Rock Fort View

[posted 09/11/09]

Tired. Will have to fill in the travelogue blurb tomorrow.

[updated 10/11/09]

After Madurai we moved on to Trichy (Tiruchirappalli) and continued with (what was to become) the main subject of our South India exploration, temples. And fending off 'guides'.

We visited the Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple and had a nice guy from the temple show us the way up a few stairs to the (legit) viewing spot. He was kind enough to explain a few things about the temple to us, ask if I was a professional photographer (multiple lenses and tripod apparently equals photo pro) and then play the 'would you like a guide?' card. After the previous days bullshit we politely said no thanks. Undeterred, he said that without him we wouldn't be able to see the most beautiful parts of the temple (true, the inner sanctum of most temples is usually marked 'Hindus only'), and that there would be many spots where the Brahmin priests wouldn't permit photography. We again said a polite no thanks. So he flashed his temple ID, reassuring us that he was the real deal, that there were only a few permitted guides and if we weren't happy at the end we didn't have to pay him if we didn't want to. But we held our resolve, thanked him for his offer and said we would be fine to wander around at our own pace. Finally he seemed to take no for an answer. Then asked for a tip! Exasperated, I gave him 20 Rupees, packed up my shit and we made our own way back down.

Funnily enough it was about 10 minutes later when H&I passed a huge statue of Ganesh, with a Brahmin priest at the foot blessing pilgrims, that we noticed the first 'No photography' sign. Respectfully I didn't take a shot of that scene, instead I turned around and pointed my camera in the opposite direction, but still the priest yelled at me! We quickly walked around the corner!

And then not 5 minutes later I cautiously walked into another part of the temple whilst carefully looking around for any signs forbidding anything, only to have someone (a priest no doubt) yell "Get back!" Jeeze, they really don't take kindly to us heathens.

We had less trouble later on in the day when we climbed up here, to the top of the Rock Fort Temple. H wasn't too happy about the 437 steps, and neither of us were particularly delighted with the 'no shoes' rule! And then to top it all off the actual temple at the very top turned out to be 'Hindus only'! But hey, that bottle of water we bought at the summit was probably the most refreshing of the entire trip! And in the end I got this pano from the top so it wasn't all bad.

Big pano here.