Rameshwaram is generally referred as 'the Banaras of the South'. This is a town in the Ramanathapuram district of Tamil Nadu. I along with my husband had a great pilgrim holiday trip to the holy city this year. We had to travel about 383 kms by car from Coimbatore to Rameshwaram. We reached Blue Coral Cottage in Rameswaram as we have booked a room there. This holiday cottage is very near to the Temple.
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Sri Ramanathaswamy Temple[/caption]
From the cottage our journey to the Dhanushkodi was on jeep. Dhanushkodi is about 19.6 kms from Sri Ramanathaswamy Temple. With the help of pujaris’ (priest) there, we performed some rituals and also had bath in the sea. From the old observation station of Indian Navy, Mukunda Rayar Chathram we travelled on permitted jeep for about 10 kms. There is a belief that Lord Rama performed rituals and poojas for his father there before leaving for Sri lanka. We performed rituals there and after having bath began our journey towards Rameshwaram.
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Pamban Bridge[/caption]
After returning from Dhanushkodi we proceeded to take bath in the 22 Wells of Agnitheertham, a sacred place in Rameshwaram. It is believed that the water has several medicinal properties. The people here also believe that taking bath in Agnitheertham will wash away one’s sins. A person has been arranged there to guide us to all the wells and have bath. After bath, we came back to the cottage as one cannot enter the main temple with wet clothes. After having lunch we went to the main temple. As it was afternoon, the temple was not at all crowded. We both had very good darshan of Lord Shiva and the other deities of the temple. After finishing the darshan, we went to the Pamban Bridge. We got a great chance to watch a boat crossing the openable Pamban Bridge.
The next day we went to Gandamaadana Parvatham situated about 2.2 kms from the main temple. Here we could see a footprint of Lord Rama on a Chakra. From there, we visited the five faced Hanuman temple. These are the main places we visited in our trip to Rameshwaram. Even though the best season to visit Rameshwaram is considered from October to April, you can visit there any time throughout the year.