We took a day trip to Chidambaram and Pondicherry with Arul as our guide. His hometown is neary Chidambaram and he studied at the university there. It was nice to get away from the frantic, dirty city for a while and see the countryside. The region is famous for growing cashews, mangos, and jackfruit (shout out to Mel for introducing me to it).
The temple at Chidambaram is beautiful. It's got four large colorful towers on the outside and a famous golden hall inside. There were so many intricate carvings and paintings. We got blessed by an elephant and a priest. Getting blessed by an elephant consists of putting money in the elephant's trunk and then bowing so it can lightly touch your head before giving the money to the guy who's poking it with a stick. The priests that take care of the temple live there, study Sanskrit, and only get money from donations. They chant and do something with fire (called puja) to the statue of one of the gods then they smear ash on your forehead before forcefully asking for money.
Afterward, we drove to Pondicherry which used to be a French colony. It has a different atmosphere from the architecture to the culture. People are more laid back there. The city has a special status in India somewhat like Puerto Rico in the US whereby they don't have to pay taxes so everything is super cheap there, even by Indian standards. We had a nice meal with drinks for five people that came out to $20. It's unbelievable.
1 Comments:
Hi Riley! Yep, it was a real elephant and it was a bit scary. Elephants are really strong. That's cool that you saw them at the zoo.
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