We embarked on our (Daniel's) temple tour in Trichy aka Tiruchirapalli, home to the Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple, the larget temple complex in India. We soon discovered though that the temple is under construction and therefore not very impressive, and we left disappointed after a short visit inside.
Thanjur or Thanjavur was more successful temple-wise, as the Brihadisvara Temple, dedicated to lord Shiva and declared a UNESCO world heritage site, truly is a an extraordinary monument. We also visited the palace in town which included several galleries and a museum, but will mostly be remembered as the place where I managed to drop my phone into a public squat toilet (yes it's as bad as it sounds). Fortunately I bravely succeeded in recovering and cleaning it (without puking), and thanks to Daniel's wise idea to put it in a bag of rice it miraculously came back to life!
As we were exiting the temple grounds we were approached by two local teachers who apparently were hunting down tourists at the temple. They asked us if we would come visit their English medium school where the students were working in several international projects and wanted to share it with foreigners and get our opinion and comments about it. Strange as it was, we did'nt have much to do in the town as the temple was a bust, so we decided to go for it. They drove us to the school at Musri, a town 40 minutes away, where we had an overwhelmingly warm welcome. We were greeted by the principal and garlanded with flowers, then entered the courtyard where the whole school was seated awaiting our arrival. Next there was a traditional Indian dance and song resentation for us performed by students of the school. We were asked some questions about our country and culture and about India, and proceeded to visit the different classrooms and see the kids' internationally-themed projects (not knowing exaclty what to say we mostly nodded our heads and repeated "very nice" and "good job"). It was an unusual experience and all in all interesting though a bit embarrassing at times, mainly due to the fact that we didn't completely understand the purpose of our visit (and also because we were being photographed continuously). Still, both the students and faculty were really happy and excited to have us there and the principal expressed several times how much she appreciated our visit, so we were happy as well.
Next we reached Kumbakonam (possibly the only tourists to do so) which boasted several different temples in and around town, but only one turned out to be worth visiting (in my opinion, Daniel might beg to differ). However, Kanishka guesthouse where we spent the night was a success.
We took a break from temples to relax for one night in tranquil Tranquebar or Tharangambadi(credit to Lonely Planet or the catchy title and for bringing us there), a former Danish colony on the east coast of India whose claim to fame are the ancient Fort Dansborg, an expansive heritage hotel (which we didn't stay in but indulged in their excellent breakfast buffet), and a deserted beach unfit for swimming (like most of the eastern coastline). Don't worry, more temples to come!
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