{"id":5410,"date":"2009-08-16T02:52:04","date_gmt":"2009-08-15T18:52:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/?p=5410"},"modified":"2012-03-06T13:18:47","modified_gmt":"2012-03-06T05:18:47","slug":"india-trip-day-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/personal\/2009\/08\/16\/india-trip-day-4\/","title":{"rendered":"India Trip Day 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

Read the caveats here<\/a> before proceeding.<\/p>\n

The following are events that took place on 7th July 2009 and covers Pondicherry-Chidambaram-Vaitheeswaran route. Read about the previous day here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Photo of the day:<\/p>\n

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\nFrom D04-July-07-Pondicherry-Chidambaram-Vaitheeswaran<\/a><\/p>\n

Woke up a bit early since we wanted to walk around the town. We took a walk along the beach and saw quite a number of people walk\/exercising along the beach side at around 7.45am or so. The waves were not high but can still feel the strong current. Saw Gandhi’s statue and War Memorial along the less than 1 km beach. We also saw some important buildings facing the sea – Ambedkar Hall, Church, government offices etc. Some of them are of French architecture.<\/p>\n

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\nFrom D04-July-07-Pondicherry-Chidambaram-Vaitheeswaran<\/a><\/p>\n

We walked past Sri Aurobindo ashramam again to take some pics because was rushing yesterday<\/a>. Took breakfast at Adyar Anantha Bhavan restaurant (same place we had tea yesterday<\/a>).<\/p>\n

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\nFrom D04-July-07-Pondicherry-Chidambaram-Vaitheeswaran<\/a><\/p>\n

Next, we went searching for the Auroville Information Center and managed to find it after using the map. The center houses a handicraft shop and also workplace. Collected some info on visiting Auroville city. We left for Auroville which is about 13km away. Reached Auroville at 10.20am (about 30 minutes due to traffic and road conditions).<\/p>\n

A bit on Auroville<\/a>. It was established in 1968 as a city of peace. There are residents of various nationalities living there, each contributing to the maintenance and well-being of the city. There’s strict rules on use of polluting vehicles and also other worldly vices. The highlight of the city is the Matri Mandir, a huge globe covered with small gold discs. There’s also a very old banyan tree and a white urn which contains soil (earth) from many countries which was placed during the launching of the city in 1968.<\/p>\n

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\nFrom D04-July-07-Pondicherry-Chidambaram-Vaitheeswaran<\/a><\/p>\n

From the visitor center, we walked about 1km or so to the viewing point. Yeah, to visit the interior of Matri Mandir, have to make prior reservations (at least a day earlier). You will be allowed to enter and meditate in the Mandir. For longer stays, have to contact and make reservations.<\/p>\n

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\nFrom D04-July-07-Pondicherry-Chidambaram-Vaitheeswaran<\/a><\/p>\n

We took some photos of the Matri Mandir from the viewing point, and talked to the security guard manning the viewing point (a mound of earth actually).\u00a0 We walked back to the visitor center (which is near to the restaurant, souvenir shops, and office management). Along the way, stopped at the to take photo of Sri Aurobindo’s statue. Proceeded to the souvenir shop – La Boutique d’ Auroville. Then did some shopping. Left Auroville at 12pm (hmm..more time shopping than viewing the Mandir!!!).<\/p>\n

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\nFrom D04-July-07-Pondicherry-Chidambaram-Vaitheeswaran<\/a><\/p>\n

Took lunch at\u00a0 Kaarthik Restaurant in Pondicherry and then checked out from hotel. Left for Chidambaram<\/a> at 2.20pm.<\/p>\n

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\nFrom D04-July-07-Pondicherry-Chidambaram-Vaitheeswaran<\/a><\/p>\n

Chidambaram is famous for the Akasha stalam (yet another of the Pancha Bootha stalam) Tillai Nadaraja Temple<\/a>. Here, Lord Shiva is represented as the space element. He is known as Lord Nadaraja since he performed the cosmic dance at the citsabha here (There’s 5 dance halls for Lord Shiva, Chidambaram is the golden hall). We hired a guide to show us around the temple (and its a huge temple compound!). There’s many, many statues and carvings dating back to 2nd century or older. As with other great temples in India, the building and expansion of the temple was done gradually over hundreds of years. The actual age of the inner temple is subject to debate, I guess.<\/p>\n

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\nFrom D04-July-07-Pondicherry-Chidambaram-Vaitheeswaran<\/a><\/p>\n

Anyway, we arrived at 4pm, walked around, took photos and then entered the inner compound around 5.30pm. We were forewarned that the priests in this temple (this temple is privately run by the priests) will ask for lots of money for various reasons). I was looking forward to see the Chidambaram Ragasiyam (refer here<\/a> , here<\/a>, and here<\/a>), and waited patiently for the 6pm pooja.\u00a0 Managed to see the black curtain, but no sight of the golden vilvam leaves. As “warned” earlier, towards the right side of the moolastanam there will one or two priests handing out vibuthi. If they sense you are not local, they will ask where you are from and proceed to promote some prayer or another). The guy in front of me was from out of town and they asked Rs300 for some special prayer. I decided to skip the vibuthi part. Also, the priest (or staff) seem not to be showing respect to the visitors or devotees, simply saying “poh, poh”, or pushing people away. When we went to climb up (at the side entrance), the guy there said only certain people can go, and that its closed already.\u00a0 To make the long story short, I was really angry with the situation at this temple. Maybe not meant to be my turn yet to visit Lord Nadaraja.<\/p>\n

I made my way out, blood boiling. Came all the way from Malaysia and some jokers make the life miserable. I really cursed those fellas!<\/p>\n

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\nFrom D04-July-07-Pondicherry-Chidambaram-Vaitheeswaran<\/a><\/p>\n

Left Chidambaram at 6.50pm for next stop – the popular Vaitheswaran temple <\/a>in Vaitheswaran. Reached the temple around 8pm. Went for a quick tour and prayer in the temple. I can imagine Sarath Kumar making an entry in this temple as per the movie “Vaitheeswaran”.\u00a0 Why this temple is famous? Well, for two things: the “olai chuvadi” (leaves that contain details about an individual, writtten thousands of years ago), and the medicinal healing properties of the temple prasatham. Its also one of the nine temples that represent the Navagraha (this one represents Mars).<\/p>\n

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From D04-July-07-Pondicherry-Chidambaram-Vaitheeswaran<\/a><\/p>\n

There’s a few shops outside the temple that are “agents” (I think) for the olai chuvadi business. We went to one of the stall. From what I know, not everyone’s record is available (well, with 6 billion over people, it will take a lot of storage!), so depends on your luck. There are very few places that store these leaves, so you may have try in the other venues as well. After searching twice, the guy managed to find the leaves that contain, ahem, my records. Basically, the use your thumb print to identify the suitable set of leaves, and by process of questions, eliminate the leaves in the set to\u00a0 find your records. They also provide a cassette recording of the session so that you can go back and listen to it. There’s also a standard pooja (for a fee of course) which will be done by their guru for your well-being, and the prasatham posted to your home (Got mine two days after returning home). For me, being the skeptical person, I have my doubts on the validity of the “agents” and the readings. The olai may exist, but surely only for small number of people. I can’t imagine someone writing down the records for millions of peoples who will be living centuries later. Oh ya,\u00a0 my “readings” were all normal, nothing out of the ordinary. Cost for full package (meaning it covers all topics – health, career, family, marriage, wealth, blah blah blah) is about Rs3000.<\/p>\n

Tired from the travels, we hit the sack around 10pm. Stayed at Balaji Lodge for the night.<\/p>\n

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Continue reading Day 5 here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Read the caveats here before proceeding. The following are events that took place on 7th July 2009 and covers Pondicherry-Chidambaram-Vaitheeswaran route. Read about the previous day here. Photo of the day: From D04-July-07-Pondicherry-Chidambaram-Vaitheeswaran Woke up a bit early since we wanted to walk around the town. We took a walk along the beach and saw […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,13],"tags":[17,302,275,132],"class_list":["post-5410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-i-was-here","category-personal","tag-hinduism","tag-religion","tag-temples","tag-tourism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5410"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8571,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5410\/revisions\/8571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}