Road Trip to Palakkad from December 17th to December 19th 2022

 

My Road trip to Palakkad on December 17^th and 19^th 2022

Our yearly trip to Palakkad to worship our family Deity was halted due to covid and we were tremendously religiously pressurized and were guilty of making a trip to Palakkad asap in our free time/Vacation.

We decided to make a road trip this time with my mom, my son and my wife. Our usual place of stay Kapilavastu very next to KSRTC bus stand in Palakkad has been the only pure vegetarian place we were aware off, but  this time we were not getting any rooms since the trip was planned just a few days before.

This made us to try our other hotels and once again our criteria was pure vegetarian hotel with restaurant. To my surprise I got multiple new options for staying one a home stay name Niranjanam and Home INN(In Nurani) Contact person name is Sivaram Sundaram – 8862851499), very nice person to interact and he provides vegetarian brahmin food for the hosts. It has very good google review as well. I didn’t stay at Niranjanam, since I found another hotel by name Sri Bhavan at Kalpathy(a pure veg hotel cum restaurant) where we decided to book and stay.

Road trip details

We packed some breakfast and left Bangalore at 6.30 am, our plan was to reach Palakkad for lunch. It was a hazy and foggy morning, so the drive was pleasant. We passed Krishnagiri and took a break before Jamuna Palkova shop in Palakode.  We had our breakfast and made a pit stop at Jamuna palkova shop. Picked some fresh milk sweets and some savories for munching . Good quality stuff. It has neat rest rooms very helpful especially if you are travelling with women or elders who might need a bio break

We avoided the route via mettur to Palakkad(which we had taken last time) which comes before Thoppur on the right side since it was showing 50 minutes slower. We reached Palakkad at 1.30 pm(my wife gave an helping hand in driving). Roads were excellent and it was a nice drive.

We checked in to Sri Bhavan at Kalpathy. It was a very decent AC room(4 bedded AC room) ideal for a family of four. You can find the contact details of the hotel from google. We refreshed ourselves and came down to the restaurant in ground floor for having our lunch, it was a traditional normal south Indian meal without any extravaganza. Food was excellent and fairly priced. Later we retired to our room to relax.

In the evening around 4.45 PM, We hired a  auto through the hotel reception. An auto driver by name Rajesh@8129163138  was booked. Very decent guy and we first reached Manapulikaavu amman(our family Deity). It was at a distance of 5.6 kms from Kalpathy/our hotel . The temple opens at 5 PM in the evening and since we were early we had a great darshan without anyone or any crowd. We bought Amman’s laminated photo frame and left the temple after spending 30 minutes. Our next place was Ramanathapuram Agraharam( where our ancestors had lived and they had built a Ganesha temple as well). We visited the Ganesha temple performed pooja with garlands and  gave dhoti for adoring the Ganesha idol. We also visited the Shiva and Krishna temple in the Ramanathapura Agraharam. Beautiful Agraharam with three temple one behind the other. From there we went to a 60 year old restaurant called Hariharaputhra Vilas(our usual place for food). We packed our dinner and reached our hotel by 8 pm. One challenge with dinner is that no where you can get curd rice. If you are specific about curd rice for dinner then you need to buy curd from a supermarket since none of the hotels have curd rice especially if you are travelling with senior citizens or kids. they don't even have plain white rice available which was disappointing

 Our Next day

We had planned to visit Kalady the very next day since my mother hadn’t visited the place even once. This was my second visit to Kalady the Birth place of  Adi Sankarar. We left Palakkad at 6.50 am and decided to have break fast on the way. The road was excellent from Palakkad to Kalady especially the stretch till Thrissur. Amazing silk road with early morning fog and driving was a bliss.

After crossing Thrissur to your left on the highway is a restaurant by name Chennai Ananda Bhavan(Looks like A2B chain of hotel). It was a pure vegetarian, and we had a great breakfast. Food prices were reasonable compared to Adyar Ananda Bhavan chain of restaurants. I was really surprised to see a fair pricing of items . Worth a try. We reached Kalady in 2.5 hours including our break fast break. We visited Adi Sankara's temple cum his mother’s place. It was a serene tranquil place which is a must visit. There are no words to explain the calmness and peace you get once inside the temple. There is also a Krishna temple outside the main gate of Adisankara’s temple and mutt. You can walk down to Poorna river on whose banks is where the Krishna temple and AdiSankara home is situated. The life of Sankara is depicted in the walls of the temple and mutt and you can learn a lot by visiting the place. While returning there is a Adisankara’s stoopi on the main road(like a leaning  tower of  Pisa). It is also a must visit place. You can google and find out the place details. Please climb till the top of the tower to have a glimpse of the stories related to Adi Sankara depicted on the walls of the stoopi. you have to pay 5rs entrance fee for climbing up the stoopi.

We had spent almost 90 minutes at Kalady and decided to start our journey back to Palakkad. On our return journey we tried visiting a temple constructed by Kalyan Jewelers family at Thrissur but the temple was locked so we ended up reaching Palakkad by 1 pm earlier than the time we had planned.  This time we wanted to have lunch at Kapilavastu which is our usual place of stay and food. Once again the restaurant didn’t disappoint we had a great meal and retired to our place of stay at Kalpathy.

On the way back to our hotel we did our chips shopping near Rava stores (which is close to head post office)\. Hot chips next to Rava stores in Palakkad is one of the few places which sells quality stuff. The guy who runs the shop is sending chips to all places across  India. We know him well since we are patrons of his chips. Post our shopping, we retired to our room and spent the evening little relaxed watching TV and we all were set for FIFA world cup finals clash between Argentina and France. 

The Day of return(the next day)

Our itinerary was coming to an end as we checked out of our hotels to drive back to Bangalore. We left Palakkad at 9.15 am. We stopped at Texvalley after Avinashi for our usual textile shopping. After spending almost 2 hours at texvalley, We had stopped at a nearby hotel called Saravana Bhavan classic near Sangagiri on the highway to the left(probably 5 kms from texvalley). This place is within 10 minutes drive after texvalley on the highway to your left when you are coming from Avinashi .Food was very decent, I would say a best vegetarian meals place to have your food or plan your lunch.

We also stopped immediately at the HP petrol bunk after this hotel which also had an Amul parlour. Here they give a discount of 1 rupee/litre compared to other gas stations on the highway. Plan your fuel refill here.

We drove past Dharmapuri toll and stopped for a tea break. Post that we reached Bangalore by 5.30 pm(our home). Door to door timing was 8.15 hours which includes 2 hrs of shopping+ 30 minutes for lunch and 20 minutes for tea). In total we were able to cover a total distance of 430 kms in less than 5.5 hours

To sum it up the trip went as planned and we were immensely satisfied with our kuladeivam temple visits and Kaladi visits and darshan. Finally the guilt of not visiting our family deity due to Covid for the past 2 years was completed without guilt.