by experience. I like traveling because I believe that travel and change place impart new vigor to the mind.

Let me start with what exactly does travel means to me. Travel is the change in location of people on a trip through the means of transport from one location to another. Travel is most commonly for recreation or for business; but may be for numerous other reasons, such as migration, fleeing war, etc. Travel may be local, regional, national or international. In some countries, non-local internal travel may require an internal passport, while international travel typically requires a passport and visa.

India is a vast country situated in the largest continent of Asia. Tourism infrastructure in this county is strong. It is a globally famous tourism destination of South Asia. Tourists from all each corner of the world visit this country quite in good number. Tourists can explore historical and bustling cities on their tours & travel in this fascinating country. Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Aurangabad, Shimla, Manali, Ooty, Munnar, Jammu, Kolkata, Bangalore, Mysore, etc are some of cities of India having lots of attractions and places of tourist interest. One can explore beautiful hill stations like Kashmir, Shimla, Kullu, Manali, Darjeeling, Munnar, Ooty, etc. So, India is the destination where all tourist desire. So, planning to visit India? Welcome, come and explore this charming country. Wildlife Expedition, Adventure & sport options, backwater tourism & houseboat stay, monsoon tourism, etc are also worth enjoying & deserving on India visit.

Few safety tips before you travel are It's easy to let your guard down when you travel. After all, you're more relaxed and there are so many new sights to focus on. In addition to paying attention to your personal safety (avoiding secluded places and not walking alone after dark), you'll need to reset your thinking when it comes to traffic safety, too. The rules of the road aren't the same overseas as they are at home. In some countries, people drive on the opposite side of the road and you'll need to be aware of this before you cross the street - look in the opposite direction from the one you're used to. Pedestrians don't always have the right of way overseas, either. Be sure there are no cars coming when you step into the street: If there are, they may not stop for you! If you practice these healthy hints you can focus on the scenery - not medical emergencies - and return home with nothing more troubling than some tacky souvenirs!

Journey started @ Neyveli Part II

This is the continuation of previous post about Neyveli…..Last post was about 180 degree of Neyveli, remaining 180 degree about this sweet town is covered in this post…..

Most of the people in Neyveli have a monotonous life, working and spending time with their family. For shopping, some people go out of Neyveli to Pondicherry, Chennai, Trichy, etc..., as these places are close to Neyveli and well connected. I prefer Chennai or Pondicherry for any purchase. There is one place called main Bazaar specially meant only for shopping where we get most of the stuffs but can’t expect brand and we got habituated to it and I feel that’s the reason why Neyvelites are not brand conscious. Some famous outlets in my town are Lakshmi Bakery, Bata showroom for shoes, blue diamond hotel, Archana hotel (Neyveli arch) etc...

We have couple of parks here namely Nehru Park oldest in Neyveli and Golden Park. I still remember during my childhood days, me, my dad, sister and neighborhood friends used to go to Nehru Park to play Frisbee, football, catching practice, etc… this park is about 5-6 KM from my home. During those days that’s the only place for recreation and time pass, otherwise we used to play cricket by the side of our home. As already mentioned we have ample space for all sports. Sundays we used to play cricket either in security ground or Krishna kovil ground. Hitting a four or six in that is not an easy task that shows the size of the ground. Most of the sports which are played all over the world are offered here at subsidized rates. When talking about sports its necessary for me to mention about two clubs here, they are town club and Park club. Both clubs have good number of sports…..But the membership fees for these clubs are unimaginably low when compared to any other clubs in the world having such good facilities. This is one of the main entertainments for neyvelites. Having stayed in Neyveli for approximately 20 years I have not tried all the sports available in Neyveli. But believe me I had no time during my childhood to read or relax. You may ask what you have done to keep yourself busy everyday. My answer is “oops that’s a good question, hmmmmmm my daily routine starts at 6AM, from 8.45 to 3.45 school kept me busy, I can say that’s the time I used to relax myself by chit chatting with my friends during breaks and sleep during class hours. After 3.45 I will come back to home to go to tennis & Take-won-do on alternate days till my 8th or 9th standard which I don’t remember, after 6.30 I used to go to Hindi class till 8.30 PM, after these hectic schedules finally I get time at 9.30 to do my school home works, which most part of the work I will do in the school, not the same day but the next day that too few minutes before the lecture starts. I will finish these works before lecture starts so that after submitting my home work, I can do my regular work (sleep). After 9th standard cricket kept me busy instead of tennis & Take-won-do. I quited Hindi classes just to concentrate on my studies but after that I found time to play video game and computer game to improve my computer skill.But every Sunday me and my dad will go to swiming pool regularly. Well well well this answer is my lengthiest answer that I have ever written in my life, and that goes against my policy. Ok no problem; I will sacrifice that for my blog.”

The other main time pass they have is going to temples. There are many temples in Neyveli; famous ones are Raghavendar temple, Natarajar Temple, Hanuman Temple, Vaidheswaran temple, Perumal temple, veppamaram temple and list goes on. These temples have their own specialty. One such specialty in Natarajar temple is that it is the tallest natarajar statue in the world. During the time of Pradhosham you can find dense crowd in that temple. People come here to worship, meet their friends and spend some peaceful time in these temples. I would like to explain the importance of all the temples in Neyveli but there is not much space to write as I have to cover rest of my travel around the world. People don’t consider this place as tourist spot though it has great places to attract decent crowd. After writing all these I missed main category of entertainment which is cinema. As mentioned already in my blog that Neyvelites are not much attracted to movies but we still have one good Dts theater and one ordinary theatre inside our town.. If a movie runs for more than 30 days then that movie is a big hit. There is a good student crowd in Neyveli; I hope in future they can improve these entertainments in the town.

There is less traffic in Neyveli unless in peak hours between 8.00 to 8.45am and 3.45 to 4.30pm, that too around bazaar and schools. In total if you take pros and cons of Neyveli, I will recommend you to come and have a feel of everything. Having told everything about Neyveli, I would like to add few more things about how I missed Neyveli, which I felt only when I left Neyveli to do my graduation in Chennai. Life in Neyveli is just opposite to life in Metro’s. I came out of Neyveli at the age of 18 to do Mechanical Engineering in Chennai, where I had a mechanical life for first few months. It’s easy to move around in Neyveli. To reach any place in Neyveli it is just extending your arms to reach your bike key and 2 min drive in that vacant road. Roads are so good that you feel like flying in Parachute. All these things I missed when I moved out of Neyveli, but only after that I started understanding what the outside world is. Neyveli you don’t need to work hard to get anything, but that’s not the case in outside world.

Your inquisitiveness to know the complete story about my travel would be fulfilled in the forthcoming posts….Patience appreciated. There are lots of entertainments, information and emotions waiting ahead so please check in frequently to my blog and leave your comment as that would help me in improving my blog to help you better.


Thank you.

My Tour Guide: Journey started @ Neyveli….

My Tour Guide: Journey started @ Neyveli….

Journey started @ Neyveli….

This blog is a compilation of all my travel experiences that I have gained over the years.

When I sit to write this blog I was jogging my memory, digging in deep to all my thoughts of places and visits, no other place came flashing to my mind other than my place of birth. It’s rightly said that home is where your heart is. And my heart is here…..

My journey towards this blogging experience starts with my saccharine home Neyveli (homeland).

The lack of space in my house was overly made up for the acres of land in your dictionary it would be called as play ground but we Neyvelities call it our second home….or better an extension to our bedrooms and halls… the enormity of these grounds could not be explained in words..Something’s in life requires to be witnessed personally….i suggest this is one such instance.

This town is famous for Lignite which is used to generate electricity, thus we have no problem with electricity. There are around 21000 houses for employees of Neyveli Lignite Corporation. About 60-to70% of total thermal power in Tamil Nadu comes from Neyveli and produces more than 2500MW power. Neyveli can be termed as one of the modern industrial townships of India, with round-the-clock, water and electricity facilities. It also uses well-maintained, underground sanitation system, unlike some of the other cities in Tamil Nadu. Neyveli has its own telecom system, complete with company-owned telephone exchanges, for faster communication between employees of the township. Neyveli is divided into blocks, if I am not wrong Neyveli has around 30 Blocks and I belong to block 19. It is one of best planned town in India and is one step ahead of planned cities in India. It is well connected to all parts of Tamil Nadu through roads which is best mode of transportation in Tamil Nadu. Language used in the town is Tamil which is second oldest language in the world next to Sanskrit. Climate which is major concern for many people around the world, Neyveli has cooler summers (temperatures still reach above 40degrees Celsius) and winters are colder than the nearby regions, even though the township is at the same altitude with them. It has red soil which is quite fertile. Rainy season starts in the month of August and goes on till Diwali days, but you can’t find any water clogging due to its best sanitation system. The buildings in Neyveli are constructed using hallow blocks.

Life in Neyveli can get monotonous at times to an extent where people are clueless as to how to spend their free times. There is common thing of all Neyveli people is that all the people who live in Neyveli are not natives of the town. People who live here are either employed by Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC) or by the business enterprises that serve the employees of NLC. High literacy rates and multilingual nature of people reflect in a culture that lays high importance for education. Due to high literacy rate, education is like next religion for us. All recreation comes only after education. As per my experience people in Neyveli are living a life within four walls, enjoying all the facilities available in the world at subsidized rates. Neyveli boasts of having some of the best educational institutions in the region. Jawahar Higher Secondary School (CBSE), Jawahar Matriculation Higher Secondary School, St.Paul's higher secondary school for boys, St.Joseph of Cluny Matriculation Higher Secondary School for the girls, Sri Aurbindo Vidyalaya Matriculation Higher Secondary School, the NLC School for Boys and Girls, Seventh Day Adventist Matriculation Higher Secondary School and Sacred Heart Matriculation School of Mandharakuppam are some of the notable schools that foster a healthy intellectual environment. Of all these schools Jawahar is the best in the entire district, because I am from that school. In Tamil Nadu which ever collage you go, you can find a group of Neyveli students, that’s the specialty of this place. We also have a big GH hospital, which don’t have all the facilities but we can get reference to any best hospital in India.

Before you jump into conclusion and pack your bags to settle here let me just forewarn you..There might be a few things that you may not appreciate of this place….since this blog would express only honest thoughts….i ensure to enlist the pitfalls of this place ….Your inquisitiveness to know the complete story about my town would be fulfilled in the next post….Patience appreciated. There are lots of entertainments waiting ahead so please check in frequently to my blog. Thank you.