The plan was to do the following:
Tirunelveli – Nanguneri – Thirukurungudi – Padmanabapuram – Thiruvattaru – Kanyakumari
8:05 AM – After some nice idlies and a cup of coffee, we left to Nanguneri.
8:35 AM- NH7 – Nanguneri Toll- INR 65
8:43 AM – Reached Vanamamalai Temple at Nanguneri. This is a very orthodox temple asking you to remove your shirt 
Moreover there were some hymns being recited and hence we had to wait for sometime to get darshan. Finished the darshan and went to the lake nearby. While starting back I missed to see the huge stone lying before my car and it scrapped the underbody. Called th 24×7 helpline and confirmed that nothing is dangerous. Kept a close watch on the MID for any warning and proceeded carefully onto NH7.
Vanamamalai Perumal Temple, Nanguneri.
9:40 AM Left towards Nagercoil on NH7. The roads here were superb and empty. I was constantly doing 120 KMPH in this road for the first time in the trip. Stopped at many places to take snaps, munch snacks and happily delayed our trip. Once I entered the route to Nagercoil the entire route was with heavy traffic and the delayed our plans.
NH7, Smooth and Straight. Near Valliyoor.
11:13 AM Reached Tirupathisaram temple, only to find it closed:( Since the traffic on Nagercoil- Thuckalay was getting slow,we decided against going to Padmanabapuram. Also since we were not sure of finding a decent hotel to have lunch, we decided to return to Kanyakumari.
11:38 AM Started from Tirupathisaram towards Kanyakumari after confirming a couple of hotels for accomodation. The cheaper ones were unclean (Triveni) and the good ones are costly (Seaview).
1.30 PM Finally had a bad lunch at Triveni and checked into Seaview after bargaining the rates. This hotel has good facilities expect it has only one lift for more than 5 floors and that is a real pain. Unlike the day before the attention comes only after you pay, we had to depend on ourselves to park our cars. Poor housekeeping.We took some much needed rest and started for the boat ride.
4:00 PM We were the last set of people to enter the boat jetty queue. It was closed at 4:15 PM. I thought the boat ride will take you to both Vivekananda Rock and Tiruvalluvar Statue. But for some reason Tiruvalluvar statue was closed to public. We were on the Vivekananda rock on 26th December. Vivekananda is also believed to have been on this rock from 25th December to 27th December. Another recent incident was the Tsunami which happened on 26th December. Weird coincidences.
Vivekananda Rock and Tiruvalluvar Statue after Sunset.
After an unsuccessful attempt to capture the sunset, mostly due to bad weather, returned to mainland and roamed around window shopping. We tried to go to Gandhi Mandapam and Wandering Monk Museum but chose to stay out seeing the huge crowd. We then visited the Devi Kanyakumari Temple and relaxed on the outer praharams facing the beach munching groundnuts Went back to room since there wasn’t much to see after 6.30 PM.
Wandering Monk Museum, Kanyakumari.
Tuned into the News channel to hear warnings of Cyclone Thane. We weren’t ready to face any rains, leave alone a cyclone. Hence dropped plans to go to Rameshwaram and decided to go to Srirangam to stay for the next day and proceed to Chennai. Again for the dinner we really had to hunt around for a decent Vegetarian hotel. The restaurant at the hotel we stayed was too costly. Hit the bed at 22:00 hours.
The fotos are really good….:)
Thanks Ayyappan!
Were you trying to cover the 108 Divya Desams ? Looks like from the places you’ve been. If so why left Navatirupathi circuit around Srivaikuntam ?
No Sir, the plan was to drive and cover whatever places possible. We might do a different trip again to cover navatirupathi…