Day 3: Vitheeshwaran

The day commenced at 4:30am. After a fitful sleep, we all woke up, bathed, and rushed off to meet our driver. We had a 5 and 1/2 hour drive to Vitheeshwaran from Chennai. Okay, so here's the deal with South Indian Temples in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. They open early in the morning at like 3 or 4am, and then they shut by noon. In Kerala, lots of them shut by 9am or 10am. Then, they don't reopen again until the late afternoon. So, if you don't make it to Vitheeshwaran by 9 or 10am, you won't get darshan (seeing the deity) unless you stick around until the late afternoon.

For the most part, the road was good, and made great time to Vitheeshwaran (passing through Chidambaram, which also has an incredible temple and is home to my dad's undergaduate school, Annamalai University). Vitheeshwaran is famous for it's temple and it's Nadi tradition. A Nadi is a fortune teller, many of the most famous nadi lineages can be traced back to Vitheeshwaran. Despite the prodding of family members, I decided to not have my horoscope given. I know that if I had it, I would be thinking about it and would not live my life.

So, we got to Vitheeshwaran fairly early, and managed to secure an abhishekham (ritual bathing) for 12pm. I wandered around the temple, ate panchamritham (a nectar made of five or more ingredients), read about the historical lore of the temple, dipped my feet into the bathing pool, watched volunteers counting the temples' gold and money stores, and witnessed a few babies have their heads shaved and ears pierced. By then it was noon. Vitheeshwaran is a very old temple, but it is not well maintained. There is graffitti and it's quite dark and dingy. During the abhishekham, a HUGE cockroach flew and landed on my brother. I SCREAMED and jumped up and ran away. Everyone laughed at me for being afraid of a cockroach. It was HUGE though! And still, GROSS!

By the end of the day, I was definitely ready to get back to the Le Royal Meridian....