Blog Number Three - Day tripping mayhem...

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Now I am getting organised, it's the day after the last blog... before you know it I will be all caught up! (not likely!) Today is our 2nd to last day doing nothing at the beach so thought I would try and get one more place out the way.

Blog Number Three - Day tripping mayhem...

Kanchiparaum - Kanchi

Kanchiparaum is famous for 2 things, the temples and the silk saris. We wanted to go here as it has a good mix of temples which Tamil Nadu is famous for having some of the best examples in the country, not at all interested in buying saris but sure we would probably end up in a shop haggling the price down on one before we knew it! Today was never going to go smoothly, we knew that from the moment we started trying to get the train to Kanchiparaum the previous lunchtime with the regular train service between Chennai and Kanchiparaum as quoted in the lonely planet ended up being one service a day! The night before we went, we spent just under 3 hours looking for train stations, going to the ticket counter trying to find out the times and being told 'no you don't get the train from here you get it from Chennai Beach station at 7:15am' so we would go to Chennai Beach station and they would say 'no you don't get the train from here you get it from Chennai Egmore station at 6:55. Then when we went to Chennai Egmore we split up and each went to the ticket counter on opposite sides of the station and of course got conflicting information again, one said that it leaves from Chennai Beach at 6:55 and the other said here at 7:00. As overall we had more people tell us Chennai Egmore we decided that we would try there at 6:45am and see what happens. We bought our train tickets so that was one less thing that we had to do in the morning.

The alarm went off, we got up and headed up to the station. We got there ahead of schedule so grabbed some water. We then tried to find out what platform the train was going from, again we were told platform 9 then 7 then 5 then 11! There were no boards or anything to check off so we had to start going down onto the platforms to try and asking the station guard at each platform, and there must have been as many platforms as at Clapham Junction and it was like rush hour!!! 5 minutes to go and still no luck, we managed to find the right platform with about 2 minutes to go, the train pulled up, barely reaching a stop before it continued on and left the station. The journey itself was fine, the train was a local train so not the most comfortable and was purely locals heading off doing there thing, not a tourist in sight so we got the usual set of questions from every person who got on the train... What's your name? Which country are you from? Is this your first time to India? How long are you in India for? What are you doing in India for 3 and a half months? Why would you want to come here? It wouldn't be so bad but you get asked this literally about 20 times a day!!!

Anyway.. we got to Kanchiparaum just before 10am so our 2 hour trip was 3 hours. We checked the board and the next and only train back to Chennai was in 20minutes time!!! A local appeared from nowhere and told us that we could get a train at 3pm to the next major station, trains left from there to Chennai every half an hour. We confirmed this with the man at the ticket counter so all was ok! We cursed our lonely planet, and thanked the local who then said that he was a tuk tuk driver and we could hire him for the day for 300Rupee and he would take us to all the 5 main temples and anywhere else we wanted to go. After 10 minutes of haggling, we said we would do it for 200 and he was happy with that so off we went.

First stop was the Sri Ekambaranthar Temple, named after Eka Amra Nathar who is lord of the mango tree and dedicated to Shiva. It's the biggest temple complex in Kanchi (12 Hectares) and has the tallest gopuram at 59 Metres high. As usual we couldn't go into the inner sanctum, a priest pulled us over to a shrine that he was looking after, and before we knew it we were blessed had a thumb print of red and white chalk on our foreheads and an outstretched palm asking for 150 rupees each and he would place flower garlands in the shrine for us, hmmmmm. We gave him a donation but not the 300Rupee he was asking for and wandered around the rest of the temple, they wouldn't get us like that again. Saw the Mango tree and shrine and walked around it 5 times with everyone else, not sure why but when in Rome! Also managed to deflect the next few priests trying to do the same thing until we got to a shrine down a corridor. The priest nabbed us, fooled us by asking us the usual questions and then our parents names and took flowers and placed over our hands and talking in Tamil, we looked at eachother think 'what the $”%!' then a group of women came up and started making all ahhhhh sounds and smiling at us.. we think we might be married now! Also had a group of Indian girls following us around the temple trying to take our photos all the time.. They eventually asked Mike to take a photo of them with me, they were all happy and giggling and then when Mike took the photo they all stood totally upright with a completely straight face... no smiles! Its another Indian thing that they do. Very odd!

Next stop was the Kailasanatha Temple also dedicated to Shiva and the oldest temple in Kanchiparaum built in the 7th century. This was the nicest temple to visit as we were allowed to go everywhere and the priests just kept to themselves and the people worshiping and let us look around without trying to scam us. We met a lovely family from Philippines and another group of Indian tourists who were very excitable and very funny. It was well looked after but over the centuries it has fallen a little into ruin, which added to its charm.

Temple Number 3 was one of the best called the Kamakshi Amman Temple. Immediately as you walked in the temple gate there were two huge elephants all painted up giving blessings to those who wanted them. This temple was definitely the most active with people busily scurrying about worshiping away. We were not allowed to go to the inner sanctum here and had a length conversation with an elderly man who kept saying that he was very angry that we were not allowed in. He was saying that people of any faith should be allowed to go in and pay respects, that he had visited cities in other countries and was able to enter their places of worship even though he was of a different faith. So why should a temple be any different. So instead he described everything that was inside for us, which was very nice of him and probably better than if we were looking at it as we wouldn't of known what we were looking at anyway. After talking for about 20 minutes he left as swiftly as he spoke said that he had to get on with his day and was nice talking to us. We could see the gold gopuram from the far side of the tank, very impressive in the midday sun. There was also a tree that was full of little cots that were tied to the branches. One of the worshipers told us that it was a blessing tree for the gods to watch over babies as they slept. We stood and watched people getting blessings from the elephant and headed back to our trusty waiting tuk tuk driver.

By this point we were reaching our temple saturation point for the day, our 4th temple was the Vaikunta Perumal Temple dedicated to Vishnu. We were the only people there, with the exception of a priest sleeping in the afternoon sun. So had the place to ourselves to wander around. It was an older temple like the 2nd one we visited so was bare rock and a bit worn around the edges which was perfect as the gold colour of the sandstone looked amazing in the afternoon light and cast some perfect shadows so was great for taking photos. Good for me, bad for Mike! We were starving at this point but decided to get the 5th and last temple out the way. The Devarajaswami Temple also dedicated to Vishnu was another big active temple complex. We deflected wannabe guides and priests off and attempted to wander around on our own. A couple of priests followed us into the marriage hall anyway and started pointing things out but by this point we just weren't listening to them anyway and told them that we didn't want a guide, they ignored us and kept talking and we ignored them and just kept wandering off. They of course ran along behind us and wanted payment at the end to which we said we told you we didn't want a guide and walked off. I am sure that a few curses must have been put on us that day. We had a quick walk around the complex as it was closing for siesta, the only thing that stood out different at this temple was they had a chain hanging from one of the sides of the marriage hall that was carved from one piece of rock, all very cool but why not just get a chain? From here we avoided being taken to a warehouse shop selling materials and saris and went off for a veg lunch at the local hotel and went back to the station even though it was an hour till the train was due to leave. We said goodbye to our tuk tuk driver and paid him, in the end what he originally wanted (you seem to do that all the time here, you haggle for 20 minutes to get the price down and then at the end of the day when they have pointed out loads of extra things to you and been a great guide for the day you want to give them more anyway. I guess that is just what you do.)

The train was very delayed and very full, it was a sleeper train on its way to Mumbai. We got to the other station swapped trains without a problem but that train was delayed to so it was a very slow journey back, we ended up arriving back in Chennai at 8pm, exhausted we just went back home, grabbed some food and went straight to bed all templed out! After today we have the Indian version of the European ABC (Another Bloody Church/Cathedral/Chapel/Castle/Chateau) of the ABT (Another Bloody Temple) I really don't want to visit another temple... at least for a few days anyway!!!

Again for those of you not on facebook... here are links to my photos that I have posted for Kanchiparaum (there are a few Chennai ones in here also)
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=82639&l=130f5&id=528670733

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