I am a frequent traveler to my native Mayiladuthurai which is 40kms away from chidambaram. I will refer MYL for Mayiladuthurai and CDM for Chidambaram in this post .

As the broad-gauge work is under progress, no train facility to MYL. So the only mode of transportation is Road. Most of the time I used to travel in Rathimeena travels bus up to CDM. From there I will take a local bus to MYL and the travel time is about 1hr 15 minutes.

Rathimeena travels running buses at 6am, 5pm and 11:30pm from Chennai to CDM and vice versa. They are having internet booking facility also which ease our booking process.
Normally if I travel alone, I will carry my Zune player. Listening songs in Zune and travelling in ECR in the buses like Rathimeena is a nice experience.

The bus maintenance is very good and they will reach CDM in 5 to 5:30 hrs through ECR. We will not have any travel tiredness up to CDM but the travel from CDM to MYL will give you the tiredness more than what you are suppose to have because of the crowd in the local bus.
Mostly I travel in 5pm bus. Last month I travelled in 6am bus from CDM to Chennai with my wife and son. As the bus starts at 6am in CDM we have started around 4:30am from home. We have planned to have the breakfast at motel in which the bus stops regularly in ECR.

In the bus they will normally provide a 500ml water bottle. But this time around 7 am in the morning after the bus crossed Cuddalore they have provided a packet of bread contains 4 nos and a sachet packet of Jam. I really got surprised.

It is really an appreciable effort taken by the management of Rathimeena. Because they have considered that the passengers definitely will be in hungry before the bus reaches the motel as they got up early to catch the bus. The quality of the bread is also very good.

The facility they are providing without having any extra charge is commendable.