Kanchipuram - The city of 1000 temples

  • Month of travel: August 2023
  • Mode of Ride: Car
  • Total distance (KMs): 267
  • Iternary: 1 day

Due to the long weekend, we were planning for a trip and decided to visit Kanchipuram, so as planned, we left Bengaluru morning around 6:30 AM 🚗, backpacked with Water 🚰, a few snacks 🍉, and Homemade food for lunch and Todo plan in the city 🗞. Due to the weekend, the ride was slow till Krishnagiri, and then the commute paced up. During the ride, we had discussions on various topics in a constructive way 😉 which is the good part of the travel, and reached Kanchipuram at @12:45 PM. By the time we reach the city, the time for visiting hours at the temple is exceeded (was anticipated), and the visiting hours are till 12:30 PM and then from 4:30 PM to 8:30 PM.

We have found a place to park our vehicles, opened lunch boxes 🍽 🍲to complete meals, and go shopping. As Kanchipuram is also known for Kanchipuram silks, we went shopping till 4 PM.

Kamakshi Amman temple - One of the Astadasha shakti peetams

  • Time of travel: Evening
  • Hours spent: 1:15 mins

After the shopping, we visited the Kamakshi Amman temple, There was a queue and we stood in the queue to get darshan of Kamakshi Amman. We were in the queue for 1 hour. The queue was stopped for 45 minutes (Do not know the reason) and did a darshan of devi. Although the darshan was less than 1 minute, it is definitely worth spending time and forgetting the time spent in the queue after seeing Kamakshi Amman, she is calm 😌, and peaceful and makes your heart light weighted 🙂.

Ekambareshwara Swamy temple - One of the Panchabuta lingams

  • Time of travel: Evening
  • Hours spent: 40 mins

After a few photo clicks 📸, we immediately visited the next place Ekambareshwara Swamy temple, It was a 5-minute ride from Kamakshi Amman temple. The moment you're close to the temple you will be awe-struck 😯 seeing the giant Rajagopuram and the architecture. There was not much queue, the lucky part was spending 25 mins watching the priests performing aarti to the Ekambareshwara swamy, it was totally worth spending time. The Shiva lingam was unique in its structure, and after the darshan on the way to the temple exit, we saw the pillars which were perfectly carved and look-a-like pillars, Seeing this masterpiece I felt am I doing my best in our work (inspired to do more quality work).🤔
and then went near the mango tree, the place where Kamakshi Amman, and Shiva got married, and you see a mango tree bark in the gallery which is around 3500 years old.

Varadharaja Perumal temple

  • Time of travel: Evening
  • Hours spent: 2 hours

With divine feelings after visiting the previous two temples, We headed to 3rd temple to visit "The Varadharaja Perumal temple". It is a huge complex with walls around 23 feet high. We went inside the temple, There were many devotees waiting to get darshan and we entered the queue, it was indeed a very long-standing queue, and felt a bit tired, after a lot more zig queue paths we took the darshan of Narasimha Swamy temple and continued with the darshan of Vishnu temple in the same complex. we were a bit tired, and there was another place within the complex to visit, which was a golden lizard, we were unsure whether to visit, seeing after the queue, but we visited with special darshan. It would be good if maintenance in the temple was done. By the time of completion & visit to these temples, it was 9:30 PM

Dinner

  • Hours spent: 1 hour
  • Experience: ★ ★

After completion of the temple darshan, we looked for some decent restaurants to dine in. We ordered some food, and the food was not that great, as usual, you don't expect the taste to be better however we had to fill our stomachs. Our plan was to travel back to Thiruvannamalai on the same day, and one thing we did not do is hotel booking to stay in Thiruvannamalai. We did 8-10 calls to hotels for our stay, unfortunately, no hotels were available. So we decided to stay back in Kanchipuram, and same here we called a few lodges, but all were busy. Finally, we found one lodge 🏨 which is not listed in MMT, Agoda. The place was decent and the rooms were fine.

With a quick fresh up, we went to sleep...😴

Sri Ulagalanda Perumal temple - 1 of the 108 divadesham

  • Hours spent: 20 mins

This temple visit was not on the plan until yesterday, as were in the town, we decided to visit this temple and then head back to Thiruvannamalai. When we visited this temple, Repair work inside the sanctum was undergoing, and we were able to take the darshan of Vishnu. It was a good start to the day 😍.

Breakfast - On route to Arunchalam

  • Hours spent: 40 mins
  • Experience: ★ ★ ★ ★

We were looking for a nice place for Breakfast 🥣, and after some travel looking for restaurants, we reached the outskirts of the city and found a hotel on the way. Surprisingly, The hotel was clean, and we ordered the Pongal, Idli vada, Poori, and tea/coffee, it tasted good. The service was a good and fair price. I have asked the owner if this place is listed in Google Places, and he said it is not listed and said it was recently opened. This completes the trip to the city of Thousand Lights with a good experience overall 🚗.