Pondicherry

Today we travelled from Chennai to Pondicherry, stopping to visit Shore Temple and the surrounding monuments, the most amazing being Arjuna's Penance. This is another UNESCO World Heritage site, and was interesting and amazing. The local people carved all this stuff from existing granite outcroppings -- massive stuff -- in the 7th century AD. Then, there was a war, all sculpture wor stopped, and they never got back to it again.

Shore Temple is especially interesting. They also call it Sea Shore Temple, because (aha!) It is at the sea shore.  This is a tall temple, surrounded by a wall with 108 full-sized sculpture bulls, and it looks out over the ocean However, there are six other temples, all underwater in the sea. The shoreline has changed since the 7th century. However, as the tsunami approached in 2006, the ocean waters receded out half mile or so, and all of the other temples were exposed to the light. To quote the guide, "the people were able to view them for 30 or 40 minutes," then of course, the tsunami wave arrived, and not only washed over the temples in the sea, but inundated the one that is usually on land. No damage, though.

We viewed temples and carvings for several hours.

> The area from Chennai to Pondicherry is flat, near the coast, and very wet. There are mango orchards and rice paddies. The local people build thatch huts. There are also waterways where folk fish from small rafts made from sticks lashed together. They stand and pole themselves around the rivers/lakes.