The primary attractions at Kanyakumari are
Beach, Vivekananda Rock Memorial,
Kumari Amman Temple,
Bagawathi Amman temple
Google Kanyakumari Sight seeing you will get tons of good detail.
I wrote this travelogue just to share some tips,lessons learnt and photos.
I felt there was insufficient number of photos on the web for some of these places so I wanted to share as many photos as possible. These representative photos can give you an idea of the place.
Every building you see in Kanyakumari around the beach is a lodge. There are millions of lodges. But you may pretty well be stranded without an accommodation in some holiday seasons. So book your accommodation in advance, if you are traveling during holiday season.
I stayed in Hotel Tamil Nadu of Tamilnadu Tourism development corporation. One can advance book rooms thru internet. Seach in Google TTDC Online and choose accommodation in the TTDC web site.
Tarriff as on 1-Jan-2009 a/c 1325/- non Ac-1000/- Including 10% tax. Check-out the site for current tariff.
By the way, the breakfast is complementary, a pretty decent one.!
Vivekananda Kendra is another great place to stay. The advance booking is possible, but one has to write to them 30 days in advance. Checkout their website (Google Vivekananda Kendra Kanyakumari).
Excellent campus. Have good Veg restaurant. In case you land up without advance booking of accommodation, check out Vivekananda Kendra first.
Back to Hotel Tamilnadu. Nice spacious rooms. The hotel is situated on the beach which is stone throw away from the backyard of the hotel. All rooms have nice view of Vivekananda Rock memorial from the balcony.
I enjoyed staying there.
Though a number of restaurants are available the food can be only so so in many places. I chose a couple of them to suit my needs and they turned out to be great.
I had tiffin (South Indian ) from Saravana’s, not bad, I would say Good..!
I spotted a Rajasthani restaurant that serves authentic phulkas with great subjis and Rice. It was great to my palate for dinner. Authentic.. with less of masala..!
I had Idlys and Aappams (Super soft..!) from a very small eat-out on the way to triveni sangamam (the beach where Bay of Bengal, Arabian sea and Indian ocean join). Great taste and dead Cheap..!
Well. I had quite a frustrating experience waiting for the ferry. I stood in the queue that is a serpentine line from the dock for about half a Kilometer at 10:00 am. It was about 2:00pm when I boarded the ferry. When I returned it was about 4:00pm. There was a queue at the Rock memorial for the return. I understand, many a people sneak thru using touts..!
Consult locals before taking the queue as to which is the right time to visit. This may not be the case always! And you might be lucky with a short queue..!
Beach:
Nice beautiful beach. Anywhere from the beach, one can have a beautiful and majestic view of the Vivekananda rock memorial and Thiruvalluar statue.
Thiruchendur
Another temple where crowd control near sanctum sanctorum is pathetic. There was almost stampede. No semblance of order. Again , it is probably the day, I visited. There is actually not much of crowd, But there was no orderliness and proper control.
Video - Ayyanar Koil
Please see at the bottom of this post
Photos and Videos are allowed. Guess what is the fees for Video Cameras .. Whopping Rs 1500/-. And it is Rs 25 for Still Cameras. I guess, they would do well to lower the fees for video camera to something like Rs 100/- They will make more money than what they are doing now..!
Videos
