Tanjore

Tanjore was my favourite city that we visited. The streets are a little wider, a little cleaner and smell a lot less of pee than any other place I've been so far. Shoe shiners also read the newspaper in the mornings here. At the centre of town is a gorgeous Chola temple and Royal Palace.

The Brihadishwara Temple was built by the Chola king Rajaraja (King of kings) in 1010. He was supposed to have been a pretty good guy and he certainly built a pretty temple. The Cholas controlled a large part of Southern India and Sri Lanka from about 300 BC to the 13th century. Rajaraja was king at the height of their empire.

Unlike the temple in Madurai, Brihadishwara isn't garishly painted. It's open to the air so it doesn't reek of incense and spices. Even the temple elephant looks jolly. Admission is free, unlike the Madurai temple and non-Hindus can even go into the inner sanctum.

To entre the temple you walk through a series of arches and a gopuram (entrance tower) into a big courtyard. Around the edge is a covered walkway with small shrines to Ganesh, lingums (phallic symbols) and snake deities. They have also made a kind of museum too, with statues, info plaques and Chola paintings. In the centre of the courtyard is a huge Nandi, a bull statue connected with the god Shiva that is supposed to be one of the biggest ones in the country. It faces the inner sanctum which, if you buy a 5 rupee (10 cent) offering to the gods, non-hindus can entre. The offering is a mixture of leaves and spices which you give to a sadhu (holy man) in the inner sanctum. In return he blesses you with a smear of ash on your forehead. He also asked our names although I'm not sure if that was just curiosity. The inner sanctum holds a gold statue of Shiva with a many-headed snake in the background.

The Tanjore Royal Palace is not quite so beautifully maintained. You pass by an elementary school operating within the walls and arrive in a weedy courtyard with gaudy statues around it. the palace was built by two separate empires, the Nayaks and the Marathas. There is a museum of random stone statues and a few empty rooms. One room does have a fantastically painted ceiling though. The palace also consists of a tower which has really narrow stairs and nice views of the city. On every successive floor, the ceiling gets lower and lower until I can't stand up straight anymore.

We also wandered into a building down the street from the palace. It was some sort of old part of the palace but it was essentially unmaintained. You were supposed to pay to get in but the doorman had left to get some tea or something so we went in anyway. There was this big room filled with columns but there were no lights so we couldn't see much and a colony of bats were living in the far corner. You could hear them squeaking and smell their ummm... scent.

Why doesn't India take better care of their historical artifacts?