Explore Arittapatti — Madurai
Arittapatti (also called Aritapatti or Pancha Pandava Padukkai) is a village set near a rocky hill about 25 kilometers northeast of Madurai. It has one of the oldest known Tamil Brahmi inscriptions, as well the oldest known Shaivism-related Lakulisha iconography in Tamil Nadu and Jain monuments.
It’s almost 6+ months continuous stay at Madurai and good thing is I am getting used to long motor cycle rides. Last time, in Alagar kovil visit, wanted to take a peek at Arittapatti, but we felt it’s longer but this, Arittapatti is the actual plan.
From South Madurai, where I live, there are 2 routes to reach Arittapatti. One via the city, shorter route(28kms). One via highway, slightly longer route(32kms). I preferred the highway. Not all the winter mornings at Madurai are chill, but that was that day, it had a rain previous night, so, it was too too chill.
As how the google maps suggests, we reached the place, have no clue about what to explore, where to climb. And when we wondering what to do, after reaching the google maps destination points, A dog started barking!
A lady in the village helped us for the way and also let us to park my vehicle there. As my petrol was stolen in my last visit, I felt happy parking my vehicle inside someone’s property.
Twist: We were looking for plain rock like structure, but they thought we are looking for some temple or jain cave. So, they showed this way. When I see this view, I was clueless, how would I end up land on that plain rock surface area. But, I continued walking.
Noticed a calm temple, big tree with lots of bells attached. And a small hike was going little up behind this tree.
We did a small hike and reached this place. We took photographs of the place, without even knowing it’s actually Jain cave. Although we noticed some inscriptions of Tamile, we could not see the actual jain beds as it was covered by full of dirt.
At this point, I am still not satisfied with the place. I was looking for the big rock like structure and continued hiking. As it’s winter season, there were lot of bushes and I actually thought the path is covered with them.
At this point, my friend is not convinced that this is the path. But, I was confident, If I climb this small rock, we will get to the big rock surface area and continued doing stunts.
While doing, my legs slipped and left foot got sprain! OUCH!
At this point of time, the pain is manageable. Climbing even above got me puncture by lot of thorns. I decided, ok this can’t be the way.
Let’s return!
Before leaving, getting the good look of the one of the most complex rock formations. I told myself, may be, next time!
Slow travel: What I like about these travel, we have not even visited the place we wanted to, but we already made good memory and story to tell. As I practice this slow travel and don’t rush to anything, I was able to capture this vibe of this place.
We asked this kid, the big rock like surface, how to get in there? He explained us, it comes before the village, with a small diversion. So, I picked my bike, drove towards outside of the village.
And finally found this massive rock surface. wow!
And they are goats :)
This place is separated by a big pond and there is a small sand route to reach there.
If you wear shoes for this plan, think again!
Ah we finally reached the spot. What a place, fresh air, neat pond, there was lot around for nice photographs, instead we sat down for a min to absorb this vibe, also for my friends foot to dry to wear back shoe :P
I wanted to be as creative as possible to shoot some street level or quirky story telling photographs. I couldn’t so I captured by ideal set of photos of contrasty water, legs, selfies.
I wanted to show this big rock surface so big that I put a human and show it’s size. I asked my friend always go to the edge for the photographs. I was even more happier about the sky and clouds that day. Although time is past 9, it wasn’t hot and clouds backed up for the nice photographs.
We know nothing is up at this place, but still continued hiking up for fun. At a point, I noticed this perspective of straight line rock, asked my friend for pose. I also noticed the green horizon intersecting at a point, I did not want to miss the intersection point for an interesting subject.
Photography tip: It is shot considering mountain line as horizontal, so the green actual horizon is pulled up.
Red and Cyan blue goes pretty well in photographs for the contrasty eye catching look.
So, in post processing, I slightly wanted to mountains to be reddish to give the most another planet look, also it’s contrasty with the sky.
Reached almost the top, did not want to risk even further. So, decided to chill at that place with a nice village view both sides. On the other side, there is a temple and some more places to visit.
Here, you can see, how to cross the pond from that village to this rock!
Time is past 11 and we had to climb down, because we were hungry. I really wished to stay even longer with a small dip in pond, as I carried the bath towel and shorts.
While we were down, we noticed this family visiting place, as it is a tourist spot. I could not digest it lol. I lived in Madurai for more than 20 years and I know this place only as a part of exploration. I can’t believe a family coming here, happily hiking to look around.
We crossed back via that pond road and noticed these cars also parked here. Noticed a bicycle too. Figured it’s a nice place for bicycle trip too, if you can ride 30kms one way.
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