OK India - just let me go!!

Now for the last (full) day in India - H and I were in Chennai and we had an afternoon to do everything we wanted to do and hadn't done in India - so out of 'everything' - Helga said she wanted to see a temple before she left India...
We asked for a car that would take us around to a temple (I found the oldest temple there!) and then take us to a shopping temple and take us to another shopping temple which promised to be an out of this (Western) world shopping experience.
So finally, after being in fairly plush cars for the entire trip, we had our own Ambassador Taxi - which are an institution here - and a willing driver to take us to the old temple. Perhaps I should show a bit of the way there - which was an experience in itself - going through the narrow streets bustling with Chennai social life and 'rampant cattle menace'!
Sorry for the quality of the video but the view from the car was so odd and alien that even even if I had the best camera in the world, it couldn't capture 10% of the experience - the noise, smells and the chaos of that street. Sometimes the streets were empty, sometimes we were stuck in 'traffic' because some driver decided to park across the entire street.

Finally we arrived at the old temple. This was a really old temple and had loads of people really worshipping their gods. Touching stones, floors, walls, carvings and statues of the temple. Some of these stones were so worn down from people passing (no shoes allowed in a Hindu temple) and from people touching, that the carvings were merely a shadow of what they used to be. Most of the people were leaving these flower chains around the statues and burning incense and candles. The women also had these flowers strung up on strings tied to their hair and the scent of them was very heady. The driver also gave Helga and I a bit of these flower strings so we had them in our hair and every time we moved the scent would waft about... We couldn't take any photos and even without cameras, I felt like such an intruder. So the driver suggested another temple where we could take photos and have a guide. It was getting dark so we hurried along to the next temple (after yet again resisting the shop the driver wanted us to stop at - he gets commissions for every foreigner he brings).
We arrived at the new temple, deposited our shoes at the shoe deposit place and got into the temple. The guide was already waiting, the driver telephoned him before, and we quickly took some photos before it got dark (no camera charge if you're using a mobile!).
The temple was for the two sons of Shiva (?) - Ganesh the elephant headed god and the god with the monkey head, who rides the chariot.
It was all about dualities - everything and nothing - wealth and poverty etc. Some very disturbing statues that we could only look at (the poverty image was just this black mass).
Hard to see, unfortunately, the intricacy of these temples. They get repainted every few years, and as it got darker the neon lights representing the chakras came on on the main building. here were also parts we as non Hindus could not enter.
There was also a massive water filled pool that was apparently full of fish - used to populate the rivers with more fish - not allowed to fish there (I asked, why not?) - since they're gods' fish.
Our guide told us very briefly about some of the symbolisms of the temple and then took us to the wishing tree where women who want children tie a 'cradle thing' to it and those who want to get married tie this orange ribbon to that tree.
Questions followed:
To Helga - Are you married? Yes. What about children? Yes.
To me - Do you have children? No. Are you married? Well...
Oh so you can tie a rope around the tree!
OK then give me 2 ribbons!!

And so I tied two orange ribbons around the wishing tree! Was I being greedy?

As you can see the guy got very excited with the camera and bit crazy...
Can you hear his mad laughter in the background?
And just to finish the god theme - here are some photos of god Ganesh that I've taken around India. I so wish I could find a cool necklace with multicolored Ganesh to wear, or a multicoloured t-shirt with sequins and mirrors featuring Ganesh - but I look and look and cannot find!

Finally that day we went to a temple of another kind. A massive shopping centre - Indian style!

There were all these shops and some had very creative names:
You K Fashion - Kate Moss was behind the counter...
The Helvetica - no type, no font, not even paper...
The Garage - for exclusive garments (of course, where else?!)
Lord's Shoes - Will take you to heaven!
And then off to Sri Lanka we went!!!