Here I am with Sheila and our nice new Indian clothing, looking "super smart." My friend Ted said I am looking more and more like Mahatma Gandhi, all I need are some wire rim glasses.
In the distance you can see
Menakshi Temple, in the center of Madurai in Southern India.
Construction started on
Menakshi temple in the 1300's. It was added on to over the next three hundred years. It now covers almost 700,000 square feet. Walking around the outside edge of the temple is one kilometer long.
Four main towers hover over each of the four entrances to the temple. There are 14 towers in all, the tallest is 170 feet high, each elaborately sculptured and painted.
Once you enter the complex, you find temples within temples.
There are also busy markets selling all types of religious crafts and items for worship (it reminded me of the scene in Jesus Christ superstar when the merchants turned the temple into a market place - fortunately for everyone else, Sheila won't let me sing it). Over the two days we were in Madurai, I went to the temple three times. there are so many passage ways that I could not find places I wanted to go back to.
Most of the temples and hallways were so dark I couldn't get good photos. Also, the immensity of this complex is impossible to photograph. This is one sculpture within one of the most famous temples within the complex called "One thousand pillar hall," which now houses the temple museum.
The Hindus love ritual - chanting, smoke, candles, colored powders, chalk drawings, oil on statues, touching their hand or forehead to the top step, offerings of fruit or flowers, incense
colored chalk drawing
If you give the elephant money, she will bless you
We went back to the temple one evening to watch the ritual of "putting Shiva and
Parvati to bed." These
Brahmin priests are carrying statues of Shiva and
Parvati, and perform elaborate rituals using smoke, fans, chanting, and music. They are being accompanied by musicians, hundreds of Hindus, and tourists snapping photos.
Sheila making friends
blowing Sheila a kiss goodbye
On our walk to the Gandhi museum, we passed this beautiful old building. It used to be part of the temple complex, but is now a market. The building is 400 years old. The man to the left and behind Sheila is third generation shop owner.
We walked through a Muslim village which had eight million children, all wanting their pictures taken.
Our last day in Madurai we ate
idlis every meal. This is our street
idli wala.
Sheila with her most beloved
idlis
Here I am with Sheila and our nice new Indian clothing, looking "super smart." My friend Ted said I am looking more and more like Mahatma Gandhi, all I need are some wire rim glasses.
In the distance you can see Menakshi Temple, in the center of Madurai in Southern India.
Construction started on Menakshi temple in the 1300's. It was added on to over the next three hundred years. It now covers almost 700,000 square feet. Walking around the outside edge of the temple is one kilometer long.
Four main towers hover over each of the four entrances to the temple. There are 14 towers in all, the tallest is 170 feet high, each elaborately sculptured and painted.
Once you enter the complex, you find temples within temples.
There are also busy markets selling all types of religious crafts and items for worship (it reminded me of the scene in Jesus Christ superstar when the merchants turned the temple into a market place - fortunately for everyone else, Sheila won't let me sing it). Over the two days we were in Madurai, I went to the temple three times. there are so many passage ways that I could not find places I wanted to go back to.
Most of the temples and hallways were so dark I couldn't get good photos. Also, the immensity of this complex is impossible to photograph. This is one sculpture within one of the most famous temples within the complex called "One thousand pillar hall," which now houses the temple museum.
The Hindus love ritual - chanting, smoke, candles, colored powders, chalk drawings, oil on statues, touching their hand or forehead to the top step, offerings of fruit or flowers, incense
colored chalk drawing
If you give the elephant money, she will bless you
We went back to the temple one evening to watch the ritual of "putting Shiva and Parvati to bed." These Brahmin priests are carrying statues of Shiva and Parvati, and perform elaborate rituals using smoke, fans, chanting, and music. They are being accompanied by musicians, hundreds of Hindus, and tourists snapping photos.
Sheila making friends
blowing Sheila a kiss goodbye
On our walk to the Gandhi museum, we passed this beautiful old building. It used to be part of the temple complex, but is now a market. The building is 400 years old. The man to the left and behind Sheila is third generation shop owner.
We walked through a Muslim village which had eight million children, all wanting their pictures taken.
Our last day in Madurai we ate idlis every meal. This is our street idli wala.
Sheila with her most beloved idlis
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