Our Grand Day Out

Raja announced that it was high time that we saw a little bit more of Tamil Nadu, and that on Sunday we would be going for a 'cultural excursion.' The students were given an earlier breakfast time of 7am, and as soon as we were done we piled onto an Amala bus and set off. We were shortly stopped in Virachachalam by Raja himself who appeared to be involved in a road side speech (these appear to be quite common). We were coaxed off the bus with the promise of more pictures being taken that may well grace the front of the Tamil Times - already having a front page story this week, we are feeling somewhat special. Once we had our photo taken and listened to some rousing speeches (in Tamil, so we don't quite know what they were saying) we clambered aboard the bus for a second departure.

First stop was a lovely basilica loosely translated as 'The Big Mother's Basilica' which caused great amusement amongst us. Here we witnessed a service in Tamil, complete with ten minutes of prostration and some catchy Tamil hymns. We were then whisked off to view a special bridge, sadly the significance of the bridge was somewhat lost in translation. This did however lead us into the discussion of the difference between a bridge and a viaduct, we still don't know so if any readers could enlighten us we would be most grateful. After viewing this bridge of unknown significance we ventured to Thanjavur, former capital of the Chola Empire - not without having to recover lost ground in a traffic jam, being forced to reverse a good 500m on the wrong side of the road. 

At Thanjavur we visited the Brihadeeswarar Temple, built in 1010 AD. Miss N took some of the students in to see some puja and even got involved in the Nataraja (Shiva as a cosmic dancer) worship. Sam Brookes even learnt what a lingum was, ask him when he comes home and he will tell you all about it. Some of the girls received blessings from the sacred elephant, they were relieved to discover that the elephant accepted both notes and coins, but as a consequence Hannah Ley had to spend the rest of the day with elephant snot in her hair. 

Back on the bus we set off for Chidambaram, however by this point it was getting very late. Students and staff were feeling fairly jaded by this point but we stoically persevered. When we arrived, we were quickly ushered into the Nataraja Temple. Again, we were fortunate to witness puja in full swing, but sadly it was too dark to see the Sivaganga tank, a body of water where worshippers ablute. By this point we were all fairly exhausted, so we stopped for some Northern Indian cuisine and then swiftly headed back to the home. Needless to say, we were all so tired that no one has complained of having no sleep last night.