Published: January 15th 2018
Woolly says – Following yet another cheap but scrumptious meal we had decided to venture into the temple to celebrate Pongal. Our accommodation was nearly next door to the Meenakshi Amman Temple, dedicated to Shiva which dates back to the 6th century. Though the temple has historic roots, most of the present complex was rebuilt after the 14th century and further repaired, renovated and expanded in the 17th century. It looked amazing and given the number of people trying to get inside they were in complete agreement. The usual shoe’s off and bag checking went on and being Pongal, we were told that only money and phones could be taken in, I ignored the fact that mammoths weren’t mentioned and just trotted past the security guards. We stood for a while in a long queue, we had no idea why but as everyone else was queuing it seemed the done thing to join in. As people started to move forward we entered some huge doors and started shuffling towards another set of doors when a guard called to us, moved the barrier and ushered us out of the queue, I looked at him wondering what the women had done this time!
No signage meant that we had inadvertently ended up in the Hindu line and were not allowed to go into the main temple area where all the decorations and blessings were taking place, as it was a festival we were only allowed to look at the temple tank.
Woolly says – It didn’t look very exciting to be fair, in 1516 Saluvanarasana Nayaka added the sacred pool for pilgrims to take a dip, including a golden lotus as one of its features, it was a good size and certainly big enough for the Olympic athletes to be able to train in there. With nothing else open in the complex, we decided to make our way back in the morning and returned for the evening. I was woken abruptly at 5.30am by the man in the room next door screaming in anger, Jo opened a bleary eye as Zoe opened our door and asked him to keep the noise down which at least meant a few hours extra snoozing. It was hot by the time we surfaced and having got our usual breakfast treats of samosa’s and black tea for the fussy one we wended towards the North gate of the Temple for a further exploration. Our arrival at the shoe holding area and bag search man didn’t go well, rather than get involved I decided a quick snack in my bag might be the best idea and left the girls to sort things out.
Our bags were checked and emptied, my small friend stood by the x ray machine clutching his biscuits in fear of them being removed, the man carrying out the search told us to produce our passports, which we did, told us to take our money, passports and that we could only carry cell phones, no camera’s, Zoe’s face dropped at this as her camera is her means of videoing. Worse however was to come as he said the immortal words ‘No Mammoth’, Woolly dropped his biscuits and sat looking stunned, the gent indicated to put everything back in our bags, my grubby companion included, and go through to leave our bags. Not happy but unable to change the situation we walked through to the body checking point, a female guard indicated our legs and shook her head pointing us back to the exit. Bearing in mind that we were wearing the same trousers as the previous evening and added full covering to our tops we were very confused, we went back to the bag collection area feeling cross and miserable. Having collected our bags and released the mammoth we were at a loss as what to do next, the bag man appeared shaking his head and shouting at which point I felt tears trickling down my face, turning to Zoe, who was equally upset I suggested we put our shoes on and go. Another man appeared with two sheets and promptly started to wrap us in them before grabbing our bags and shoving them into a locker and telling us to move pointing towards the temple.
Woolly says – Before I could shake a tusk I was unceremoniously shoved back into Jo’s bag and left in the dark, I wasn’t happy.
We weren’t happy but felt that a quick look round and a retrieval our small companion would be the best course of action. We entered a huge columned hall with a central feature of a golden column, the pillars around us were incredible in the carvings they displayed, and the ceilings and vibrant colours were breath taking. The smell of incense filled our noses as we wandered round, people were everywhere paying homage to their God of choice and lighting small ghee filled candles to fill the air with a haze of smoke. The next area had even better ceilings along with what looked like Chinese dragons flanking the tops of the walls and the floors covered in chalked flowers and designs. Small shrines were everywhere, and we sat and watched for a while soaking up the atmosphere before wandering towards the swimming pool that we had seen last night, in daylight it didn’t look much better and compared to the insides of each of the towers was starkly bare in colour or carvings of any kind. As we entered another huge hall covered in intricate carvings and vibrant ceilings we had lost all sense of which tower we might be in so having found an exit we headed back into the baking sun and walked around the outside part of the complex. A loud mooing came from our right and having peered round a gate we found the Temple cows being covered in chalk ready for further Pongal activities that evening they didn’t seem overly happy with their bright colours which reminded us of our unhappy mammoth. Having taken a few more pictures of the towers themselves we hurried back to retrieve him.
Woolly says – Our subdued group left the complex and made our way back onto the streets, I tried to put a brave face on my disappointment as Jo found me some umbrellas to sit under that matched my days bandana. We wandered past shops selling souvenirs and images of the Hindu Gods until arriving at one called the Museum Shop, Jo grinned at me and said ‘you might like this’ before carrying me up three flights of stairs and onto the roof of the shop, I eyed the ladder perched in the corner knowing that my small legs would never make it up but for once my dear friend didn’t hesitate in carrying me up and placing me on a wall so I could feast my eyes on all of the complex at once, not quite the same as seeing it from the inside but a superb view none the less and I grinned at her thoughtfulness. In a further attempt to cheer me up we spend a happy hour in the shop selecting an elephant for us to take with us and having picked a fine specimen the day seemed to be getting better.
We had one more trick up our sleeve for the small furry one but that will be tomorrow’s tale!