South India - A Very Quick Trip to the Tip Tip Bottom

The van that took us to the train station. I seriously thought the gear box was going to fall out.

View more photos 

Our North India trip was fabulous, as I'm sure you've realized.  We saw so many wonderful sights, like nothing I have ever seen in my life.  Amber Fort, Chittorgarh, the Baby Taj, and of course the Taj itself - all magnificent, breathtaking places.  Plus all the different animals - monkeys, camels, elephants, wild hogs, donkeys, etc. etc. - you certainly don't see them in Montana or California and I loved checking them out.  

Once we made it back to Chennai and I recuperated from my stomach bug (with the help of some meds from the local doctor) we were ready for our next adventure - South India.  I had mentioned that I would like to visit the "tip tip bottom" (my words), or, the very southernmost tip of India where the Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean, and Arabian Sea all come together.  This place is called Kanyakumari, or Cape Comorin by the Brits.  Sekar and Chitra very kindly put together a great itin for us...we were to be gone 5 days, with one day at the Cape, another 2 days seeing the temples of South India, and 2 more days escaping the heat at a hill station (vacation resort in the mountains).  It all sounded great and we were raring to go.  However, fate conspired against us....when we got to Kanyakumari, we discovered that there was some sort of festival in the temple town that would make travel nearly impossible, and the hill station was in the midst of a local uprising and tourists were advised to stay away.  So, we did.  Instead of taking five days, we left on Thursday night, rode the train to the tip tip bottom, spent a few hours in Kanyakumari, and got on the same train back to Madras, arriving Saturday morning.  It was obviously disappointing, but we did get to see the tip and that was totally worth it.  There is a huge statue of a famous poet, Thiruvalluvar, right at the very spot where the three bodies of water meet.  I didn't get any pics but I did steal one off the web.  Here are the few pics I took of the train ride.