Part II: South India Temple and Spice Tour
This is the second time I was visiting Pondicherry and was really excited about it. Pondicherry is a whimsical destination where you can enjoy natural beauty at its best. We reached Auroville town 10 km north of Pondicherry in the afternoon. I call this unique town as ‘the town of humanity’ as it is a home to several Indian and International residents who live here in harmony. There we met a family from France. They have been living here for the last 20 years and were speaking fluent Hindi with great ease. I was amazed! It is a beautiful destination founded with an aim to make it a Universal town where people from different nationalities could live together peacefully.
Next we visited the Matri Mandir which is an important religious place of the town. This town is affectionately dubbed as the ‘City of Dawn’. Our guide told us that there are 1000 varieties of trees in this small town. The gorgeous greenery, peaceful ambiance and natural beauty of this town really makes it a great destination to visit.
Next day we drove to Tanjore, the culturally rich city of the state of Tamil Nadu. The most famous attraction of this city is its paintings. And the South Indian temples of this city are simply marvelous. Here we visited the Brihadeshwara temple dating back to the 10th century. Its incredible architectural beauty earned it the title of ‘World Heritage Site’. Reflecting perfect example of Dravidian style of architecture, this temple is surrounded by fortified walls which were added back in the 16th century. The temple tower (called Vimana in south India) is 216 ft high and is one of the tallest of its kind in the world. The interior walls of the temple are festooned with Chola Fresco paintings which were completely mesmerizing. Being a dance lover I made sure to see all the 108 dance poses of Lord Nataraja beautifully depicted on the walls of the temple.
In the evening we browsed the colorful bazaars of Tanjore and bought beautiful paintings at ‘bargained price’. Wow I was so happy at this achievement! We had our dinner at one of the restaurants and enjoyed traditional dishes of South India. We gorged on Thavala Adai( a kind of vada) with rasam. It is one of the popular dishes of this city. We also had dosa, and Uttapam. In the end we rounded off our hearty meal with sweet dishes Surul Poli, Pal Payasam and Kozhakottai. This marked the end of our tour to Tanjore. The next day we were scheduled to travel to Madurai city of Tamil Nadu.
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