The Temple City , kancheepuram, 27 Oct 2007

Date : Saturday, 27 Oct 2007
Destination : Kancheepuram, the Temple City
Planned Route : Home-Avadi-Ponamallee High Road(PH)-Sri Perambadur-Kancheepuram
Kancheepuram-chingelpet-Tambaram-PH road-Koyambedu-Thirumangalam-Home
Actual Route : Amazingly the route which I had planned !!!

A gloomy morning didn't deter my decision to ride to Kancheepuram today. Though my parents aren't convinced that I should be travelling for such a long ride when it is raining intermittently (yes the North East monsoon for the year has struck chennai albeit a few days late, but it has been raining for the last few days), but somehow had the feeling that it won't rain atleast in the direction which I plan to ride.So after having a small breakfast at Home I started my ride(Trip meter - 0 , 7:25 AM).
Went to the Shell Petrol Bunk and filled the Tank and started out on the road towards Avadi , the road was not that slippery though there were some sheets of water at quite a few places, but luckily there was no rain, for that matter not even a drizzle. Today being Saturday a working day there was a good amount of traffic on the road till Avadi. Crossing my college on the route (never minding to Stop) was surprised to see soo many new buildings near the college. On reaching the Bangalore Highway (Trip Meter - 38 Kms) (by hitting PH road), the traffic ceased down and the road was smooth and quite good. One of the objectives of this ride is to do the final run-in for my Thunderbird, as it has already topped 2000 Kms, but still haven't been run at more than 4000 RPM consistently, so I decided to throttle my way up to 100 in a short time and almost held up above the 80 km/h mark till I reached SriPerambadur(Trip Meter - 55 Kms,8:40 AM). Seeing the Rajiv Gandhi Memorial Site (where he was killed by a LTTE suicide attack in 1991) along the Highway, I stopped over here and ventured inside the memorial. Its a sprawling green campus with constructions made out of Rock Stones primarly. Except for a very few visitors (mostly passers-by) the place was almost empty (probably bcos it was only 8:40 AM by now ). I take my Camera out and take a few snaps of the Indian Flag hoisted at the site. Went inside to see some Huge pillars which were arranged around the exact place where Rajiv Gandhi was killed. These pillars are named after some of the major rivers of India and each pillar stands for a different theme like Peace,Courage etc. While coming out of the Memorial realized that I was unfortunate in being a little bit early to the place because just as I was exiting there was a bus load of college Girls who stopped by to see this Memorial. Hmm bad luck ..
I see the Distance-Hoardings telling me that I am still 37 kms from Kancheepuram, but the route is soo good that I am consistenlty throttling my way in the mid 90's quite easily. En-ruote I cross some of the major Industries on this Industrial corridor like Hyundai,Nokia, Saint Gobain and lot others. Taking a left from the Highway I reach Kancheepuram town after crossing the railway track (Trip meter- 87 kms, 9:25). By this time I had three missed calls (its a surprise for me as well !!) , it is from my Home, my sister and my friend. My parents are worried whether I am hit by rain as it has been raining heavily at my Home in chennai, I confirmed that there was no rain at Kancheepuram (Weather Report from Kancheepuram, by Arun Raj exclusively for his parents !!).
Entering the town, I realized that this town has more one-way roads than the total roads!! Almost every other road is a one way here. Went to the Devarajaswami temple famous for its ... (sorry I really don't know) took some snaps of the Temple and came out wishing to go to the Kailsanatha Temple, which was supposedly nearby. But deciding against visiting this temple I started to ride towards chingelpet, alas seeing Saravan Bhavan hotel on the way, I went inside to take a quick Breakfast ( the Hotel is a nice place, with good food and good parking facilities). After breaking my fast, I ventured on the road towards chingelpet (thru Ayiumpettai), but on reaching the outskirts of the Kancheepuram town I saw a temple with very tall surrounding walls, I decided to visit this temple and then continue. this Temple tunred out ot be the Devarajsami Temple which has one of the 1000-pillared mandap (only 96 exists now !!, not sure who stole the remaining, but the building frame suggests that there were never more than a hundred pillars !! ).I am taking a lot of snaps in this temple which seems to be a pretty old Temple.
I hit the road again (Trip meter - 97 kms, 11:40 AM) and drive towards Chengelpet and reached chingelpet(Trip meter - 132, 12:20 PM) and stopped near the huge flyover on the highway to take some rest on the road side. Now the road from here till Tambaram is very good and the road after Tambaram is very good if you take the Bypass which after a 19 km ride from tambaram takes you to PH road (near MGR engg college at maduravayal), as expected the PH road towards koyambed is in a really bad state (going by the dictionary meaning for the word "road", this stretch of PH road can't be said as one such), the road was muddy, watery albeit every thing but a road, after some difficulty reached the inner ring road but was caught in rain near anna nagar, so pulled my RE aside and took some protection under a tree for 20 minutes before stretching out to my home ... my bike was full of mud thanks to the PH road ..will clean it later , now its time to take a good nap at home :)