Our first stop this morning was the Nyaka Palace. It has been recently restored, built in the 1700s. Some of it was repainted in its original color and some was not, it was massive in scale and impressive even though only 1/3 of its original size. The only furnishings sere sculptures in a small museum in what used to be the entertainment/ dance hall. From there we took a wild rickshaw ride through the streets and around the Menakskee temple where we went to the night ceremony last night. Every evening they put Shiva to bed with Parvati in a grand ceremony and then close the temple. We did the evening ceremony instead of the 4 AM awakening ceremony for obvious reasons. The priest brigs the statue of Shiva in a fancy covered carrier and do a ritual ceremony with 3 different stops along the procession. Lekuna ran us through the crowds to each stop holding on to one another so as to stay together.We short-cutted the route and she managed to get us i the front row for every stop along the way. Too bad mom told me to leave my camera in the hotel! The temple was closed today for the wedding of the Shiva's son.
We continued in our rickshaw through fruit and vegetable markets, clothing streets, and businesses of all kinds. We drove around a big statue of Nande the bull which was pretty cool with a temple behind it, a horse statue and we saw a prade going down the street with people with sprouting plants on their heads celebrating the wedding. Then it was off for a bit of shopping before luch at a local slow "fast food" restaurant full of local people.
Then it was time to go to the wedding at Thiruparam Kundram temple. We thought we could only see the outside of the temple and the parade carts but Lekuna found a guide who got is in to see the temple. So through the crowd linked together again we went. We saw groups of people sitting around praying or whatever and many asked me to take their photo. I was only in trouble once when we got inside the inner sanctum and I tried to take a picture when the guards started yelling at me that it was not allowed here. I had bought my camera permit so I thought I was good to go but no such luck. We thought we'd seen the main alter where we reversed direction and started climbing stairs over walkways and up more stairs until we were in front of the the entrance to the cave where we saw the real inner sanctum where the wedding couple were sitting. We were blessed several more times with spots of red color that looks like blood and white ash which also went all over my shirt. Then they handed us more ash and a passerby instructed us to smear that on our foreheads as well. What a mess we are now but we are certainly blessed.
We continued in our rickshaw through fruit and vegetable markets, clothing streets, and businesses of all kinds. We drove around a big statue of Nande the bull which was pretty cool with a temple behind it, a horse statue and we saw a prade going down the street with people with sprouting plants on their heads celebrating the wedding. Then it was off for a bit of shopping before luch at a local slow "fast food" restaurant full of local people.
Then it was time to go to the wedding at Thiruparam Kundram temple. We thought we could only see the outside of the temple and the parade carts but Lekuna found a guide who got is in to see the temple. So through the crowd linked together again we went. We saw groups of people sitting around praying or whatever and many asked me to take their photo. I was only in trouble once when we got inside the inner sanctum and I tried to take a picture when the guards started yelling at me that it was not allowed here. I had bought my camera permit so I thought I was good to go but no such luck. We thought we'd seen the main alter where we reversed direction and started climbing stairs over walkways and up more stairs until we were in front of the the entrance to the cave where we saw the real inner sanctum where the wedding couple were sitting. We were blessed several more times with spots of red color that looks like blood and white ash which also went all over my shirt. Then they handed us more ash and a passerby instructed us to smear that on our foreheads as well. What a mess we are now but we are certainly blessed.
Chanting voices coming from the dark path below us turned out to be a group of young boys training to be priests and who are in a boarding school for this purpose. They only get to see their parents once a year.
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