South India Tour - Bangalore

16 June - Bangalore 

Reached Bangalore at about 7:30 am. Walked to the hotel and took bath.  Decided to eat a mango that Papa had bought. (Bad idea!!) I felt sick a little later – nauseated…maybe the heat, the tiredness and the heat of the mango was all a bad combination. I could not have anything beyond coffee for breakfast. 

Today was touring Bangalore day. First we went to Vidhan Sabha. Huge building, really pretty red color. Across from there was the High Court and across from there was Cubbon Park. 

Vidhan Sabha

High Court

We walked through the park to get to Lal Bagh. It is a beautiful botanical garden. We went past a temple, a glass house and a dead fountain to get to the rose garden. The roses were still blooming. Beautiful. And the aroma was lovely.

Rose Garden

From there we took an auto to some big street. A huge market are, mostly high end shops. Walked up to MG Road where there was a huge Kaveri store. It was a good store, but either the things were too pricey or too big.  The sandalwood did not smell like sandalwood. We then came to Majestic Circle (Kempe Gowda Circle).  Papa wanted to show some shops but both Bhaiya and I were tired. So we came back to the lodge to rest for a while. But the lift was on its 12-1pm break, so as tired as we were, we had to climb five flight of stairs to our room.

I slept through lunch and when Papa and Bhaiya came back at 2 pm from lunch.  Then they slept and I was up! At 4 pm Papa and I went down for coffee. I wanted to eat some samosas but Papa insisted on getting vadas. Sure.  I ate it, but I should not have. I fell sick again. An hour later we took the bus to Jai Nagar. There was a place there called “Dosa Camp”. It was 6 pm and Bhaiya and I were totally not happy.  Papa did not even tell us where we were going…and then he let me eat vada just two hours before…oh Lord! Maybe he was disappointed that we did not eat, but we could not. 

Came back to the hotel and I had some Papaya – good stuff! Until now, we had not needed another room since Bhaiya and I were not really staying in Bangalore, so now we took one more room for one night. Tomorrow evening we leave for Hyderabad.

17 June - Bangalore 

Vacated one of the rooms and moved baggage into the one bed room as we have to take the evening train out of Bangalore. Went for breakfast, I was feeling a lot better today – thank god! I can eat. I had set dosas….yummy.  Also had kesri bhat – too good! Of course it had a lot of ghee.

Went to the bus station and went to IIT Bangalore campus, also called Tata Institute. It is a huge campus. I feel like getting a job here! It had a nice campus feeling.  Students were walking around, buildings were very nice – all had an academic air to it. Walked inside the chemistry department. It was small, old looking but nice. The faculty list sadly did not have a single female faculty on it.

Went to Mahabaleshwaram to UCO Bank and then walked around. Really nice locality. I can live in Bangalore. Looking at all the market, fruits and veggies – it could be a good life. Stopped for a homeopathic doctor. Bought some lychee and then bought some girly things and then took the bus back to Majestic.

Stayed in hotel for the rest of the afternoon. Went for lunch, although I threw up later. Still not all that great then! In the evening went to the train station to get the Rajdhani to Hyderabad. Had good dinner and ice cream too. Time to sleep! And sleep I did.

South India Tour - Vijaynagar/Hampi

15 June – Hospet/Hampi/Vijaynagar

Did not sleep well on the train. Arrived Hospet around 7:30 am. Our cabin-mate advised us to take a guided tour instead of trying to do everything on our own. So we went to the tour office, 2 km straight from the train station.  We bought the tickets and went to a nearby hotel to have breakfast…good breakfast.  Bhaiya kept saying that we could have just taken a bus for Rs 7 around the city, Hampi, instead of the Rs 80 tour. And I kept saying a tour was much better than reading just the boards and not knowing where we were going in such limited time. 

The tour started at 9:30 am. There were very few of us, one family of four and one other single guy. (Actually there had been a warning against coming to India because of some issue in Pakistan, so foreign tourism was really low). Our guide started us off at the Virpaksha temple. It was a huge Shiv-Parvati temple. Vijaynagar dates back to 1300 AD. We toured by the Hampi bazaar – but there was not much to purchase.  

Map of Hampi

Got on the tour bus. Below is the stop by stop tour: 

1. Ganesh statue, Kadale Kalu Ganesh. It is 18 ft. high statue and there was also a smaller one which we saw from far away. The entire 18 ft. was a monolithic structure. 
   
2. Krishna temple – the statue was not there. 
3. Lakshmi-Narshimha statue. This is about 20 ft. high. The statue is half Lakshmi and half Narshimha – just beautifully carved. 
   
4. Next to this was the Badari Linga – a shivling about 12 ft. high. About 3 ft. of this was immersed in water. 
   
5. Shri Uddam Veerbhadraswamy temple…di darshan there and went on. 
6. Underground temple. There was really no underground – it was just below sea level. This was a meditation spot for the visiting rishis. There were several pillars around. There used to be a statue there but it is in the museum now. 
7. Close to this were the soldier’s quarters. Only a few walls and pillars were remaining. 
8. Drove by the mint place, where coins used to be minted during the king’s time. It was quite a big area. 
9. Zanana enclosure – queen’s palace. The main palace had been burned down but the lotus mahal remained because the base of this was Hindu design, arches were Muslim and it was topped off with Jain design. So multicultural and so beautiful. The ground floor had many pillars which were to provide for air conditioning. Our guide showed us how water was pumped through pipes into the pillars, circulated through all the pillars making the air cooler – an old time air conditioner. This was usually the summer palace for the queens. The palace was guarded on the four corners of the enclosure by female guards! Interesting. I can imagine how pretty it must have been in all its glory! There was a lot of greenery around. 
   
10. Past the queen’s palace were the elephant stables and the mahout’s quarters. Humongous building. So symmetrical and the roofs had beautiful domes on it. A number of things had been restored, but I could still see a lot of damage. 
    
11. Hazaar Ramchandra temple: this was so unique in its own way. Each wall had carved pictorials of the Ramayan. Apparently the queen would visit the temple and wanted to see 3000 Ram pictures, so she had 1000 pictures carved on the walls and then she would walk around the temple three times. Inside the dome were four large pillars around a large circular flat stone which was in front of the Ram statue (this was in the museum now). All the pillars were black in color and intricately carved. All four sides of the square pillar had different carvings. The queen used to perform dance in the temple. Outside the temple were the kitchen, rest areas for rishis and guests. It was quite a big size compound. The walls were beautifully carved.
    
    
    
12. From there we walked to the King’s palace. Now it was just a 16 acres stone area. All of the palace was burned down by Muslims. The palace was made of chandan (sandalwood). Apparently it burned for 6 months! The guide was telling us about the rooms, the bedrooms, the big halls where the girls would dance. I could just imagine it all in my head! There was a secret chamber below the palace. We walked in total darkness for 2 mins and then came out to a small room of 8 x 8 ft. This is where the king had his secret meetings. Coming out of the tunnel was even harder. Past all this was a really deep tank of water; symmetrical steps led down to the water. There was a long row of pillars supporting a kind of pipe, which was used to bring water from the river. We then walked to the throne area. It was quite high and decorated with elephant, horses and dancing girls. Just then it started showering lightly! But luckily it stopped quickly. 
    
    
    
    
13. We drove by the queens bathing chambers. Strange that it was a little far away from the palace. 
14. Stopped at a hotel for lunch – really bad lunch and too pricey also! It’s almost 3:30 pm now. 
15. The next and last stop was Vittal temple. This was huge! I could just feel the grandeur walking inside it. Immediately on entering the gopurum, there is a chariot drawn by elephants. It was a granite chariot. There are only three such monolithic chariots in India – one here, one was in Mamalapuram and one is in Konark (sun temple – which I will visit later!). Further inside was a large building of pillars. Each pillar had a central pillar and was surrounded by four smaller pillars.  These small pillars made music when hit at the right spot. Unbelievable! The pillars are not hollow. They are all solid, but they all make a variety of music: mradang, table, jal tarang, guitar etc. There was an old man demonstrating all this. Our guide asked us all for Rs 10 for the man – I would have given him more if the guide had not asked. Such thievery! Each pillar was also beautifully carved with animals, dance postures and from pictures religious texts. The paintings in the ceiling had all been destroyed. But we had seen some back at the Virupaksha temple. The paint used to be from fruits and vegetable and a lot of it retained even after 700 years! Amazing. On both sides of the temple were resting areas, market places and kitchen. The music pillars were played by using chandan sticks and could be heard 1 km away! From this temple we could see Kalinga, the birthplace of Hanuman.
    
    
    
    

It was a really good ending to the city of Vijaynagar. 

Tungabadra Dam

The last stop after a few kilometers was the Tungabadra Dam. This was the river that was the life of Vijaynagar Empire. We walked around the gardens. After seeing Hoover dam, all other dams are like mosquitos! The gardens were very pretty. Not all the fountains were working, but the hedges were cut and maintained beautifully.  And there were trees all around. 

We had to leave at 5:30 pm to go back to the train station. So we got dropped off at Shanbag hotel, where we had coffee and packed idlis for dinner later on. Went to the train station to take the train back to Bangalore at 8 pm. We got side berths on the train so Bhaiya got us a cabin – good going! We ate our idlis and went to sleep for the overnight journey.

South India Tour - Mysore

13 June - Bangalore -> Mysore

Reached Bangalore on time and went straight to Ramakrishna Lodge with all our luggage. We waited for an hour before we got our room. I was a little sleep deprived and was taking short naps on the chair.  The room was comfortable.  No AC required in Bangalore! Took bath and went for breakfast. Papa suddenly has a new personality. He loves being in Bangalore and considers it his backyard. The breakfast was very good! That is one great thing about Bangalore – great food! 

Again, despite that I was carrying a bag and my foot was hurting, we walked to the railway station. Bhaiya and I left for Mysore on the Shataabdi. They gave excellent soup, curd rice, pulav and morey (mattha) – all awesome. Got into Mysore two and half hours later. There were no rooms on the railway station guest house, so we got a hotel, Sudarshan Lodge. We had some sugarcane juice and then went off to the hotel. Then it was time to get an auto to go to the palace. So we got one auto, but he was charging so much, so we wanted to get another. But, this auto guy told all the other autos to go away. What a bully! So we walked a little further ahead and got another auto for much cheaper price. 

The palace entry was minimal, Rs 15. Since they were checking in cameras and Bhaiya did not want to give his, we went in one by one to see the inside of the palace. Had to take off our shoes also. It was a beautiful palace, large pillars, all walls were painted with armies, families or religious themes. All glass windows were stained.  There were a lot of peacock designs. Just lovely. The wood doors had fine carving on them. The ceilings were all painted; the chandlers were all beautiful. The paintings on the wall were the height of the walls – 8 ft. or more. Too bad we could not take pictures. 

There was a central courtyard; one could come down by a beautiful spiral staircase or by regular stairs banked by two black huge panthers snarling at each other. I did not see the entire palace as the bedrooms were closed off; only a few rooms were open. After I came out, Bhaiya went in. and then it started raining. After he came out we went to the Kaveri shop and bought a lot of woodwork items. After the rain stopped we went around the palace. It is a huge building, really elegant. There is a great symmetry to it. 

After the palace, we planned to visit the Vrindaban gardens. One bus was leaving as we got to the bus station. We decided to take the next one otherwise we would have to go standing all the way. Big mistake! We had to wait another hour for the next one. There was so much push and shove, but Bhaiya got in quick and got us seats. But then he gave his seat up to a lady with a child. So he still had to go standing. He is nice that way. It took us more than an hour to get there. It was dark by then. So disappointing. The parking lot was full of tour buses. It was a long walk before we got to the tickets place. 

We entered over the dam on Kaveri River. It was a nice walk over it. I was exhausted. My feet were tired from all the walking and standing around for the bus, on top of the cut I already had on my foot. There were no restrooms on site. Oh my lovely India. After getting a drink we walked further inside the gardens. It would have looked a lot prettier in the day. The saddest part was that the fountains were not on. And the lighting in the gardens was not good. We walked up to the river and then it was time to go back. Both of us were tired. 

Vrindavan Gardens

After seeing the fountains of Kansas City, these little itty bitty fountains that they had on were nothing.  The walk back seemed really long. Luckily we got a private bus back to Mysore (Rs 57). It drove fast and dropped us near the palace. Took an auto back to the hotel. First things first – restroom! Then went nearby to a restaurant to eat. Weather was really good in Mysore, so did not need AC. Good day, except some parts of Vrindavan gardens.  

14 June - Mysore -> Bangalore 

The hotel guy woke us up at 6 am telling us that hot water was on! Great. Half an hour later another knock on the door, it was the chai wala! Good service, but not really if I wanted to sleep in. Got ready by 7:45 am, had breakfast and walked to the bus station to leave for Chamundi Hills. Reached there by 9:20 am. Not too bad. There is a big temple there – Chamundeshwari Devi. Lovely temple. Did darshan and then walked around. The hills were about 2000 ft. above sea level. It gave a lovely view of the city. The weather was cooler and windy. 

The only thing bad there was the open toilets…ugh! It was just yucky and smelly everywhere.  

We walked through the shops and bought some little things – really nice stuff. Took the bus back to Mysore, had lunch and took the 2:20 pm train back to Bangalore. Mysore is really pretty town. Very clean and not crowded. I would come back and see more. 

We got some good snacks again on Shataabdi –really love these trains! Took the auto to the lodge and met up with Papa. At 6 pm, went out to the market. Oh and what a market it was! There was so much stuff! Darn it that I don’t need anything. Prices were reasonable. I could have bought more things if I had needed anything. We had dinner at Krishna Bhavan. Awesome dosas! Except they were covered in ghee. Went back to the hotel. So many movie halls on the way, and so many banks on this road – Camp Gowda road.  And the crowd – unbelievable. There was hardly any place to walk! We were just squeezing through everywhere. 

Went back to the hotel and then back to the train station to catch the 10 pm train to Hampi. It is an overnight train.

South India Tour - Kanchipuram/Chennai

11 June - Chennai -> Kanchipuram - > Chennai

Got up and got ready to leave for Chennai at 10 am.  We had a little trouble with checking in the handbags because there were no locks on the luggage. My bags did not have locks. Both Papa and Bhaiya kept discussing it instead of getting locks. I went downstairs and bought the locks. Of course Papa had to ask, “How much they were.” And when I told him, he said, “I should have gone with you. You paid too much! Go back down and tell the shopkeeper that the locks don’t fit.” Oh my Lord!! Of course I wasn’t going to do that! What the…!! 

The train again was not AC.  We were supposed to get off at Arakkonam and take the bus to Kanchipuram, but then Papa got cold feet and we did not get off. So then we went on to Chennai….had some peanuts on the way. Reached Chennai around 2 pm and got our luggage from the cloak room. Took the bus to Perry’s corner and from there to Kanchipuram. It took about 2 hrs. to get there. I was stuck in the middle seat and could not see a thing outside! 

It was drizzling in Kanchipuram. We went to the Shiv temple there.  It was a beautiful old temple. We got a guide, even though we did not want one. Anyhow, he was good. Showed us around well. The temple resembled the Rameshwaram temple in its architecture. It is the 2^nd key temple after Rameshwaram. We did puja in two places before we went to the main temple. It was nice to go up to the front and stay for a few minutes rather than get rushed away. Also saw the very old mango tree, the guide said it is 3500 yrs. old. I am not too sure about that! 

After another 10 mins of walking around and taking pictures, we took the bus back to Chennai. Took our luggage and checked into Tourist Home in an AC room. And of course, as usual of Indian hotels, the AC was not working yet….later. Did laundry and finally AC was working, but then as India would have it, the power went off. And the AC went off. Back to hot night with mosquitos. Terrible! What a night!! 

12 June - Chennai

Today is just a Chennai day.  The power is back but still no AC.  What a joke.  Had breakfast and went to Egmore station to make reservations, but then we had to go to Central to make the reservations we needed…my great country India. My foot is really hurting from the cut from Tirupati. 

From Central we needed to go to T-Nagar (Ranganthan St) for shopping. Had to go to Perry’s corner to get the bus. But did not get the bus. After Bhaiya and I had a cool glass of sugar cane juice, we got the auto to go to T-Nagar. It would have been better if Papa had decided on that earlier…but no problem. We also stopped in the middle to have some great Papaya. And then finally to Sarnavasan – the shoppers paradise! 

There were many stores there. Papa went to only one on first floor, the one for utensils. Bhaiya and I bought a great deal of utensils and then went on the clothes part, where also we bought some nice pieces for myself, my cousins and friends. After more shopping we went to hunt for food, but no good luck. Then we found the local train station, Mamallapuram, to go to Egmore. Took only 10 mins vs the 30 mins it had taken the auto. 

Came back to our room, still no AC! Damn hotel. And the porters who kept our luggage wanted money right away – they were supposed to be working for the hotel! They should wait until we give them the money! 

Reshuffled everything, and now we have one more suitcase! Went off to the train station after packing. Went to pick up the luggage from the cloak room. I had to go with Bhaiya despite my hurting foot, Papa’s need to send me with Bhaiya. As we got there, there was a long line. Then a man came and stood in front of Bhaiya, so Bhaiya moved, and then there were two lines. And then there was chaos. And there was only one guy there, so we had to go inside to get our own luggage. Great service! 

Then Bhaiya insisted we go on the 2 tier from the 3 tier, excellent! Then it was just sleeping all the way to Bangalore. Shopping was awesome today, I wish I needed more stuff. 

South India Tour - Tirupati

10 June - Tirupati 

Had to get up early so we could get ready to go for darshan. As I was washing my clothes the water stopped! Strange things happen. It came after 20 mins.  I decided not to have breakfast until after darshan. We arrived at Tirumala by 9 am and tried to figure out where to stand in line. It was not super organized but at least there were some areas that were saved for people who had the vouchers.  There was just too much crowd; everywhere there was pushing and shoving. There was just too much garbage around, the ground was wet and top of that I cut my foot! Ugh! Tied my hanky around my foot. I was just too worried about infection. We got our vouchers de-scanned and then got our ticket for laddoo. Sat in one big hall for a while then got shifted to another big hall – and even during this transfer there was a lot of rush. There was TV to watch and vendors selling coffee and snacks – that is how long the wait was going to be. 

Then the gates opened and then it was just horrible until after the darshan. People just push too much. I will not be coming back here again. The people are just terrible – jungle. Every turn, every step was a challenge. I wonder if Balaji imagined it would be like this. It was terrible feeling and very overwhelming. And after all this darshan was for less than 0.5 sec and we were pushed ahead and out. 0.5 sec darshan after 4 hrs. of waiting. Never again. 

Came out and took prasaad, chakra pongal, real good! Went and got our laddoo – also one of the best in the whole world. Went to find and found the place for free lunch.  Had to get ticket for it, and after 30 mins, we got our seating. Again lot of pushing. Don’t know why people do that kind of stuff – it’s not like they are going to get there any earlier. Oh and we are still walking barefoot.  The dining room was all wet and my foot was still cut. 

Meal was served by servers, each one brought different things at a time.  The meal was very tasty. And then they shut the doors so we could not exit. Soon they did open and everyone again rushed out! Ugh the pushing is getting to me. 

One other thing I noticed is that people are definitely not hygienic. Especially in case of bathroom hygiene. They sit the kids anywhere, even though this is a temple area, they don’t care. They were sitting them out of the dining area also! Just disgusting.  And of course then in such a pious place all I could smell was urine! 

We got our shoes – the guy seemed to be asking for money. Really bad because this is one of the richest temples of the world and they can’t pay their people. We walked around and did a little shopping. We had some coffee and then went to the bus stop. It started to rain.

There were some other people in the bus who were there for darshan but got vouchers for after their train reservation was to go back home. And there is the problem – one comes with so much bhakti and then this happens. 

We decided to take the free shuttle around the temple, but the driver asked us to get off the bus at the 2^nd stop rather than taking us back to the bus stop. Again a whole lot of argument from the driver and rudeness from the conductor. What is wrong with these people? There is no dignity of labor, no pride in their work and they are just plain rude. So we got off and took the next bus that came and went back to the bus stop. 

It was time to go back down to Tirupati.  We all got wet because the windows would not close and we did not want to also – it would get too stuffy inside.  The great government buses.  Even the poor driver’s windshield wipers were not working. But amazing driver – he brought us down in the night, in the rain all safe and sound. 

Got back to the hotel, only to find one of the beds all wet because we left the window open and the rain got in. It really does not get easy anywhere. It took 40 mins for the hotel staff to get dry covers and pillows. And then they wanted to take the TV away from our room. What kind of a hotel is this? 

I will be happy to leave Tirupati – this has been the worst experience of the whole trip by far. I am sure it cannot get worse than this.

South India Tour - Mahabalipuram/Kalahasti

8 June - Chennai -> Mahabalipuram -> Tirupati

Train arrived promptly at 5 am at the Egmore station. I had taken a bath at the Egmore station but Papa and Bhaiya could not as the men’s room was closed. So we went to the central station where we had to keep the luggage also. But again disappointment for them in the men’s room. I tell you, these railway stations need to up there hygiene conditions.  We went to Perry’s – the bus station. Had good breakfast of idli and took the bus to Mahabalipuram. We had plenty of time as the bus was to leave at 8 am. Bought some cheeku and anaar for the road. Cheeku was really good.

8 June - Mahabalipuram

But left promptly at 8 am. The bus went through the city, so we saw a lot of Chennai as well.  We crossed the suburbs, the IIT campus. Reached Mahabalipuram at 10 am. After a drink we hired an auto to take us around all the monoliths (Rs 100 for a 2 km radius) we started with one of the huge monolith rath – amazing! But not much explanation was given. There were tickets to enter the big area. It was about Rs 100. 

From there we went to the Krishn mandap and Arjuna’s penance. The next few monuments were: Ganesh Rath, Trimurthi Cave, butterball (a huge boulder balancing on the edge); Varha cave, Rayer Gupuram. All monuments were spread out. The most interesting part of the monuments is that they are all monoliths. Very good and descriptive carving and stories on the caves. Luckily everything was well preserved considering that they were 2000 years old.

Krishna Mandap

Arjuna's Penance

Butterball - behind me :-)

Mahabalipuram is definitely worth visiting but there are a few issues: 1) there was no proper information or guideline on the monuments; 2) there were no professional guides anywhere; 3) there was a lot of litter around; 4) vendors were harassing too much; and the worst thing 5) a number of places smelled like public toilet! Again India and her hygiene issues. 

The last stop was the Shore Temple – one of the seven found under the sea. The rest of the six are yet to be discovered under the sea. It was very well preserved – very beautiful and lovely carving on the temple. There was a shivling and a lying down Vishnu in the two rooms. The outside wall had a lot of nandis on it. And of course it was by the ocean – so really lovely. 

Shore Temple

There was a lot of stone workers around the area, so we went by and bought some stone work statues. After that we took the bus back to the city and to the railway station. It was only about 2 pm so we tried to look for a place to eat, but could not find a decent place! We had really terrible food at one of the dhabas.  

Chennai -> Tirupati

Came back to the station, got our luggage out and took the 3:15 pm train to Tirupati. (Yeah! We had it all planned out. There was no rest for the tourist!).  The train sadly was not AC…it was hot! Our co-passengers were Marwari so were speaking in Hindi with them. As usual Papa talked all the way to Tirupati.  We reached Tirupati at 9 pm – the train was delayed during the engine change process. The station was so bloody crowded! Papa followed the marwaris so much that Bhaiya got left behind. I had to go back and find him – which I did. And then we took the one hour bus ride up to Tirumalai, where the temple is located. Even Tirumalai was crowded! There was just no space anywhere. There were more vendors than I have ever seen before.  It all seemed more commercial than spiritual. 

We did not find a place to stay and did not get tickets for darshan for the next also.  The first available tickets were for a day after.  So then decided to come down to Tirupati to sleep. The bus driver had such loud music that it gave me a headache! Ugh! It was hard to find a hotel there also, so we stayed in the worst place ever! We had to stay separately in three different rooms. Dinner was the worst! Really bad experience.  My room was on the main road, so whatever sleep I got was because of I was exhausted.  

9 June: Tirupati/Kaalaahasti 

Woke up at 6 am to blaring horns and noisy street. I think I may just get sick looking at the room we stayed in! So yucky! Checked on Bhaiya and Papa (they did not check on me) and they both were awake in their rooms. Left the hotel at 8:30 am to have breakfast – idli....again – no problem! I love it. Bhaiya’s tummy is not doing so well today. 

Caught the bus to Kalahasti and reached there after an hour. There was a beautiful Shiv temple – one of 12 linga’s. the temple was in a typical south India architecture. First we went to the Ganesh temple, which was underground, and then bought tokens to see the Mahakaleshwar ling. It was the longest line! Took us about 30 mins to get inside but once inside I barely had any time to do darshan, before I was pulled away by the security guard. They don’t even allow proper darshan – what’s the point of visiting these temples?  We all came out a little empty.  Bad experience.

We got the bus and went back to Tirupati. Rested in the yucky hotel for a few more hours and then checked out and found another hotel. A little better than this and at least one with three beds! Ate some mangoes (not that great) and went to sleep. Not much of a day today.

South India Tour - Tiruchirapalli (Trichy) and Thanjavur

7 June - Trichy and Tanjavur

Got up early again! (All these trains are too early in the morning).  Took the 5:45 am Shataabdi to Trichy. Sat next to a nice couple with a daughter – chatted there for a while. Went to my seat when the TT came and tried to sleep a bit. Kept the luggage in the cloak room once there at 9:30 am. Went to the Rock Fort temple (Ganesh temple).  This temple is made on a huge boulder.  Papa did not go all the way up, so it was just Bhaiya and I. the entrance was pretty and then we started going up…and up … and up. It was a long climb up the mountain! In the middle was a Shiva temple. After darshan, we went even more up. There came an open space and then there were more stairs on the rock. Simple – no… the steps were hot and we had no slippers! By the time we reached the temple, my feet were burning. 

It was a small temple and not many people were there – very peaceful. Started our descent after a while. Total number of steps (minus the last hot ones) were about 235. Very pretty temple and it was a nice visit. 

Had lunch and then went to the bus station to catch the 2:55 pm train to Thanjavur. It’s about 1 hr. from Trichy. It was very hot!!

Tanajavur

I felt I was stepping back in time when I got off the train. It was all so simple living. We took the auto to Suchinandram temple (also called Raja Raja temple). The first sight is just striking. What an amazing building. We had seen a documentary on this temple and its construction and knew that the gopurum was one of kind in the world. There were three gopurum to enter the temple. In front of the Shiva temple was a huge Nandi statue. The temple was closed until later so we walked around the compound.

The entire compound has galleries in it. The walls had paintings in color, most were fading, but I could see they must have been beautiful one day. All galleries had shivlings in them in a line. The dedication of the king to Shiva is evident in this temple. There were a total of 108 shivlings in the entire compound. The temple walls were covered with writing – it is not Tamil or Telgu or Sanskrit – it is some other script. Very intricate and a lot of writing. 

  

Went back to Trichy – luckily we got AC train bogey this time! Took a little nap. Got on the train to go Chennai. It was 9 pm and promptly went to sleep!