ECR Photography Trip - Kodiyakarai & Dhanushkodi

Sunrise at Rameshwaram

ECR Photography Trip

It has been 4 years since I have done any outing with CTC for various reasons. So when I saw the mail about a Photography Trip to Kodiyakarai and Dhanushkodai, I thought it was too good to miss. So I registered for it and was all set for the day.

If all goes well, then it is certainly not interesting! A week before the trip, I went for a photoshoot on my own near Chennai. A couple of days later charger of my camera stopped working! What good is a photography trip without a camera?

I checked for any availability of the charger, but I won’t be getting anything before the trip. Checked with a couple of friends if they can lend me their camera. My friend Saravanan helped me with him camera a 3 lenses. Cannot be more thankful to anyone, I guess.

On the day of the trip, I reached the bus stand quite early just to make sure I don’t get stuck in the traffic, and excitement of making a trip to a place which I have been thinking of for a long time. Navaneethan and Dinesh were already there and got introduced to them. So the other participants also gathered and the team was ready to go.

The bus started from Chennai around 11:30pm on Friday. Thanks to Dinesh and Navanee for booking a very comfortable bus. We reached Vedaranyam at 7:00 AM in the morning. We had enough time to freshen up and start for the day. Had breakfast at a local shop across the lodge and started out to Kodiyakarai. After visiting the photo exhibition in the forest office we headed over to the sanctuary.

We spent the entire morning in the Black Buck sanctuary, but the bucks and birds weren’t much. The weather was also not helping much. It was really hot and dry we spotted a few black bucks, a rabbit, a horse and a few birds.

We returned back to the forest office in the afternoon, had our lunch and clicked a few pictures in the backyard of the office while we waited for the vehicle to take us to the bird sanctuary.

We reached the sanctuary around 3:30pm and ventured along the shore hoping to get some good clicks of the flamingos. Unfortunately there were only a handful of them and that too drifted far off from where we were. So no good close-up photos of the great pink beauties. When everybody returned back, I fell back for a few more minutes and was rewarded with about a hundred flamingos flying towards me. I am really not sure how many had the opportunity to view this beauty in this trip. I clicked a couple fo photographs and stood fixed at the sheer beauty of the pink Greater Flamingos against the blue sky!

We took few photographs of some of the birds there and then headed back to the vehicle around 4:30. We got on the bus back to Vedaranyam, but on the way we stopped to visit the Rama’s pada. It is believed that from this place Lord Rama was viewing the route to Lanka before they proceeded to Dhanushkodi to build the bridge.

We spent a few minutes there and proceeded to Vedaranyam. We boarded the public transport from Vedaranyam around 6:30 and proceeded to our next stop at Pattukottai. We had a good dinner, freshened up and took another public transport to Rameshawaram.

We reached Rameshwaram very early the next morning, around 3:30pm. Dinesh and Navaneethan managed to find a lodge where we can freshen up. We were really quick to finish off and I and a few others started ahead of the others to the sea shore to catch the sunrise with our lens.

But the sun waited for everyone to arrive and then showed up its beautiful emergence from the horizon. It was definitely a delight to watch. We clicked some photographs of the rising sun and then on-boarded the boat to take a ride in the sea. I personally did not feel this was a very useful ride, except that we got a good view of the temple from the sea. Other than that there wasn’t anything interesting about the boat ride.

After returning back, we finished our breakfast quickly and proceeded over to Dhanushkodi in public transport. After reaching the town, we had to take a van operated by the local group to reach to the tip of the land. We can also walk the entire stretch. But given the weather and time constraint we decided to take the van.

One should be there to know the beauty of the place. White sands and emerald waters with lots of waders and pelagic birds along with some raptors, was a beauty to watch. We again got busy clicking some photographs even though the lighting was not very apt for photography! On the way back to the town we also saw the ruined remains of the place which was hit by a hurricane / tsunami sometime during the 1960s. We spent time till midday and proceeded back to Rameshwaram.

After lunch some of us wanted to visit the temple. So we rested in a local rest house “chatram”. Once the

Pamban Bridge

temple was open around 3:30pm we visited the temple and were back around 4:30pm. We then headed over to the Pamban Bridge and took another round of photographs of the old engineering marvel – the railway bridge across the sea. We also took a glimpse of the setting sun.

We headed over to the railway station, had a light dinner before boarding the train. We reached back Chennai around 8:30am the next morning with wonderful memories of the trip and few very good friends.

Following are some of the highlights of the trip for me.

• Public transports to almost all the places
• The Greater Flamingoes flying towards to in Kodiyakarai
• A visit to the historical place from where Lord Rama was reviewing his route with his army
• The beautiful sunrise at Rameshwaram
• Dhanushkodi
• Pamban Bridge and most importantly the time spent with new friends.

I am really looking forward to visit Kodiyakarai sometime during December. Hoping that will happen.

Sunset from Pamban bridge