Trip to Garbarakshambikai Temple

During my recent trip to India, one of our plan was to visit garbarakshambikai temple in Papa nasasm thaluk of Thanjavur District in the state of Tamilnadu. This temple is famous for the married people who have no children for long time are blessed by the goddess here.Also pregnencies are protected from all dangers and easy deliveries occur. Though the presiding diety of this temple is Mullaivanananthaswai, the fame for this temple is due to garbarakshamikai.

We took Ernakulam Trichy Tea Garden Express from Trichur. The sheduled arrival of this train at trichur was 23.45. But on boarding our coach S3 it was utter confusion, as our coach was converted to High capacity coach resulting in seatnumbers being shuffled. This resulted forced us to wait till 1:00 in the midnight to get the right bearth. The TTE was struggling to passify the passengers to occupy the right birth as per the final list. As it was midnight, passengers were not ready to hear the TTE. Finally we took some vacant bearth, which was in the lower level. But the journey in the side middle is very difficult, as it is very short and congested to lay in this bearth. I could not sleep properly till Erode, when some passengers in the lower birth got down. We reached trichy at 8.00 am. Immediately at 8.45 am there was a DMMU was ready to go to thiruvarur, via thanjavor. We got in to this train, which reached Thanjavor at 9.45. When we reached Thanjavoor, Manamadurai- Trichy Express was waiting for crossing. The old plat form No 1 and 2 which belongs to Metergauge is still there, where renovation is going on. All the tracks has been removed and new tracks for broadgauge is being constructed. The rockfort express from Kumbakonam has been parked in the platform No 5, may be due to insufficient pitline in Kumbaknam Station. We cheked with the Railway retiring room about the availability of the room and found that they are available. We got A/c two bed room which is costing 600 per 24 hrs with extra 300 for another person. The room was very excellant with spacies room, with good view of both station and nearby main road.

After checked inside the room, we called the temple on the details regarding the opening timings and decided to visit the temple in the evening itself. As per the details published by the temple devasthanam, it mention, that we have to catch bus no 24,34,16 from old thanjavoor bustand. so we took one auto to reach old busstand (fare anywhere in thanjavor 30 RS). We waited for the bus, but nothing turned up. When we enquired wiht a driver he suggested to take an auto as the bus is not relable and it will be very congested( not seen anywhere in Tamilnadu). He suggested to bargain with autodrivers around 200 Rs. We started negotiating with the autos, and finally settled for 300 Rs. However later we realised that going by bus is not at all advisable, as this is situated in a very remote village, isolated from the main town around 22 Km from Thanjavor. The road is single lane, with paddy fields on both sides. No traffic except for occational tractors. It took 45 minutes to reach the temple. The temple is situated at 2 Km from Bazzar busstop. No auto or any transporation available. When we reached the temple it was almost 6.00 in the evening.There is no hotels or lodge in this area. We just bought some garlands for the god (100 Rs) and went to counter to get the receipt for the ThankaThottil(this was our offering ). For each child it cost 550 Rs. So we bought 2 for our both the kids. After visiting the main deity, Mullaivanamnadhar, we visited the garbarakshambikai devi temple. The temple is very calm and quiet, with very few pilgrims. We perform our offerning ,and had a look around the temple.

When we came back it was totally dark all around and our auto driver was waiting in his ape diesel auto, which is very spacious. The return journey was very adventerous, as it was totally dark. We prayed not to happen on our way, as there is no fuel station, hotel, or any wayside aminities. However thanks to god we reached safely back to our room in railway station. The driver was very polite and friendly and we went straight to ganesh bavan for night dinner.