Another Spot Found Near My Place: Velankani Beach Church

Most of the times sudden plans work even better than the planned ones. Often we decide, make plans to go several places but that seldom works.

That’s why I have learned to accept the things as they come.

This post is about such unplanned outing. From a long time I wanted to visit a nearby lighthouse. This one remained elusive, light produced by it was seen from everywhere, from our regular beach, from the road that goes to the beach. But how to reach there was never known. Until recently I learn that my brother and one of our friend had gone to this lighthouse a couple of years back.

So all of a sudden, one evening my brother and I decided to go visit the lighthouse. It took 20- 30 minutes before we reached there, meanwhile he was telling me how small and clumsy the place is, that how the lighthouse itself is surrounded by densely packed human habitats, there’s nothing serene about it. By the time we reached the place, even my enthusiasm about seeing the actual light was greatly diminished. Eventually we reached there and found that it is indeed surrounded by fishermen houses. We couldn’t able to get a decent shot of lighthouse and the facing sea. Nevertheless my bro continued to drove past the lighthouse, he said lets find out where the road goes? I was not so happy about going further when your chosen destination is falling behind. Still we continued to go ahead, probably he already knew about the place. We learn from local people, there is church at the very end of this road. Its called Vailankanni Church, maybe its name is derived from the name of village.

Our car went through, what appeared was a never-ending road on which more humans were walking than the actual vehicular traffic. Driving on a narrow road filled with potholes plus avoiding a collision with people was itself a challenge. I wonder if any tour guide creates a travel plan till this destination, he will categories this tour as an adventure trip! But soon we found ourselves with less traffic and finally after passing a road curve we even saw our newly selected destination. We were there, almost there and realized that our efforts were finally paid off!

View from Vailankanni Rocky Beach

Looking Towards Gorai Beach

Vailankanni Church is situated just on the edge of a rocky beach. Rocks go well beyond in sea. But near the church, platform like cement-concrete establishments are built on which one can sit and enjoy the sunset. The place is very serene by my standards. From one end of this beach you can see the edge of famous Gorai beach. This is one beach where I have been countless times. With my friends, family, as a couple, even once or twice alone. That is where I took one of my best snaps. That is where my friends and I were stranded for a whole hour because of high tide. That is the place of countless memories of sunsets!

Just right of center is the Light house

Looking opposite and there lies the lighthouse. The surrounding population still makes it look insignificant. I tried to take a HDR image with a shore line including this light pole here, but certainly not a wow image.

Somehow I felt this beach to be more safe than Gorai beach. I have seen many bad elements in Gorai, maybe that comes when there is too much tourism, could be a side effect, I guess. That is the reason I sometimes feel that my village should remain hidden and should not become a popular tourist destination. But that’s just me, and I can be so much mean sometimes.

When we reached it was evening prayer time. Bro and me decided to keep our asses outside and dare not disturb the people offering prayers.

I took many snaps, mostly exposure bracketed to use them later for HDR post processing. I wanted to shoot sunset and then twilight, so I had brought along my tripod. We spent long hours exploring the place, I with my camera and brother still glued to his GPS enabled smartphone.

I have always wondered why temples, churches or any places of worship are situated either over the mountain top or near to sea-side. Its something about the very place that makes you feel divine, spiritual. The quite, calm makes you think again about the chaos where we live in, and how absurd it is. Smoothing wind, view of horizon where finite sea reaches and touch infinite blue sky, plus the setting Sun really makes a mark deep within ones soul. That’s why I m always so attracted towards sunsets. Sunrises are cool, they give you a sense of energy, a good way of to start a new day, probably a whole new life. But watching sunset is kind of remembering a past, the one with memories of heart-brake from the first crush, a unsuccessful love story. Remembering a person who is and will always be near to your heart.

Perhaps I was not alone to go through all these feelings alone. I saw a young lady, who went all the way, dangerously close to rocks near the sea. She sat there watching sunset alone. She took my attention, and I tried to photograph her, but it grew more dark and shooting her became utterly impossible. After some time it was too dark and we were almost started to pack, I saw her returning back. She didn’t go away but came close where we had set up our tripod and sat on church walls next to us.  A long exposure image has blurred her and only a ghost look like of her remains. Still till this day I wonder who she was and why she was all alone watching sunset. Was she plainly watching sunset or something was really going deep inside her to be that alone…. I may never know!

Tags: HDR, sunset