Ramanashrama and Tiruvannamalai - Nov 2019

When I left for India, I had completely different plans for traveling there. I didn't end up following them due to various reasons. And then the visit to Tiruvannamalai worked out. I was silently hoping to visit the ashram once and it worked out somehow. We went to Tiruvannamalai with an extension to Pondicherry. 

Tiruvannamalai or Thiruvannamalai is a small town in the state of Tamil Nadu. Its named after the Annamalai - Lord of the Mountains, Shiva. The Arunachala hill is considered sacred.  

Arunachaleshwara temple with the Arunachala in the background

This early morning view of the Arunachala hill from the temple was amazing. We were there just after the full moon so the moon was also visible in the background. 

The Temple Gopurams are tall. I love the carvings and the elaborate designs on them. The four gopurams on each side are like the 4 Dwarapaal. The eastern one is the tallest and is called Rajagopuram. 

The eastern gopuram - Rajagopuram, tallest and is 11 stories.

Nandi in the Temple

This big Nandi reminded me of my clay nandi. Having worked on the details myself, it was interesting to see how much details I noticed in this Nandi. 

Next to the Patala Lingam cave

This picture is interesting to me, I did not know I was being clicked from behind. 

This was taken while walking near the temple.

This is the most interesting part of visiting temples. There is just so much intricate art and carvings that you find in these hidden nooks and corners inside temple.

This one had so much detail. Having done some clay sculpting myself, I couldn't imagine the effort it might have taken to carve these on rock.

I had to literally bend down to take this one. Was hidden at the bottom corner of a temple mandapa base. This reminded me of the trip to Hampi few years back, when I got a good collection of these intricate stone carvings. They reflect the history very well.

Since it wasn't possible to find the name of each god figure I saw (names were written in Tamil), I am trying to find the references now. I think this is the personification of River Ganga as goddess on her vehicle Makara. The Makara is an imaginary animal form composed of a fish like body, elephant trunk, feet of lion, eyes of a monkey, ears of a pig and prominent teeth. It can be interpreted as a turbulent state of nature and the ornaments shown coming out of its mouth symbolize the pralaya and the Ganga may be having control over that to make it life giving. Anyways, if one can just take it as water god and do something to save water that would be enough. The symbolism in actually very interesting and leads to a profound understanding of reality than it just being an idol in some temple. 

The vaanar sena is always around in any Indian temple to feed and grow their family. This monkey took the coconut and the banana from someone and gave the banana to her kid. This reminds me of a hike to a hill in Karnataka several years back when a monkey took our cold drink bottle, opened the cap and drank in front of us :)

These pictures were taken randomly in the evening. I was just amazed to see the amount of work on these Gopurams. All I was thinking was how did they make these, did they build it somewhere else and got them here or the sculptors were sitting there to make these. The Gopurams are specific to South Indian Temple architecture so you won't see these in the North Indian temples which have an inverted beehive like structure called 'Shikhara' - mountain peak. 

This kind of completes the highlights of the Arunachaleshwara temple - dedicated to Shiva and is associated with the five elements - Pancha Maha Bhootas. Agni is the element that is worshiped here. Other Pancha Maha Bhoota Sthalams.

Arunachala Hill

We also did a modern (by car) Girivalam or giripradakshina - circumambulation of the Arunachala hill. It's a 14km stretch and people do it on foot. Usually around full moon. It was nice to see the hill from different sides. 

The other major part of the trip was the visit to Ramanashrama. In fact when I thought about the visit, the temple wasn't in my awareness. 

The tree that welcomes into the Ashram

Ramanashrama is very close to the temple. It's right on the main road and the gate feels like a school gate with an arch and board on top. 

It also rained in the evening and the peacock there was roaming around though didn't dance.

Samadhis of pets in the ashram

We sat in meditation and listened to the daily chants for a while. The bookworm inside me began crawling but the book store was closed at that time.   

We wanted to go visit the Virupaksha cave (Ramana Maharshi meditated there) and the Skandashrama. There are 2 ways to reach them. One way is from inside the ashram and other is close to the temple. The one inside ashram is longer. The one close to temple is 10-15 min but steep climb. We were a bit late but still went ahead through the shorter route but some folks who were coming back on the way told that its too steep and also that its probably late. 

The next day we took the way from the ashram. It wasn't too long. The way from the Skandashram to the Virupaksha cave is a path of downhill stairs. We decided not to take the same route back as it looked like getting on the road from the Virupaksha cave would take less time. It looked like we shouldn't have listened to the folks we met yesterday as it wasn't a bad climb for a pahadi. 

Way to Skandashrama and Virupaksha cave

Most people do the hike to the cave barefoot so the path was pretty much clean. There were a few yogi dogs and pigs on the way. 

Mid way you get this beautiful delight of the temple. The pictures are from my phone's camera so aren't doing the justice. 

Vaanar sena on the way 

Virupaksha Cave 

We sat in the cave for some time. There are 2 parts of the cave, the inner one probably the actual cave is a very small and dark chamber and probably accommodates 5-6 people. The outer one is likely built new and can accommodate more (say 10) people.

Monkey who couldn't meditate due to his monkey mind

While we were sitting outside the Virupaksha cave, one local person came and told us to go visit the Mango tree cave as well which was 10 mins climb down from there.

The well on the way to Mango tree cave

Mango tree cave where Maharshi lived

After this we started for Pondicherry. 

Until Next Time.....

Copenhagen (Denmark) - Feb 2019

This was a work trip otherwise visiting any place that high up close to the arctic in winters wasn't something on the plan. I took a day out to see the city of Copenhagen. I was 3 hrs away from the city and took the train to get there. I arrived at the central train station in the evening and by the time I got there it was already dark. Not seeing the sunlight for a full week wasn't nice at all. I had decided to take the bus from the station to the hotel but then I figured that you need cash to buy tickets in the bus. So I took a taxi (taxa they write!).  It was expensive and on top of that the driver who did not know english used my phone to navigate. It was only 2.5 km from the station and I would have definitely just walked there if I arrived before dark. I was trying to guess the driver's language but I wasn't sure. I think he was from Norway (ok a random assumption after thinking that his language didn't sound like swedish or danish so must be the other scandinavian).

After reaching the hotel, I put my stuff there in the smallest hotel room I have ever stayed in and then went out to get dinner. The hotel receptionist told there is an Indian (it was Pakistani actually) restaurant nearby but I decided to skip Indian food as I had a pretty bad experience in this region as they seem to eat more than usual salt in their food in the scandinavian region.  I was staying a few min walk away from Nyhavn area so there were a lot of restaurants around. I went to the nearest thai place as I had heard that thai or persian may be a better option in this region. It wasn't wrong! Food was great (and expensive!). After that I took a walk around Nyhavn and to the Magasin Du Nord department store and came back. It was so cold!

I decided to be out whole day next day and slept well. Next day, I packed myself in a few layers and head out in the cold and rain. I realized I didn't have an umbrella so I went to the store at the corner of the street to buy an umbrella. The danish old man in the shop was friendly and funny. I asked him how much the umbrella is for and he said 60 if its not raining and 80 if it is! (with a smile on his face). I said its not raining so just give me for 60 DKK. Then we had a chat, he asked me if I am from India or Pakistan. I asked him how long he had been living there and he started telling me more about what all to see in the city. I head out from there and walked to the car free walking/shopping street (Stroget). It was lovely to walk there with no pedestrian traffic in the morning as the stores were closed. 

The shopping street ends at the City hall. I had planned to take a walking tour from city hall at 11am but on my way there I noticed there is another tour at 10am. I was there at the city hall by 9:30am. I spent some time (and $$) in a souvenir store right at the end of the Stroget and then head to the tour. There were 2 separate tours - one in spanish and one in english. There were more people in the spanish tour!. While I was waiting for the tour to get started, a young female asked me where I am visiting from. She was visiting from London. We tagged along with each other through out the day from there. 

We head to one of the oldest street in Copenhagen - Magstræde. The tour guide was telling her 7 reasons why danish people are among the happiest in the world (some of them I believe do contribute to happiness). One of them was bikes (cycle) and how danish people ride bikes more than other modes of transport. Each danish person has probably 2 bikes - one for winter and one for summer. Even in that cold, they were going all around the city in bikes. I loved the picture below in an old street there. It was interesting to find a yoga studio in this old street.

From there we came to the Højbro Plads (High bridge square). On the other side of the canal we could see the Christianborg Palace.

We walked through the streets towards Kongens Nytorv (King's New Square). It's a public square from where the Stroget shopping street starts. There is Royal Danish Theater on one side, the Magasin Du Nord departmental store and the Hotel D'Angleterre on the other. This Hotel is one of the first luxury hotels in the world. Our guide told that its expensive to stay there and I just checked the room price which is around $800, more if you include a horse carriage ride!. We took a short break here for coffee. I decided to skip the long line at the Espresso House for coffee and go to another small place. I asked the guy at this place about any souvenir or general stores nearby where I could buy gloves. My hands were literally throwing out all my body heat and it was getting a bit tough. He suggested a few names which I didn't register in my brain and then he took out a pair of gloves from a shelf behind and said take these. I liked his generosity but I decided not to take his offer. I took the hot chocolate and came back.  

From there we walked towards Nyhavn. The building colors looked better in the afternoon even though it was raining whole day. We crossed the Nyhavn bridge and went towards the Kissing bridge. Its called kissing bridge as the bridge opens by pushing back its two sides inside instead of opening up. So when the bridge closes back, the two sides kiss each other.

After that we walked towards the Queens palace - Amalienborg Palace: home of the danish royal family. Royal family bought this after the Christianborg palace was burned down in their 1795 fire.  We passed through the Opera house in between.

At the palace, we just made in time to see the guard changing ceremony. It seems they change every two hours and the ceremony at 12pm is a big one every day. We saw the ceremony and heard a little about the queen and her sons. It seems she married someone from France and the king was very vocal and blunt and won't fail to tell the people of Copenhagen how Danish language is complicated. I totally agree with him as the pronunciation is usually different from how its written. I loved the way they say hello - 'hi' but not like typical american 'hiii'. Its just a quick 'hi'. To say goodbye they say 'hi hi'. 'Thanks' is 'tak' and 'and' is 'og' (pronounced only o - sounds close enough to hindi 'and'). 

Our tour ended at the church near the palace. 

After the tour we walked to the famous statue of little mermaid. It is based on the fairy tale of the same name by the author Hans Christian Andersen. I have definitely read some of his stories as a kid but forgot everything now - 'The Ugly Duckling', 'The Nightangle', 'The Emperor's New Clothes'.
This was the last attraction on this side of the city. It was nice to finally see some sunshine after a week.

After this we decided to go find some lunch and then head to another walking tour showing the alternate side of Copenhagen. I finally found a souvenir shop to buy gloves. Huge relief. I also planned to go to my hotel room and add a few more layers on to me to protect from cold. Three weren't enough for me. We found a Thai place on the way and ate there. It was good. After packing myself more we literally had 20 minutes left to get to the city hall for the second tour so we brisk walked through the shopping street.

The second tour was an interesting one showing the other side of the city - the red light district, societal issues and the freetown of Christiania. I liked the morning tour more as I was just so cold in the evening and the places weren't something I was really interested in exploring much. Later in the evening we spent some time in the Magasin Du Nord store to find some souvenir chocolates and then had dinner at the same thai place where I had previous night. My tour friend had to walk back to her hostel in the night while my hotel was just a few minutes walk from the restaurant.

I bought these cookies and they remind me of some childhood memories. We had a similar box which we later used as the container for the needles and threads. We don't recognize these boxes as cookies anymore, but they are 'sui-dhage ka dabba' for us :) Next day, I took the flight back to San Francisco.

Until next time.....