Day 2 in India was a loooong one. We had to meet at 645am to leave on the trip to Kancheepuram and Mamallapuram, two cities near Chennai that are often acknowledged as good day trip locations. But we were going to see both in 1 day! "Puram" means place, so that makes it a bit easier to remember a lot of South Indian names.
I hadn't slept much the night before, so for the first time since I was 8 months old, I slept while riding in a vehicle. I struggled to stay awake - how often will I get to see hours of the Indian landscape? But I finally gave in and slept for a bit. We drove for a couple hours (that's 1/3 due to traffic, 1/3 due to mediocre infrastructure, and 1/3 due to the actual distance) and arrived in Kancheepuram around 930.
Our goal in Kancheepuram was to visit 2 Shiva temples and 1 Vishnu temple. Kancheepuram is also known as THE PLACE to buy saris, because it is the silk weaving capitol. Most saris one buys in southern India are woven in Kancheepuram.
We stopped at the first temple, which was really cool. It was built in the 8th century and the carvings are extremely intricate. Our guide walked us around and explained some of the different scenes that are carved in there. A lot of them have to do with competitions between Shiva and the other 2 main gods of Hinduism (Brahma and Vishnu) - seriously, every 5 minutes he was saying "and then Shiva and Vishnu had a dance competition..." I guess if you're a Hindu god, you have to invent your own fun. The other scenes portrayed competitions/interactions between Shiva and his wife Parvati and their kids. Here's a picture of one of the scenes of Shiva:
We had taken our shoes off at the entrance, which didn't bother me (in fact, I was super excited to get be barefoot SOMEWHERE since we can't be barefoot on the ship at all). I did see a few of the beggar kids hanging out by the big pile of shoes though and I had flashes of "Slumdog Millionaire." I honestly think they were just curious (we had some really big guys in our group with giant shoes... I mean, I was curious myself), but our guide saw them too and shooed them away (or shoe-d them away?).
All Shiva temples have a lot of carved bulls hanging out nearby because the bull (or "nandi" which is my new favorite word) is the vehicle of lord Shiva. I love the Hindu depiction of the bull - it's a lot gentler and kinder looking than the Spanish depiction of the bull. There are nandis that are outside every Shiva temple that are kneeling to the temple, and the one here was adorable :) I'm sure the 8th century builders of the temple would appreciate that description.
Anyway, on to temple #2 (another Shiva temple) which was amaaaazinngg!!! I only have pictures of the outside of it though - it was a place that charged a camera fee (something we saw a lot throughout Africa) and I only had one GIANT bill. The camera fee was 20 rupees (about 50 cents) and I had a 500 rupee bill. Oh well, everybody took pictures, I'll have to get them later. This is what I have:
This time our guide told us to take off our shoes on the bus. The temple was a bit of a walk from the bus though, so we all did some cautious walking toward the entrance. Erica, you would've haaaaated this day - there was a lot of barefoot walking in the streets AND a ton of incense everywhere.
Anyway, this complex was huge and smelled a lot of incense. This temple featured a holy mango tree, which I hadn't ever experienced before. To be honest, it didn't look any more holy than other mango trees I've seen, but I'm also not a Hindu. We also got our first blessings at this temple - the dip of orange goo, followed by the red powder, placed on the forehead.
As we were walking through some of the shrines within the temple, we stopped outside a big shrine. The guide was talking about the shrine quite a bit, but not a single person was paying attention. We were, instead, focused on the two giant walls outside the door to the shrine COVERED in swastika symbols of all different sizes and colors. The guide was chatting away, unaware and we were jaws to the ground staring. Finally, the Global Studies instructor Peter (who teaches at Loyola, just down the street from me at home) raises his hand and says "uhhh, so the swastika...???" and our guide turns and starts to laugh. "no no no! Not about the Nazis! The symbol indicates 'the movement of the sun' not Nazi." Good to know, especially since we continued to see the symbol throughout the day. [Mom - $50 says this is why that swastika was one of the symbols in the tiles on the floor on 64th street].
So we headed out from that temple and made a quick stop at our final temple in Kancheepuram. It was a very quick stop since we had only 20 minutes before the temple closed. This was a Vishnu temple, so our guide was quickly running us through some of the stories about him. After the temple, we stopped at a silk shop and got to see 2 guys weaving on the giant loom. The shopkeepers took this opportunity to sell some silk to people on the trip (I didn't buy any) while the rest of us took the opportunity to use the bathroom. We were a little anxious about what kind of bathroom we'd have - Eastern or Western. No reason to worry - it had both options, right next to each other. I want to know what FEMALE is picking the squat toilet, which requires full removal of your pants. Half of the ladies in India wear pants under their tunic! Anyway.
We then had a 2 hour drive to lunch. By the time we ate, it was almost 3pm, so we were hungry. Lunch was pretty good - we were served banana-leaf style (a banana leaf in front of you, and everything is laid right on there) and had to use the 5 utensils given to us biologically (ie we ate with our hands).
We had some biscuit that I'll just call an Indian falafel, and some tomato and coconut chutney to dip it in. Then there was a bready-pancake item that was used to scoop the different chicken sauces that were on the leaf. And some rice noodles. It was pretty good. I really don't mind eating with my hands, but I go through a lot of napkins, because I have a compulsion to wipe them off after every couple bites.
On to Mamallapuram! Mamallapuram is known for its stone carving monuments. We went to the first and didn't spend much time there at all, but it was pretty impressive. It was essentially several long walls with huge scenes carved into them. There were a lot of cows in the scenes.
Time out: have I mentioned the cows yet? I don't think so. Cows are EVERYWHERE! They literally just hang out in the middle of the street. Sometimes they'll have a seat in the median, sometimes on the side of the road. Or they'll just wander down the street for a bit. I love it. I love that each country I go to has its own national stray animal: Morocco was cats, Ghana was goats, South Africa and Mauritius had dogs, and India has the cow.
We went to the next temple which had 5 full stone monuments and a few stone animals as well. By this point we were all pretty tired of getting on & off the bus, the heat, and the people trying to sell us stuff outside the monuments (personal space is defined very differently in India). We walked through it pretty quickly before heading to the Shore Temple, the final stop of the day. TOo bad, because it was beautiful. I wish we'd had more time there. The Shore Temple hasn't been restored like some of the other ones, but that makes it even more amazing. It's also located right near the water. We weren't able to go into it (because of all the people and our time limit) but it was neat to walk around the outside. Look at all the little nandis surrounding! That means this is a Shiva temple:
So we boarded the bus and left for Chennai around 530pm. We got back around 8pm (intended arrival was 630) and I went directly to bed. It was a good trip for me because there wasn't a lot of talking required, but the air here is tough to breathe, especially with a cold that has settled in your lungs. So I went to sleep because my trip the next day was also a 645 meeting time.More on that later though, this is super long already. I'm feeling a little better this morning, which is good because I slept most of the day yesterday. I've been on duty the past 2 nights, and am very lucky that I didn't receive a single phone call. I'm hoping to do some shopping today!
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