Day 3 - Ramanathapuram - Rameshwaram - Dhanushkodi - Ramanathapuram - Pattukottai

We woke up to a rainy morning. We got up from the cozy beds and got ready and were ready for the ride to Rameshwaram and Dhanushkodi. The plan was to visit these two places and return back to the hotel room pack our luggage and head towards a town called Pattukottai. Pattukottai is just a place for our night halt en route to Point Calimere and nothing famous about it.

Link to map

We were ready to ride by 7 24 am .

Our rides getting a free wash :D




Stopped for a morning tea to refresh ourselves up fro the lazy morning. Faced a heavy downpur for 5 minutes en route but that was it! We got completely wet and got dried up in the next half an hour that's the intensity of summer in here!

Few kms before Rameshwaram spotted this beautiful place for a photoshoot. Thanks to Sudan for spotting this place :)










Thanks to a school kid for this pic of three of us with our rides with the Bay of Bengal in the BG :)









In a few meters we came accross the famous Pamban Bridge. The sight was a stunning one! With the sea below , train track one one side and the road bridge at one side. The pics will not do justice to the place.













After some brief pics we headed towards Rameshwaram.



Reached Rameshwaram and it was not as crowded as I expected. Stopped at the first hotel for a quick breakfast. Proceeded to the temple and parked our bikes at the exclusive car parking at the cost of Rs40 per bike! We all love our bikes :)


The Temple was very unclean . I am very sad to say that :( . Government and temple authorities should put in efforts to maintain the sacred place in our country much better! After the entire dharshan of the temple we were back on the saddle and proceeded towards Dhanushkodi. Visiting this abandoned town was in my mind for long. When we started from Rameshwaram it was around 12 noon and the heat was dehydrating us. Dhanushkodi was some 30 kms from Rameshwaram and the route is very scenic with the Sea at both sides. Wind was not letting us ride in a straight line . We were swaying our way through those roads.


There was a road that was going towards Kothandaraman temple. It was just awesome. It was pure bliss! With sea on both sides. It was like you were riding into the ocean!






Reached the checkpost for Dhanushkodi , this is the last piece where you will have roads. After this there are beach sand for 12 odd kms to reach the tip of Dhanushkodi from where Sri Lanka was just 29 kms!

Initial 50 meters and the last 10 meters of this 12 kms are tough. We have to ride through beach sand which will be knee high. Rest of the stretch in between will be a little hard sand where you will have traction. There is no proper path as water keeps shifting its location depending on the tides. We took a different track onward and a different one on the return. Bikes can manage and locals use the 4X4s or Mahindra vans for transport.

Some pics on the way.







My trustworthy touring machine - P220Fi :)











We drunk all the water we had with us, the sun was sucking all the energy out of us and we were in middle of nowhere! But the feeling of riding to such a terrain was awesome!

Some craziness in me that was revealed :p



After these pics we proceeded towards a small fisherman village. Had a chat with the locals and came to know that on a calm night Lit towers in Sri Lanka would be visible from this point.





Doggie beating the heat its own way :D






After the chit chat session headed back towards the checkpost .









The sugarcane juice shop at this place was our savior of the day! Re hydrated ourselves and headed to Ramnad to our hotel. We covered the 45kms in half an hour it was a non-stop speed run. Had a heavy lunch and checked out our rooms and headed to Pattukottai which was 130 kms on the East Coast Road. Road condition was good though it was not having any dividers in between . Almost entire ride was in the night.

Brief stop to lubricate the chains after the rains in the morning and the deadly Dhanushkodi ride.



As usual entered the town and enquired for the costliest hotel in town and booked an A/C room for the night :)

Spoke with Ananth and came to know that the Point Calimere Sanctuary will open only at 10 am. This means more sleep for us :D

DAY 4