Achankoil sastha temple

Achan kovil Shethram 

On 19th February our day was pretty long .

We planned to go to Pandalam ,Kulathupuzha ,and Aryan kaavu and stay in Thenmala where we had booked in a sort of resort .

As planned we completed three temples and reached the booked place by afternoon but instead of giving us room booked they tried to pass off a non AC room for the rate discussed and for AC they increased price .

This we felt was cheating .

Luckily in all these new places we were careful only to block but never to pay online and book .

So we refused and drove off to Thenmala without much plans 

We had to go to Achan kovil which was more remote in a forest reserve and abit way off as we needed to enter Tamilnadu retrace to Kerala in Shenkotta and go by ghat section and forest section to reach Achan koil .

Luckily we got a very helpful person when we called temple who informed us of anew place to stay called Vaishnavi palace and we called and booked it  first.

Now the drive .

We crossed into Tamilnadu and saw Courtallam waterfall was very near so we went there but it was disappointing as waterfalls had little force and place was hot and dry .

So after taking couple of pictures we were back driving into Kerala and after Shenkottah entered forest and ghat section which was very scenic .

After along drive of around 2 hours we reached Achankoil even seeing a film shooting on way in jungle .

We took rest in our decent hotel and evening went to Achankoil temple .

Achan kovil is 40 km from Punalur and 30 km from Shenkottah difficult to approach .

One of earliest Saastha temple built by Parasurama here Ayyappa is in form of a family person with two wives Poorna and Pushkala .

Karuppan is Ayappas friend and bodygaurd has a seperate temple built for him in front .

The Achankovil temple is famous for treating snake bites using water from its wells and its chandanam or sandalwood paste  .

Priests see any case of snake bite brought any time here .

The temple was in a more inaccesible jungle in Kantha mala and it was brought here .

One famous ritual here is Kuruppan thullal 

During British rule one officer called it as superstition and stopped funds for the festival . He also kept hot chains under stage where ritual dance took place but the dance went off well and dancer took iron chains in his hand and made officer who had come there to watch the fun and he felt it ice cold suddenly it also burned his hands .

He regretted his behaviour and made many offerings after this to temple .

Temple is famous for its Appams and payasam .

We became very friendly with all staff there as in evenings very few were in temple and they gave us lot of prasadams .

We stayed that night in the lovely place after a country dinner in a quaint kuttans tea shop .

Next day morning we drove to Thenkasi on way to Thiruchendur temple in Tamilnadu .