A Most Excellent Weekend

Tiruvannamalai

After two weeks of being in this most amazing of countries, and noisy of city's a select few of us on my course this weekend decided to take a 3 hour trip to the holy town of Tiruvannamalai. It boast's one of the three largest temples in India.

So after the Saturday morning lecture from Sri Desikachar we hopped on a bus and began the journey out of the bustling humming city to the solace of the Indian countryside. As large buildings and spreading slum gave way to larger and larger patches of undeveloped ground the air became a pleasure to breathe. It was honesty like tasting water for the first time in two weeks. It was so green and lush and such a pleasure to look upon.

The flat paddy fields soon sprouted large promonitories upon which the odd temple or fort was built, quite how they were done I will never know. Finally after three and a half hours and slight deafness (bus driver took much pride in his newly fitted air horn) we arrived at our destination. It was a little daunting as we drove through the town with people literally painted blue and pink traffic everywhere the only word to really describe it all is "pandemonium".

Finally we managed to find a place further away from the main town as the whole area is dominated by the holy mountain "Arunchala" which is said to be the head and body of Lord Siva.

After checking into our respective guest house's and having some lunch we made our way to the temple. In this area there are a lot of westerner's seeking to "find themselves". We came across a lot of them dressed in the way of the holy men in orange robes or with turbans and dhoti's on. It looked a little odd to me, I could'nt work it out but hey each to their own I guess.

We all took rickshaws to the temple that swiftly wound their way through the throng of devotees, pilgrims and tourists, completely ignorant of what we were about to embark upon.

To describe this place simply would not do it any justice.

We hung out for about 5 hours and met a little boy called Sasi. His mum had died his Dad had left him and moved to Chennai with a new wife and he lived with his grandmother who is a cleaner in the temple in a shop doorway. He spoke perfect english at the age of 5. Everyone else who saw us being shown around by him laughed as they were amazed at how eloquent his english was. The devotee's found it very amusing and we had the opportunity to talk to a few. One guy who's name I forget came to the town to walk around the mountain (14Km) 48 times as a pilgrimage he ended up staying and has now in 6 years walked round the mountain 1060 time's.

Next day we hiked the holy mountain (in bare feet) and checked out a few of the caves that some yogi's had retreated to and supposedly attained enlightenment. Upon entering one cave I saw that it was full of sweaty europeans seated in the meditation position. I exited swiftly not being able to work out the wierdness of that experience there and then.

We descended the mountain after some reflection, enjoyment of the fresh air and lack of mosquitoes. Upon reaching the foot of the mountain (in bare feet) I discovered that one of my flip flops had fallen out of my bag, so I and Dana who is in the picture sitting on a rock went back up to find it (in bare feet) we got all the way to the top but alas no flip flop, so again we descended (in bare feet). After climbing the holy mountain twice sitting in a cafe with sore feet I pondered the significance of the loss of one shoe on Shiva's holy mountain, still I'm a little flumoxed.

So that was our short stay in Tiruvannamalai. If ever you want to experience India go there, it is a magical place.

On my two weeks after the course I will be editing my write ups and hopefully post many many more photos for you's lot, so keep checkin.