Chennai to Chidambaram

This happened to be my first photo trip with Photologic after joining Logica.  Wow this happened to be an unforgettable trip I have been so far. This write-up is for people who thought of joining us but couldn’t make it up.

Our stylish Chevy beat starting from Guindy, early morning on Saturday, escaping city traffic and before the sun could shed its love on us.  It was a pleasant and smooth drive through the East Coast Road. Stopped in Pondy for breakfast @ Royal Restaurant, OMG one masala dosa was costlier than a large vodka J. We started again and reached the City of Dance – Chidambaram.

Though it was difficult to get a room, we managed to get a pretty decent  one at last. After refreshing and lunch, the actually adventure begins

Pichavaram is home to the second largest Mangrove forest in the world, I never knew this before J it was more than what I expected. We hired a boat, Sampath, the rower, who accompanied us was very much familiar with the botanical name of different species there, which was all greek and Latin for us. Hiring a motor boat is on not great excitement, as it doesn’t go deep inside the forest. So it’s always better to take a normal hand rowing one.  We came to know lot many movies were shot in this palce including the opening song of “Dasavatharam”. For us it was like a crocodile hunting mission which we usually see in animal planet J.  Fully covered with trees on either sides, hardly sunlight peeps inside and a small way through which only one small ferry could make it.

(Sampath, man who accompanied us and Prasanna)Friend Umanath in Action

We were back to the shore around 5 PM. We also shot few people weeding and villagers passing by. Hot bajies  and tea at a road side shop.  Very much yummy indeed 🙂

 Now back to Chidambaram, Nataraja (Shiva) temple. The uniqueness of this one is  it depicts the Lord Shiva as the Lord of the dance Bharatanatyam and is one of the few temples where Shiva is represented by an anthropomorphic murthi rather than the classic, anionic lingam. After darshan, though we were tired we took few night shot at the temple. Back to room after a simple veggie dinner near the temple.

As per plan we are leave pondy next day morning, a sudden change in  plan, thanks a tonne to google maps and Prasanna, he found there is a place nearby called “PORTO NOVO” port of Portuguese once.  We departed to Porto Novo, where a big surprise awaiting for us.

all set for the water ride

 We clicked few shots of sun rise and people around the fishing harbor. Umanath checked if we could take a ferry and go to the nearby island. Though I stopped him initially I did node my head and didn’t want to miss the adventure of riding in a boat into the sea J. Millions of thanks, Uma. U rock J. Couple of fisher man took us in their ferry, it was awesome and bit scary too. They took us bit away from the shore where few bigger fishing boats were anchored, then to a small island nearby. It was awesome. The feel was like a desert surrounded by water everywhere around.

At the island, Porto Novo

Prasanna in Action

Back to the shore after almost one and half hours, the place which was totally deserted was fully crowded by the time we came back to the shore, it was a local wholesale fish market, similar to the one at kasimedu @ Chennai. Everyone was very much hungry and all we need was only food. Stopped for an heavy breakfast in a dhaba along Chidambaram-Pondicherry highway.  We all ate so much probably our’s might have been the highest bill for him the whole day 🙂

Selvam & his friend, who drove us to the island

We still had some more energy left over for the saraku city (Pondy). Drove straight to Auroville a silent peaceful place with citizens of the world all around. Spending few hours there started our trip back to Chennai. We were much more excited on seeing a petrol pump reading petrol @ 56rs/ lit. We didn’t wana miss this bumper offer.

 Again an awesome lunch in ECR dabha, with yummy yummy fish. Stopped at muttukadu for a water scooter ride, the saddest part was we aren’t allowed to ride the scooter. Played with Umanath’s 70-300 lens while they were enjoying the scooter ride. The light was too harsh so could manage only to get a average picture of them.

@ Muttukadu

Finally our wk end came to an end at tiruvanmiyur. Overall it was an amazing extraordinary trip with team PhotoLogic.  Thank you so much team.

Only 2 in action, spot it!!

 Few of my works from the trip:

What does the world got for you!



You can't row a boat in two directions at the same time

From the pirates deck

A man's children and his garden both reflect the amount of weeding done during the growing season ~ Author Unknown

 

மிட்டாய் மிட்டாய் பஞ்சுமிட்டாய்

Seems like you choose your own path, but its already fixed by someone up there - Own Composition