Thanjuvar

Sweet smelling flowers line the streets, and many ladies have flowers in their hair.

There are many reasons why we don't like to take buses in India, this is one of them:

Here you can see how toppled over the bus is.  It turned around the corner where we both stopped dead in the street and couldn't believe our eyes. It was nearly toppling over. It lent over 15 degrees as it cornered. The men hanging-on the left all smiled and waved at us as if it was a joke?

We have recently realised the cause of this, woman seem to sit on one side of the bus and men seem to sit on the other.

Did we tell you how strange this country seems sometimes?

Brihadishwara temple was amazing and everyone was so friendly here.

It is the crowning glory of Chola architect. It has a fort and spacious grounds, and we were lucky to be there when they were selling saris over a microphone (very loud)..oh the serenity...

This temple has a huge dome that was constructed using an eight ton single piece of granite, lifted into place up a four kilometre earthern ramp.

In the centre of the temple, sits a huge Nandi (Bull) carved from a single piece of rock. It weighs a mere 25 tons and is one of India's largest statues.

Lots of pilgrims come here, including this sasquatch.

This poor elephant was seen pacing over its lunch trying to escape its master. We hope to see it on the next episode of "When animals attack" (rather inane cable TV program they show here of performing animals attacking masters who are treating them badly).

Lots of people liked having their photos taken with Jason. He looks so pale, but yes, he is eating properly, its just these people get alot of sun here and the restaurant meals are typically all you can eat.

These boys are bible students who were very excited to have us send them our photo. They were really lovely.

The Thanjavur Palace has beautiful buildings, where you could imagine the posh running through the huge corridors, observatories and shady courtyards.

Nowadays, there's a network of bureaucracy as you work out which ticket you have to buy for which musty museum, and which worker you should avoid as they beg for pens or money as a bribe.

These men were stoked that we wanted a picture of them with these carpets.

How heavy?

We climbed a huge bell tower so that we could watch school children play around their school...weird.

Unable to read the Hindu we assume (hope) that this is a "...stop listening to the politicians" poster.

The Tamils answer to Bollywood seems to be making some cracking fighting flicks to rival the mastery of Chuck Norris and Van Damme (not our favourite actors).

Whilst Claire had her shorts fixed by a lovely tailor (who refused to take any money, bless), Jason was getting chatted up by these lovely ladies.

As with most smaller towns education of resource conservation seems to be occur via posters and paintings. Sensibly it indicates not to bother washing cows. Not so sensibly, washing the body and washing clothes are also discouraged.