I went to Thanjavur on 7th May, 2026. It was a sunny day. I got up a little early being unable to sleep due to the excitement of finally going on a vacation after a long time. In this excitement, I almost left my phone home. I booked an auto fast. Overpaid the driver. And went to the airport to board a flight to Hyderabad where I’ll board the flight to Tiruchirappali so I can finally reach the majestic city Thanjavur.

I left home around 1030 I guess and reached Thanjavur around 1830. At the time the weather felt pleasant. I checked in to Grace Vista. Chilled for some time and then went out on a walk to find a spot for dinner. The first meal I had in Thanjavur was Chicken Curry Dosa at Rasi Restaurant. By reading the name, my expectation was that there will be a Dosa and there will be chicken curry served separately, but to my surprise, it’s a Dosa containing Chicken Curry I guess? It tasted good despite not being what I expected. The restaurant itself was cool. It wasn’t closed from the front. The people outside could see the ones inside. I was sitting facing the outside. The outside was not crowded. There was a road and vehicles moved around. While it wasn’t crowded, it was somehow noisy. The vehicles honking, the people spoke and laughed loudly. It was not unappealing rather it felt different. A family was having food near my table and another guy sitting on my table offered them some of what he had ordered after seeing that the kid in the family was asking for that to his parents. After having dinner, I went back to my place and slept.

Big temple and museum

Next day i.e. 8th May I went to the Big Temple aka Brihadisvara Temple. It is as its name suggests absolutely massive. It has two gates (apparently used to be a moat in between). The gates look majestic. The top of the temple rises high and we’re able to see it from different parts of the city too. There is no entry fee for the temple, but you need to go barefeet in the temple, and to store your shoes you need to pay 2rs near the entrance where they’ll keep it in a paper-ish bag. The temple was built in the beginning of the 11th century by Rajaraja Chola who is also listed as the “founder” of Thanjavur city on Wikipedia which I found a little weird since in the History section it also states that the city is believed to have existed since the 3rd century BC.

There’s a Nandi at the beginning after getting in and there are a few more buildings with different idols inside. The walls of the temple are filled with artistic sculptures of dieties. It also had things written on it in old Tamil.

During our visit, it had apparently rained the night before so it was muddy and walking barefeet made the experience not very good I guess. I think I will revisit the temple some day at a better time when there’s grass all over and the weather is good.

After visiting the temple, we moved to Saraswati Mahal. The entry fee was 100 rupees. Near the same place they have a Museum, a library, and art gallery. Once you pay at the booth and go towards the inside there is a really creepy alley. It’s dark (during the day too) since it also has a roof. At the beginning of the alley there was a homeless person staring in my soul sitting on the ground with his creepy smile. As we moved ahead, I noticed that to my left there’s a person sleeping and farther there was another guy lying his bare hands visible in the sunlight. On the right side too there was a person sitting and watching us.

We went ahead and came out the other side. There was a small shop and there were boards about what sight is where. We first went towards the museum. The museum was a room with a series of different artifacts. It had different texts in different languages. The king at the time apparently collected a lot of things. There were medical books, there were geography books, drawing guides, etc etc. There were religous books too. All preserved under glass. There was a super mini writing where they kept a magnifying glass for us to see it. There were weapons, and different things of the old times.

We moved to the art gallery after the museum. It contained sculptures of different dieties brought from different places in India. It had a loott of art. There was a room there in which there was King Serfoji’s - a maratha king - statue there. Thanjavur was ruled by the Maratha empire from 1675 to 1855 after which it was absorbed into the British Empire after the death of the last King. source: wikipedia

Pro-tip: keep cash with you for entry tickets for the museum

Pichavaram Mangrove Forest

The plan for the next day (9th May) was to go the Pichavaram Mangrove Forest. We took a train from Thanjavur to Chidambaram. It was a pleasant train ride. We were in an AC Chair Car. People from different caterers visited the car frequently to sell their food items. There was no crowd at all. Everyone minded their own business. Each “cabin” had their own table. Everything was quite clean. The food items being sold were Idly sambar, Pongal, veg cutlet, sandwich, tea and coffee. We reached Chidambaram in about 2 hours and checked in to Srinivas Homestay. Srinivas Homestay was good. Its room had good privacy and was quite big. The aunty downstairs was generous enough to lend us a few plates during lunch. I wish they also gave a table so we can sit around it and eat. We had some breakfast in Chidambaram (I had idly) and we headed out to go to Pichavaram.

It’s a cute place. The route was quite scenic. When we reached the Pichavaram mangrove forest it was raining a little. We got a nice row boat and the row boat guy punted in the vast lake. The lake was like 2 ft deep I think. We went deep in the thick mangrove forest. The rower took us to two Mangrove caves after being paid a little bit extra. The rower was good and told us about different facts related to the area and showed us creatures along the way. apparently the mangrove forest was also a drug smuggling area in the past and then later it turned into a tourist site. The rower also said that the place also has foxes but unfortunately we didn’t see any.

It was a good experience. The rower took us through super narrow routes and even let us get off the boat into the water (I didn’t get down as I didn’t have another set of pants :( maybe next time!)

We went back to Chidambaram and had Mutton Biryani and Chicken Biryani. It tasted delicious. We went back to Thanjavur in the evening.

On 10th May, we didn’t do much. We did shopping and rested.

Pro-tip: Bring some extra clothes with you to Pichavaram. Also I would suggest pick row boat instead of motor boat.

Kallanai Dam and Mukkombo dam

On 11th May, we decided to visit the Kallanai Dam, but it was highly likely that the dam would be empty since it was May - but due to wishful thinking since it had rained recently, we decided to still check it out. We booked a half day taxi to go there. We went through Trichy to reach Kallanai dam. The taxi guy parked nearby and we went ahead and explored the dam. Unsurprisingly, there was hardly any water. There was a monkey staring at us. We looked at the structure and walked across it and came back. It is a huge dam and it has existed since apparently 150 CE built by the Cholas. It is the oldest dam in the world. I suppose hardly anything from that time exists in that dam now but it still gives a grandiose feel to the dam.

Next, we decided to visit Mukkombu. It is a scenic dam also on the Kaveri river. Surprisingly, this time we did see more water here. It was nice. It had many more people than Kallanai too. We walked across the dam and watched it. There was a space where water was flowing and had no depth and people were bathing there and playing around. Next to the dam there was a small park where many families were having picnics. There were couples hanging around in different spots. Kids playing on various rides. Monkeys stealing food from visitors. It looked like quite a happy place.

Rajali Birds Park

On 12th, we decided it’s time to visit the birds. Expecting to see a variety of cool birds we went to the Rajali Birds Park in the morning. It is placed a little distance from Big Temple and the top of the big temple is visible from the birds park. The entry ticket costs 150 rupees per person. Once you get the ticket, you are handed a small stem with leaves. Immediately when you enter you are greeted by an ostrich. It was sleepy when we got there, some people were trying to feed it their small stems but since it was sleepy they just hung it on the fence and left. We did the same and moved ahead, but as we moved ahead the ostrich had started moving again so we went back and tried feeding it the stem and it ate it out of our hands. It was a quite big ostrich. There were two. One with black feathers and one with brown. And in that area in the center there seemed to be two huge eggs too.

Going inside, we saw a loottt of different birds. Different pigeons, hens, geese, birds that i don’t even remember the name of.. they were all so beautiful and strange and as if fictional. We saw them move around in their little cages and some that were not caged were flying around and chilling. We went through the whole area and looked at every single bird. There was also an iguana at one point next to some birds I don’t know why. Then there was like a tray in which there were lots of small birds I think chicks and another tray which had many many small duck-like birds.. and we were allowed to feed them. We took some food and put our hand down, and as soon as we do a horde of birds jump on our hand and try to eat all the food punching us with their softness. They were incredibly cute. The duck tray was like that too, except those ones punched our hand with their beaks like woodpeckers they were super fast.

There was an area that was covered and had double gates. There was a person outside the gates who looked at our ticket, marked it and allowed us entry and gave us some bird food. As soon as I went in 3-4 small birds jumped me and tried to get the food. They were super small and super cute. We went in the shade and fed the cute colorful birds till they left only kernels in our hands.

There was a dog, a few persian cats, some bunnies, and mice too in the birds park. Bunnies and the dog were allowed to be touched by visitors after we explore the rest of the park. At the end of the park there was another area for large birds, we went inside and again it had two gates.. we were given some food after our ticket was checked and we went inside where a lot of birds came to us. These birds were bigger. There was a huge parrot who sat on my shoulder and tried to eat my shirt at one point since the food in my hand contained only empty kernels. It was an incredible experience being surrounded by sooo many birds. It looked like the birds were all well taken care of.

There is also a small place to eat in the birds park. We had lunch there.

End

I visited a few more different places around Thanjavur. I liked the city. Despite some parts of it being noisy sometimes I like the vibe here. The people were nice and friendly. I don’t know why people thought I’m Malyali sometimes which was funny. The auto costs were super high imo - it was at least 100 rupees most of the times. Even in Chidambaram it was at least 100 rupees for a ride.

Thanjavur is a city that is filled with rich culture and kind people. I will visit this place again during a better season - I think winter. The city feels really close to nature, and I’ve been told that sometimes we can see random peacocks lurking around too. It is good to see the outskirts of the city too. And about Trichy. I didn’t stay in Trichy - I just landed there. I wish Thanjavur had it’s own airport too. The Trichy airport felt quite small compared to the other airports, but it was nice. It had art at different places and the fact that it was not crowded made it better.