Day 85, Mahabalipuram [Monday 5th February 2008]
Previous day: Day 84, Pondicherry [Sunday 24th February 2008]
Next day: Day 86, Tiruvannamalai [Tuesday 26th February 2008]
We set the alarm, wake up at 6.30am and watch a bit of the Oscars "Red Carpet" live broadcast on TV. Then we walk down to the Shore Temple. We are the only two people there, and its misty, early morning isolation, silhouetted against the sun, is quite beautiful. We pay our money to a man through a tiny slot in a wall, then go inside.
The first impression you get is that the temple itself is really small, capable of of holding only half a dozen people. There are two main structures, and further ones in the immediate area, though most in an advanced stage of decomposition. The external carvings on the main temples buildings are heavily weathered by the salty sea air, and the inner carvings are virtually unviewable behind their locked iron gates.
An archeologist would undoubtedly be more excited about these temples, but after having visited a series of living Chola temples for the past couple of weeks, the utter separation, lack of context and museum quality of these buildings makes the experience underwhelming.
Further down the road, the stone carvings of five rathas (chariots) are more rewarding. They were carved out of monolithic piece of rock and are now five separate, distinct chariots or temples. In the same collection there is also a lifesize carving of an elephant, and another of a tiger in the now-familiar gap-toothed gormless style.
We look again at the extensive carvings along a vertical rock face, knows as 'The Descent of the Ganges' and also as 'Arjun's Penance'. It features what apear to be angels in flight, and conjures up dynamic movement from this static medium. We walk over the hill, which look similar but are much smaller in area than those at Hampi, and much busier, and altogether not as nice.
In the afternoon, with some relief, we leave Mamallapuram, and catch a bus to Tiruvannamalai. Or, we try to. We get a bum steer from the ticket guy at the bus stand, and end up in a busy town on the wrong side of 'the bypass', which means, according someone at a foodstall, that the bus we really want doesn't come through this town. We have to get another bus instead, which involves getting in the scrum of people waiting for eveyr bus by the side of the road, shouting to the driver to see if he's going our way. In answer, we get several dozen "no's" and lots more confused expressions. Our pronunciation, evidently lacking some local colour, tends to evince confusion more often than recognition.
Luckily most passers-by take an interest in our predicament, which in turn sparks heated discussions between themselves on, presumably, the best route to take from here to Tiruvannamalai. Meanwhile the dhaba cook, on whose doorstep we've been waiting, continues to fry up huge handfuls of garlic and ginger, obliviously preparing fried rice.
Eventually, we get herded onto a bus, with instructions to change at a place we've never heard of and whose pronunciation we only have the faintest notion of. I have to keep saying it over and over again in my head so I don't forget it.
On the bus we watch the flat-as-a-pancake Tamil Nadu landscape roll by the window. Miles and miles of paddy fields punctuated by small villages, all of which look strikingly similar — clusters of thatched houses, shaded by trees, with groups of women and children sitting around a flattened mud communal area, or sitting inside the dark doorways. The houses are either mud walls or sometimes bricks.
Some of the women on the bus have green faces. By which I mean they have brown faces, but seemingly powdered with something green, enough to give them a strange hue. Kate calls them 'Grotbags', after the green-faced witch from children's TV. Later on we see people with green feet too. What's that all about?!
We arrive in Tiruvannamalai around 2pm, get a tasty banana leaf thali and check in to the delightful Hotel Trichul. When the weather has cooled down a little we walk around the Arunachala temple which the town is famous for. It is dedicated to Shiva. We walk up the Arunachala hill behind the temple, which Hindus believe is Shiva, and which features in the ancient myths as being the place where Shiva formed a column of fire with no top and no bottom — the column was so tall that not even the other gods Brahma or Vishnu could find its beginning or end. It is also the location of the marriage of Shiva to Parvati.
On the way up the hill we pass village houses which open up onto the path. It's stil baking hot, so we only walk up about halfway, but the view of the temple complex is spectacular. The gopurams rise up high above the Tamil plain. They gleam white, and the largest is about 66 metres.
Later, back down on the ground we go inside — it's heavily atmospheric, a long wide walkway through several gates until you reach the inner sanctum. Uniquely among the temples we have seen so far, this one is floodlit at night, so the public areas glow against the night sky with a warm, inclusive light. There are more beggars here than elsewhere too — men, women and children.
Kate lights some candles and we sit for a while in the central open space, watching people come and go. This temple has a strong sense of community, with people talking together, arriving on groups. It feels much more social than many of the temples we have seen in Tamil Nadu.
At the hotel we drink a beer and watch the Oscars repeat on TV. Around 11pm I go out to get some water. The town is deserted, it's streets almost all dark. I see man standing at the door of a roadside temple, silhouetted by a street lamp, his hands joined in prayer. He kneels down, lights a small wax candle on the doorstep, and walks away.
Next day: Day 86, Tiruvannamalai [Tuesday 26th February 2008]
Previous day: Day 84, Pondicherry [Sunday 24th February 2008]