Kanachipuram Ancient Temple day

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I left off last night talking about the Elephant Temple and being blessed after seeing Auroville.

So I was blessed and sat on top of the elephant- then blessed again. Chelsea takes her turn getting on the elephant and being blessed, and then Mike and James got blessed (big slobbery elephant kisses) while my mom was being the amazing photographer. We started to walk around the temple we were in and this little old lady had baskets of what was kind of a puffed rice and she was motioning for us to throw it in the main square (empty at this point in time, but I'm sure in its hayday it was full) to offer the rice of offerings for "wealth, health and happiness". So I tried gracefully to throw the rice puffs in a very nice arc, but all of my throws tended to turn out me chunking the rice into the fountain. The blessings still count I think, I did get the rice into the fountain.

In the temples, you are required to wear no shoes. That day we just so happened to hit a quite a few temples. We went to the Kamakshi Amman Temple, the Varadharaja Perumal Temple, and the Kailasanatha Temple. I do not have a lot of information on these temples, but if you google it, I'm sure there is plenty of information. These temples were over a thousand years old and it was amazing getting to walk through them with just our little group and a "not a guide". (the term "Not a guide" has come to mean someone who actually IS a guide, but they call themselves temple workers so that they can kind of wiggle tips and money out of you at the end. Don't worry, there will be a lot of stories about "Not a guides") Oh, I almost forgot, at this one temple, my mom found a bundle of twigs that the women here use to sweep the temple steps, and she picked up the bundle of sticks and started to sweep. Apparently she was doing it wrong and the Not-A-Guide showed her how to do it the right way. She now has a job from 6 am that pays 10 rupees a day sweeping temple streets. I think my grandma will get a kick out of that.

At this point and time Chelsea and I are DRAINED (we had gone out the night before...again)

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Comments

[grandma g.]

enjoying your pictures