In and around Rameshwaram

WARNING! WARNING ! WARNING! -- Too long a blog and too boring text to read, only continue if you really want to ! or just skim through the pics! :D

So I finally ventured out of Bangalore last week for a one day outing in Rameshwaram, completely dedicated to photography.


The fact that I didn't have any confirmed tickets/ any hotel reservation, I knew it was going to be really uncomfortable. And the place's really hot/humid/sunny . But still it was a long weekend! Entire Bangalore was on the move! I didn't plan this trip in advance and I paid HEAVILY for it. But I was desperate to go out and my conscious was simply not going to allow me to spend 3 day holiday ( again ) in Bangalore, doing nothing. The last time, all the three days my mind was swarming with ideas to do "this"/"that" and it just made me restless.

 So I checked for trains --> FULL, I checked for buses --> FULL. Simple non-ac buses were costing 1500 bucks that day ( usually they come for 500 on a usual day ). I was like WTF.
I had two choices, either get on the train without reservation and pay penalty or "try" to catch a bus which was unlikely considering the availability stats. I tried getting "current" reservation and failed miserably and in all the I've had already hopped between platform and reservation counter thrice!

I was dead tired. Meanwhile the train arrived. I ran to search for TTE and found one after a bit of search. I frankly asked him "See, I don't have confirmed ticket, I will pay extra, tell me if I can board the train or NOT?". He was like, yeah sure, board the train. I sighed. Ironically I kept following him for 90 minutes and finally he came back to me and said- "Sorry sir, no seats". I only how I'd managed that night...

The route I followed was -- Bangalore --> Trichy--> Rameshwaram-->Trichy-->Bangalore. Trichy was my resting area ( my sister stays there ). One of my photography enthusiast friend joined me in Trichy. We reached Rameshwaram quite comfortably but at midnight. Another surprise was waiting for us there.. :D Entire place was booked, it was a special day it was Amavasya ( new moon day ) and lots of pilgrims had arrived there. We found one lodge were they said it was could Rs. 300, I thought it's dirt cheap, let's go! And then I checked in and everything and they asked for 2300! Bah, languages and communication gap..! We walked out of that place and after a bit of struggle, found a double bedroom ( fits 4 ). The owner claimed that no other rooms were free but the fact they were simply creating trouble to pocket more money from the alien faces. I gave him some gyan on "demand and supply" telling him to be righteous and not to charge us heftily for a shitty accommodation. He got pissed off and said - "this is what is". We succumbed to his demands and took the room. The room wasn't bad, it was sea facing with AC and I frankly didn't care anymore. It was 12:30 by the time we settled. We rested for 4 hours and woke up at 4:30 and were out by 5:30. And then we got into our usual business :D


I saw a jetty in the distance and quickly walked towards it as the early morning hue had already kicked in. I have had thought of this shot for quite a long while and finally got the chance  :)

15 mins before sunrise

 5 minutes later:

After a few shots, we went to "Suryanamaskar" ( paying respect to the sun ) area. The moment of  surya-namaskar is pretty instantaneous. Before I could frame the shot, the moment would vanish. After a few tries I switched to another subject... ( yeah .. cliche cliche cliche but can't really help it )

 And then few other sunrise shots:

And finally a decent Suryanamaskar shot :)

With the number of sunrise/sunset shots I've been taking recently, one can really get sick of it :D

The sun had come up completely, the landscape had lost its hue and beauty. We went back for breakfast to ready ourselves for the lost city - Dhanushkodi! This place was once destroyed by a cyclone in 1964 and since then this is place inhabitable and has just become a tourist spot. They say that it was the point in India where Rama and his army had travelled into Lanka on the floating stones. I was very excited about this place as I'd read about it in a magazine and wanted to try "minimalist photography" at this place. By that I mean to have too simple a composition and yet conveying the message. For this place "aloof" fit pretty nice.

This is the van we got into:

 The pic below was shot from a moving van and I only had once chance to click this. At this moment I felt I should have hired a jeep instead of choosing local transport.

With the theme "aloof" in mind, this wasn't really difficult to spot:

The below pics were shot at the end of the southern strip, the tourists were busy with ocean so we had complete opportunity to capture it in its essence. The specialty about this point of beach is that it is a confluence of Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean, the Indian ocean side being really rough/steep/dangerous to venture into and the other side, smooth/shallow/enjoyable.

Another tourist van on the way:

Here's one lone hunter:

Dead boats were still useful, at least it provides shade to few puppies :)

After that stop they took us to Dhanushkodi's ruins. By this time was almost midday and the temperature was at its peak, but we still didn't give up and continued shooting :D

Here are the remains of the old Dhanushkodi railway station:

View of a lone home through the ruins:

There were few dead boats on the way. I saw a scene where a group of birds ( all different species) would sit on this one boat as if in a conference. I sooooo wanted to capture but didn't have the courage to ask the van guy to stop. Now I think I really missed an epic moment. So while coming back, I took the courage to ask the driver to stop for a moment. He was like "Meh... ok". It turned me down a bit but still I shot this from inside the van.. in few seconds and asked him to move on.

By this time we had come back to where we started from, i.e. from the point where only 4x4 vehicles are allowed. Everyone was taking shelter, but crazily enough walked to this place and tried more shots.

We are the only two on foot there and all passers by started to wave at us.. it was a nice feeling :)
I saw a lot of contrast in the sand and soon spotted a van coming by, there's no other reason to have shot this :D

This is the Indian ocean side. This pic can't describe the steep nature but I got some decent wave action.
I was attempting long exposure in midday( with ND filter). Soon after the exposure ended, the camera got too hot. To avoid any risk to the cam, I switched it off for few hours.

After this, we returned to Rameshwaram and went for darshan in the city's main temple. We soon were rejuvenated by visiting temple ( we did all those 22 wells teertham ). This place is known to be the Kashi of the south and they say one only goes there when gods call them. Thank god :-))

We rested for 30 minutes and then took off for the famous Pamban Bridge in an autorickshaw.
The road was lit with early evening's golden light:

Little we had know that we were going to witness a very very beautiful evening :)


This the view from the bridge, the golden/orange lit boats caught my attention:

This is my favorite pic from the trip, it was really amazing to have witnessed it physically.

Right before the sun had set, a train passed by

With this scene, we concluded the evening and the trip and directly went to railway station.
Wooha, I can't believe that I did all this in one day. I really can't thank my friend enough for accompanying me in my crazy trips! I feel good about the decision to go ahead with my plans and not to cancel it in spite of the odds. I hope my passion for capturing moments doesn't die away, I like it this way.
Hopefully you enjoyed the pics as much I enjoyed shooting them :) Keep in touch!