Temples, temples, temples

Trip Start Aug 01, 2006
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15
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Trip End Aug 29, 2006


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Wednesday, August 9, 2006

In the morning we said goodbye to vinoth and Tamil, gave them a CD with Belgium/German music that we made for all our hosts, left for Kumbakonam, and checked into an hotel for 3 days. It would be nice to have some time for ourselves, to get some laundry done and visit Chola temples.

Kumbakonam is famous for Chola temples, very different from the ones you find in other parts of India. The Chola empire was one of the most important Indian dynasties, and ruled around 1000 AD. The most famous ruler was Raja Raja and he and his son built many impressive constructions in sand stone.

There are 18 temples in the city, but we visited "only" three : Nageshwana, Kumbeshwana and Sarangapani. Some of the most interesting features were the colourful gopurans (entry gates) and a lingam made by Shiva himself when he mixed the nectar of immortality with sand.
For those who want to know what a lingam is : it's a hindu phallus symbol. And they have a lot of them :)

Hotel Raja was an excellent choice (we found it in the Lonely Planet guide) and we did some TV viewing to see what was happening around the world. War in Lebanon, terrorist plot in UK, Flooding in Gujarat...nothing new I guess. There was even a story that Kanataka would ban Cola drinks and that even Belgium was considering it because of pesticides in the water. Well, if that is the case then they should probably ban ALL drinking water in India.
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