Car Travel – Chennai to Thirukadaiyur – Aug 2008

Thirukadaiyur is a temple in Tamil Nadu, India. It is the place where Lord Shiva protected Markandeya from Yama (Lord of Death) when he was about to take the boy to hell. Hence, this temple is supposed to give long life to couples beyond 60 or 80. A brahmin function called Sashtiaptha poorthi is celebrated when the husband reaches 60 and Sadhabishegam when he reaches 80.

We wanted to take our parents to Thirukadaiyur. When I tried searching the Net for the route and time that it takes to reach Thirukadaiyur and about the the place to stay etc., I could not find any proper site with all required information. Thought it would be useful if I write a blog for other netizens who might want to visit this temple in TamilNadu.

How to get there

We (my parents, myself, my brother and sister) started off in our Tata Indigo on Sunday at around 12 PM. The route basically was this from Besant Nagar in Chennai…

Besant Nagar, Chennai -> Pondicherry = 150 KMS

Pondicherry -> Cuddalore = 20 KMS

Cuddalore -> Chidambaram = 50 KMS

Chidambaram -> Sirkazhi = 23 KMS

Sirkazhi -> Mayiladuthurai = 16 KMS

Mayiladuthurai -> Thirukadaiyur = 18 KMS

Start off from Chennai, take the East Coast Road (ECR) and travel towards Pondicherry. From there on, you’ll find boards till you reach Thirukadaiyur. Pretty easy I should say as this was the first time I drove beyond Pondicherry.

East Coast Road

Total Time Taken: 6-1/2 hours, including around 45 minutes break – on the way near Chidambaram, it started raining heavily and we had to go at around 30 KMPH speed as visibility was near zero. (average was around 100 KMPH speed)

Till we reached Pondicherry the drive was pleasant with good roads. After we crossed Cuddalore, roads were little narrow and the last stretch from Mayiladuthurai (old name: Mayavaram) to Thirukadaiyur was a little crowded. We passed Vaitheeshwaran temple in Mayiladuthurai on the way – Lord Rama and Lakshmana were supposed to have worshipped Lord Shiva here. The Lord here is supposed to cure many diseases.

Vaitheeshwaran Temple

Finally, we reached Thirukadaiyur.

Thirukadayur Entrance

Where to stay:

We had not booked any hotels when we started – Of course, you can always try and get a booking at Hotel Sadhabishegam (http://www.sadhabishegam.net) – there are two hotels, one at Mayiladuthurai which has got a beautiful garden and the other at Thirukadaiyur just five buildings next to the temple. We stayed at the one near the temple. The photo is given below. The rooms were pretty good (we stayed in the family rooms) and cheap too. The restaurant though was a different story – if you expected good mouth-watering food then you’re in for dissapointment as the food was average.

Hotel Sadhabishegam, Thirukadaiyur

If you need to arrange sashtiaptapoorthi for your parents, you would have to book in advance and they’ll do the necessary arrangements (including video arrangements). We had already done the sashtiaptapoorthi for our parents and we just wanted to go to the temple for a darshan.

Of course, apart from the temple trip, it was sort of a two-day vacation for us (that’s my brother 🙂 )

Hee hee.. my brother and his antics...