I had just finished my semester exams and had nothing to do so my parents dragged me along with them on a 12 day spiritual tour of tamil nadu courtesy ttdc who according to me are the best government travel company in India as not only the hotels are excellent but even the buses, guides and drivers are good which ensure you have a comfortable stay as far as logistics is concerned anyway so with great expectations we travelled to chennai on Tamil Nadu express which was excruciatingly slow as there is only one track for 500 kms and hence reached chennai after 25 hours.
I have enjoyed the tour and sites are good but the most disturbing part is that in the south every temple sells a ticket for a darshan and form separate lines for darshan based on a ticket you buy which is bad and discriminatory as I think everyone should have a access to the god free of cost and other problem for the journey is language as no one speaks anything except Tamil and food is nauseating as everyone eats only rice and so our journey started immediately form there as we were immediately packed off to kanchipuram in the early morning.kanchipuram as you know is famous for its sarees but it also has 103 temples built by each raja that ruled over there with three being famous with one temple having a golden lizard where you can wash all your sins if you tuch it and there also is a mango tree under which parvati waited for shankar which still bears fruits then we proceeded to tirupati the richest temple in the world which is also caled kaliyug ka bhagwan by locals as it is believed if you dont offer something at the temple you might suffer tragedy within a week anyway the journey to temple was great as it has beautiful landscape in form of mountains and green fields but we were pushed around by temple employees if we were some cattle then we went to thanjavur which was breathtaking as it has largest shivling in the world and also biggest templetower in the world carved ot from a single stone then we visited pondicherry where we went to aurobindo ashram and ganesh temple where peace we found was good and believe me it is a very beautiful place then we visited rameshwaram journey to which was breathtaking especially over the arabian sea through indira gandhi bridge and equally fascinating is the ritual of first bathing in the sea then bathing in the 21 holy kuvas then seeking the blessing of the god then we went to kanyakumari where visit to vivekanand rock memorial is fascinating and peaceful and confluence of arabian sea and bay of bengal brilliant but the sore point is the erection of the tamil poet statue to block out rock memorial by the government then we visited suchindram temple the only temple where you have brahma, vishnu mahesh in a single murti and musical instruments sounds come out of the rock pillar then we visited kodaikanal which is like any other hill station and our last stop before chennai was mahabalipuram which has a awesome beach and rock structure and we returned from chennai.
The journey was good well organised and enjoyable but the disturbing part was that here in the south each and every temple sells tickets for a darshan and every pujari asks for money and there are different ques based on the ticket you buy which I think is wrong as I think everone should have a access to god