Tiruvannamalai Mountain Pilgrimage

Our last stop in Temple Nadu was the small city of Tiruvannamalai, which was located at the base of an 800m volcanic mountain. This is also a very popular pilgrimage site because as the story goes, Shiva danced on top of the mountain causing fire to come from the mountain, and so now they have a very large Shiva Temple that houses the Shiva's fire Lingam, and the people at the temple keep the fire going continuously.

So we set out on our own pilgrimage up the mountain...

At the beginning of the trail that takes you up the mountain there was a very small 2000 year old Shiva temple.

At the temple this Sadhu holy man called upon Shiva, Kali, Durga and Parvati to protect us during our hike and did a little puja blessing ceremony for us before and after the hike.

Pondering Pondicherry

Another train ride brought us to the coastal city of Pondicherry. It is known for its French food and architecture that are left over from the French colonization.

As in any Indian city there has to be at least one Gandi statue.

Outside one of the temples there was this elephant named Lakshmi, who will give you a blessing, by tapping you on the head with her trunk, in exchange for some tasty grass to eat.

We visited the botanical gardens, but we were horrified to find that it had been as completely destroyed by a huge storm that had happened a few weeks earlier.

But these bats still seemed content in this tree...

We enjoyed some nice French food and were soon on our way!

Templing in Trichy

A short bus ride from Tanjore brought us to the larger city of Trichy. It was exactly as we'd come to expect in Temple Nadu, a loud, smelly crowded city, with a few majestic landmarks tucked in among it.

First stop was the Lourdes Catholic church...after a quick peak inside we were on our way.

Next we climbed the stairs leading to this temple on a rock, from here we had a 360 degree view of the whole city.

This was a very informative sign that told us that geological research had determined that the rock that this temple is built on is 3500 billion years old! ...?

We took a break from the sightseeing to enjoy a Thali (aka Meal) with the locals...we were not deterred by the fact that we were the only foreigners there, and we were rewarded with a tasty all you can meal for $1 each.

After lunch we went to see another temple...

Tantalizing Tanjore

Next stop in Temple Nadu was the small town of Tanjore. There was really nothing of interest going on here except for this lovely sandstone temple.

                                      

                                                 

                                                 

There was one enormous mural painted around the outer wall of the temple grounds, with depictions of many unusual creatures. For the whole length of the mural there were hundreds of Shiva Lingams placed at regular intervals.

It seems they didn't think there were quite enough lingams, so they stuck a bunch more here.