Kottayam to Velankanni in our Mahindra XUV700: Route update

The road to Ramanathapuram is decent with just 2 lanes only, but the traffic is very light.

BHPian Bibin recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

Roads are absolutely in good condition all the way from Kottayam till Velankanni. Only bottleneck faced is while passing Thiruvarur for which there are no bypass roads as far as I know. Other major towns between Tanjavur and Nagapattinam have the by passes operational.

There is a 4km deviation just before reaching Nagapattinam junction too, but the roads were fine though.

We started around 4.30 AM from Ettumanur, Kottayam on 21st Feb and reached by 1.15 PM in Velankanni with only breakfast stop and had lunch after reaching Velankanni at a restaurant called Chellams seafood, which is on the main road on Nagapattinam- Velankanni, but around 200 metres after the Velankanni junction on the main road. Food was decent with meals and fish dishes.

Had booked rooms in the Mary Land suites hotel right opposite the Seagate hotel. Took rest till evening 5.30 and then we walked to the church premises, started with the Our Lady tank church, spent time there, then walked to the main shrine area, and then till the beach. Returned to room around 9.00 PM after having dinner at the restaurant near the bus stand.

Next day morning, 22nd Feb, we walked again to the Shrine area and participated in one of the morning Tamil masses and then had breakfast near the bus stand area and reached back to the hotel. We checked out the hotel by around 9.30AM, and based on a sudden change of plan, we cruised on the ECR towards Rameshwaram & Dhanushkodi.

The road to Ramanathapuram is decent with just 2 lanes only, but the traffic is very less, however, while passing via small towns you'll get some chaos. We had lunch at Ramanathapuram, where we had to take the deviation to Rameshwaram and then again we continued till Pamban bridge, where we stopped to see the new Pamban bridge. We reached there around 2.15PM. then continued till Dhanushkodi without stopping at Rameshwaram and reached the Dhanushkodi RamaSetu point by around 3PM.

It was really crowded there and was hard to get parking slots near the end point. So managed to get a slot on the side of the road and then clicked a few pics and then started our return journey. Reached Ramanathapuram again by around 4.15PM and straight back to Kottayam via Madurai-Usilampatti-Theni- Kumily- Pala- Ettumanur. Took a dinner break at Theni by around 8PM and then continued the drive home by 9PM and reached home by around 12.30 night.

Car used for the drive was an XUV700 AX7L, with 4 adults and 2 kids.

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