Adventures in Tiruchirappalli, India: Celebrity for a Day

Sorry this post is a bit late, the internet was not cooperating last night so I had to wait until my lunch break today! But yesterday was also another wonderful day in the hot world of India, and might I say... I think I had my workout for all of June... maybe all of summer! We will get to that in a minute.

We started the day off with an hour of church at St. Luke's Church here on Bishop Heber's campus. The entire service was in Tamil so we couldn't understand what was being said, but I always love seeing service in other cultures and languages. Compared to Haiti, this church is absolute heaven! There were fans to cool off those in the chairs and it was VERY big.

You can see how big the church is and tall ceilings!

Interestingly, men and women sit on opposite sides and even go to pray in the front on opposite sides. We somehow ended up on the men's side... As if we don't stand out enough already!

After church, we decided it was time to wash clothes and went to find the clothesline which we were told was "upstairs." On our way up, we did indeed find a clothes line at the stairwell, but we also found a door. When you find a door that you have no idea where it leads to, clearly, you should open it! So we did! We discovered a rooftop terrace overlooking the entire campus (as well as another clothesline which we later used)!

There is a cross above the trees that you can see from the roof. It's beautiful!

As it began to cool down for the day, we headed off for our real adventure of the day: SHOPPING and the climb of a lifetime. We headed to Chennakadai Street to see the real India! This street on a daily basis looks like Bele Chere in Asheville. It had vendors packed side to side and tons of people strolling through, not to mention it was very hot! But this is just an average day on Chennakadai Street! We were told that there are festivals there and then there are approximately 10,000 people milling around - too many for me!!!

First we headed to Saratha's - "Largest Textile Showroom in India." And they really aren't kidding! This place is HUGE! Imagine, Forever 21 and H&M put together x3 (including the confusion being able to see things, but not being able to REALLY see them or make your decision without seeing 5,000 things). Or, imagine Sam's Club x4. It's huge and very overwhelming. First of all, I don't like to spend lots of money all at once; second of all, I take a very long time to make decisions on clothing. In all, I only spent about $40 or so, but seeing price tags that say 750 Rs still makes my heart jump a bit. Anyways, for that $40 I got: one wrap skirt, a salwar kameez outfit, material for a saree, and 4 pairs of earrings! All of which you will see in due time, but there are already so many pictures in this entry, so I will wait for another time when I have less to say.

After Saratha's, we visited the Ucchi Pillayar (or Rockfort) Temple. Rockfort was completely carved out of stone and is 272 feet tall. It also has 437 steps in order to get all the way to the top, all of which we climbed. This is nothing compared to the Great Wall of China (about 8 times as many steps), but it is still a feat in 105 degree weather!

Also, in India, it is pretty normal for us to get stared at; we have grown used to that. However, this trip was another story. People were pushing their children towards us to talk to us, taking pictures of us without us knowing (like paparazzi), and asking us to take pictures with them left and right. It was very strange and made us feel like celebrities! On our way out a girl and her mother asked us to take a picture with them. This little girl was the most beautiful little girl, and I made sure to tell her that! I now regret not taking a picture with them!

Rockfort Temple!

The view at sunset from the very top

This is the church that we began our journey from. You can see a few of the vendors on the street here.

View from the top of the stairs! You can see all of Trichy from this temple

And...up the last flight of stairs.

Also, we had no idea those people were taking a picture. So the awkwardness of that photo is entirely unplanned; rest assured.

People sit on the rock! But we were told we weren't allowed cause it's dangerous. But I'm fairly certain my childhood of climbing on rocks in the middle of running rivers fully prepared me to sit on those rocks!

Not sure how this little guy got up there!

Lakshmi, the absolutely beautiful temple elephant. I never realized how big elephants were until I saw one in person! I still can't get over how gorgeous and amazing she was...

After our trek up the temple, we went back to the street with all the vendors and purchased lots of earrings! We are very lucky we had Josephine with us because otherwise we would have paid entirely too much for everything! She is very good at bartering!

Pictured: Beautiful sunset sky, beautiful church, & TONS of people

We finally cut ourselves off from shopping and decided it was time to head home for dinner. Since we had a car drop us off earlier, we had to take an "Auto" back. They shorten Auto Rickshaw here to simply "Auto." They look like doorless taxis with three-wheels driven like a four-wheeler! Quite the adventure. We decided we loved the auto. Even though it was pretty scary to drive in it, the breeze that we got was completely worth it.