Kumbakonam

Our early morning train, Jason sits and enjoys the views of village life. (Read: Men and woman shitting next to, and on, the train tracks).

This is a sleeper carriage. At night these little spaces are rammed with people on bunks and the floor having snoring competitions. If you are lucky, you will get only one really loud snorer, but this can be enough to keep you awake most of the night. The women are often the loudest. We try and ignore the cockroaches, mozzys and the Chai boys who yell through the carriage from about 4am (just incase you feel like a cuppa).

This poster was stuck on the side of a train in the station.

Very nice of them.

Dharasuram is situated about 4kms from Kumbakonam, it has the excellent Airatesvara temple. Constructed by Raja Raja the second, it is a great example of 12th century architecture.  Many of the stones have been moved to and from the Raja's palace so there is alot of restructuring going on.

A dancer that has four bodies...with boobs of course.

Now if you look closely you can see an elephant and a bull. Very cool.

Of course, the temple doubles as a chariot with wheels, pulled by horses. (Incase it needs to be quickly moved from the marauding Muslims.)

The temple is full of wanna-be Bollywood stars. Builders are too used to being photographed, and are not interested in doing much work. Posing for photos is how the day is spent here.

The women work hard, albeit in their saris.

Heavy loads get moved from one sari to another.

Men do the big heavy stuff and of course it takes four of them...although they would be alot faster if they didn't keep stopping to see if anyone is interested in taking a photo.

This is what they are doing...mending the wall that appears to of collapsed.

The builders don't really understand this 12th century stuff, they prefer to use it as a cloakroom. 12th century carvings are a great place for comical hat storage.

The priest who is very keen to show us around. He was soon off for his chapattis after we left him the 'temple fee.'

The blacksmith was pounding so hard he didn't notice Jason standing right in front of him for a good ten minutes.

These men are seriously cutting the lawn by hand with what look like scissors (and its a huge lawn) .  In the background is a supervisor, standing and making sure they are doing it right, whilst checking for text and voice messages that have not been left, as he is not as important as he thinks.