Rameswaram & Dhanushkodi - The Very Tip

The Boat Mail headed towards Pamban bridge.

Rameswaram was something I've been planning since at least 7 years now. I grew up hearing a lot about the place. Tales from the Ramayana, Dr. Kalam's autobiography, ghostly images of Dhanushkodi, tales about the temple and its magnificent corridors and the awesome engineering behind the Pamban bridge and the boat mail. The temple at Rameswaram counts as one of the twelve jyotirlingas and is built by the kings of Jaffna. According to the Ramayana, the lingam was placed by Lord Rama to absolve himself of the sin of killing Ravana, who was a brahmin. Rameswaram is an island that's connected by road and rail. The rail connection is via the century old Pamban bridge. The also-century old Boat Mail train has passed through the bridge since 1914. This used to be a direct connection between Chennai and Colombo, which chugged all the way to Dhanushkodi and then boarded a ferry to Colombo. Rameswaram is famous to be the birth place of Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the 11th President of India. His mortal remains are enshrined in a memorial on the island. I wanted to experience this journey via the Boat Mail itself. So that meant starting in Chennai Egmore. Chandu agreed to join us on this trip.

The newly constructed road bridge.

Ramanathaswamy temple.

We caught a train to Chennai from Yeswantpur Railway Station on 10 March and reached Chennai Central by late afternoon. After a short ride on the local train, we reached Egmore station. Chandu joined us there and we waited for the train to Rameswaram to arrive. The Boat Mail came on time at 7PM and our journey started. We spent that night in the train itself. This train arrives at the Pamban bridge at about 8AM the next day.

The new bus service to Dhanushkodi.

Pamban bridge and the island of Rameswaram.

The train ran on time and we reached Pamban bridge at 8AM. It took well over 30 minutes to cross the bridge. It's definitely one of the greatest train journeys in India. We recorded most of the bridge time on our new action camera, the Decathlon GEye 500. The train finally reached Rameswaram by 8:45AM. We took a share auto to the temple from the railway station and looked around to find a place to take bath. We found a little pilgrim house where we could take a bath and change. Then we took the newly inaugurated bus service to Dhanushkodi. At Rs. 30 per head, it was definitely the cheapest way to get there. This bus plies on a newly laid road which goes all the way up to the very tip. Just last year we went to Jaffna, which is just on the other side of this place, in Sri Lanka. This was the fabled place where Hanuman and his monkey army was supposed to have built the bridge to transport their army. Dhanushkodi became a ghost town following a catastrophic cyclone in the 1960s. This place had a lot of mentions in Dr. Kalam's autobiography. The Boat Mail's tracks once led all the way up to Dhanushkodi but since have disappeared due to the cyclone and other factors. The surrounding area is the Gulf of Mannar bio reserve with populations of dugongs inhabiting it. It's also a coral reef due to the relatively shallow depth of the area. That also contributes a lot to much calmer seas.

Dhanushkodi.

Ruins at Dhanushkodi.

At Dhanushkodi.

March was supposed to be insanely hot and humid in the area but it was pleasant during our trip thanks to a few spells of rain. We caught another bus back to the temple by noon. We visited the Rameswaram TV tower and the House of Kalam, which houses a lot of Dr. Kalam's personal artefacts and his book collection. We had lunch in one of several restaurants outside the temple. We took turns in visiting the temple after it opened at 4PM as we wanted to have someone guarding the bags and the cameras.  The temple is an architectural marvel. Its corridors are breathtakingly beautiful and are painted appropriately. Cameras were not allowed inside and we respected the decision. After the temple visit, we headed to Dr. Kalam's memorial. It's a recent addition to the place and houses his mortal remains. It has depictions of his office in the Rashtrapati Bhavan, his last speech at IIM Shillong, his belongings that he carried to IIM Shillong and life size replicas of some of the missile systems that he worked on. This was our last thing in Rameswaram and we took an auto rickshaw back to our bus stop, from where Chandu walked back to the railway station, which was about 2 Km away. We took a Volvo bus back to Bangalore that evening.

The new road to Dhanushkodi.

A church still standing at Dhanushkodi.

This trip incidentally coincides with a string of pilgrimages that we ended up doing in 2018, for one reason or another. Travelling throughout India is never complete without visiting religious places. This year we are going to also travel to 

Ramanathaswamy temple's corridors. Credits: Internet.