One of my favorite pictures from the trip!
Journal Entry:
"So I totally skipped journal entries while in Madurai. Harsh as it is to say, it was not unlike every other city in India: busy, noisy, crowded, smelly, dirty, etc. Though again, like every other city in India is was also: beautiful! The temple we planned to see there ended up being not one, but 5 huge temple entrances that surrounded an inner temple. Funny story, we were told there was an inner, inner temple that only Hindus could go into. Wanting to respect the culture, we totally agreed, and understood. So we took our shoes off (ick!) to get into the main entrance, and then walked all around, looking at small shrines, etc. We then wandered into the main temple, which was amazingly beautiful, filled with small shrines, wall carvings, etc. Travis even got blessed by an elephant! He put the coin in the elephants trunk, the elephant blessed Travis with it's trunk and then swung it back and put the coin into the owner's hand! (Travis has a small, dark picture of this on his Facebook page, it was poorly lit in there and we were weary of using flash) So back to the "funny" part. We were meandering through the temple, walked up these steps to see what the other room was, saw a sign for no cameras, and some other signs in a couple languages, though not English, which is unusual in India because everyone here speaks at least a little English, if not fluently, at least enough to speak to us Westerners who failed to learn their language before we came here... ok I digress, again... So needless to say, the one place where no English signs existed was the one place we weren't supposed to go! We were yelled at by security guards, and almost yanked down the stairs! Fortunately Travis is so calm in situations like this and proceeded to apologize and explain our ignorance. Things boiled down, and we hurriedly left and waited until we were outside the temple to laugh "hysterically" about almost being thrown into an Indian jail like that one movie with Claire Danes... ok not exactly, but for a couple who loves spending most of their free nights watching movies, everything feels like it has a movie reference. After leaving the temple, and getting my shoes back (hallelujah!), we were told that this beautiful temple gets painted every 12 years! What?! If you saw the intricacy of this temple, the colors, details, characters, height, etc. it seems unimaginable. But it is their city's main glory, and it is a sacred place, so I can understand. (But wait 'till you see the pictures below.) This fact definitely blew my mind!
We are off to Auroville next, this is the place I have most been looking forward to on the trip. I hope Travis feels better, (he got E-coli poisoning a few hours before we are to get on the night train to leave Madurai) so he can enjoy this eco-friendly, self-sustaining community."
Emails from home:
"I am so glad to hear you are loving it much better. Beautiful pics in the link you sent below. ( link I sent her) That is so neat about the elephant! What a fantastic experience. I don't know if I have Skype, and I will be leaving for San Francisco with the girls this Friday, so I won't be able to see you." - Take care, Love you, Kelly
"Hi Briana, It was great to spend the time with you Sunday on Skype. Mom and I will have dinner with my cousin, Sam tonight. I'll really be interested in hearing about Auroville." -Love, Dad
Pics from Madurai:
So excited about the "gold" and red bindi's I got!
Travis looking through his gold, aka, his wonderful pictures from India.
Pictures from the Temple in Madurai:
All 5 entrances
Main Entrance
Closer...
Closer...
Closer...
Could you imagine climbing this to paint every 12 years?!
So cool!
I think this is Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati, but I could be mistaken...
Could you imagine painting all these?
Inside the main entrance, outside the main temple. Ganesh "the Hindu god of success. He is both the beginning of the religion and the meeting ground for all Hindus."
Inside the temple.
Could be Goddess Kali because of the many arms, but unsure because of the scaffolding and my horrible lack of knowledge of the over 150 gods in the Hindu religion.
Cool painting on the floor.
Meandering throughout the city, we came upon other temples.
The ceiling of one such temple.
This temple sold fabrics, bracelets, and offerings for the gods.
You know how I love the male bonding...
A great leader to India, Gandhi is seen in images throughout his mother country.
Cows! I love it that they have free reign.
Cows are sacred in India! Yay! Go vegetarians!
These guys were carrying a huge, heavy, gold statue. The amount of effort and strain these men undertook cannot be displayed in this picture.
Now what?!
Another temple in Madurai.
The tent being prepared for the night's festival.
So beautiful here. So many colors to see and so many beautiful people around.
There was to be a fire ceremony here that night, they were going to light the pink boat on fire. Travis and I did not make it back, we were passed out by 8! haha
