Temple Travel
We’re back into the swing of things here in Auroville after five days of travel around Tamil Nadu. We started up on Wednesday at 8:30 traveling to Trichy. The ride was pretty long, five hours but we took a nice food/pee break. As we rode through the towns we got to experience a little bit of what it means to be young white women in India. As people noticed the bus they shouted and waved at us. I personally felt uncomfortable with the situation; it was as if we were celebrities the way that random village people flocked to the bus. Once we had passed some beautiful mountains and rice fields(see pictures below), we came into a crazy busy city. It was packed with people and buildings and bikes galore. We slept in a pretty nice hotel with a super good restaurant. I think we were all excited to have some super yum Indian food(Auroville doesn’t have much in the way of Indian food). From Trichy we went to Thanjavor- where we stayed in an amazing resort. (we’re pretty spoiled sometimes) After two days there, we moved onto Chidambaram.
(beautiful bus ride)
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Throughout the trip we saw a bunch of temples and one art gallery full of ancient idols. It was a crazy amazing experience. Every time I enter a Hindi Temple I am in awe of how excited the Tamil people there are to share their culture with us. Tamil culture is so warm and generous. While we weren’t able to take pictures in all of the temples I took them when I could. The following are some pictures from one temple at Thanjavor that is currently an international heritage site and is therefore under UN protection. It is gorgeous!!!!
The Chidambaram Temple was probably the most overwhelming. Through all of the temples Dr. V shared many Hindi stories in order to explain the happenings and artwork which was a lot to take in, but so satisfying for my mind! It was great to soak up some information and understanding about the culture we had been living next to for the past month. Chidambaram, unlike the other temples is not in the control of the Indian Government. Instead it is being run by the priests- all members of an ancient Chola tribe that has dwindled down to 100 families. These Brahmans dress differently than the Brahmans we came across in the other temples and were much more intense about their temple. They seemed almost bothered to have outsiders come into their temple, which is somewhat understandable but nonetheless difficult to accept when you are the outsider.
Overall, I feel that the trip was so beneficial to my own personal growth and the group’s health. We all needed to get out of College Guest House and see a little bit more of India. While I’m not looking forward to ending my service learning at the Kindergarten, I am looking forward to our travels to Hampi and Bangalore that are coming up very quickly.
I hope all is well back in the States - I'm trying to do my part and got to mail in my ballot today! :)
Posted by: Laura Murphy on Oct 22, 08 | 3:23 pm
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