-- From Pondicherry to Madurai

The 06/02 I left to Karikal. On the way I visited Chidambaram, the temple of the Dance, Shiva Nataraja. Four enclosures surround the cella where the statue of Shiva is. This building would be covered with gold, more prosaically, it is brass.
Then I moved towards Tranquebar, old Danish port, of which there remains a fort and renovated churches. As for Karikal, the interest was limited enough; I lunched there at the Seagul Restaurant on Sea Beach road. I decided to drive until 17:00. I arrived at five kilometers from Thanjavur of which I wanted to visit the temple.

The 07/02 I visited the temple of Brihadisvara dedicated to Shiva in Thanjavur. It was built around the year 1000 by the dynasty of Chola. It would be according to the guides, one of the most beautiful of South India. I decided to go to Trichy to see the temple Ranganatha Swami, dedicated to Vishnu. The cella is surrounded by six or seven enclosures. It would have a surface from 24 to 60.000 m². The cella containing the statue of a god is prohibited to non-Hindu. To avoid saturation, I did not visit the other temples of these two cities.
The road NH210 starting from Pudukkottai is narrow and degraded.

The 08/02 was one-day horribilis. Started from Karaikkudi I arrived about at 12:30 in Ramanathapuram, that is to say 3:30 to drive 97 km, I lunched there. Finally, I was in Rameswaram around 15:00. I got information in Tourism Information for a campsite; it was the public carpark in front of Tamil Nadu Hotel. Then I was going to recognize the city by bike to find the only cybercafé that did not function and to make food purchases. It is built around the temple and drowses in this end of afternoon.

Day 09/02 was devoted to visit temples. The Ramanathaswamy temple, Dravidian style preceded with gopura, presents as only interest the hypostyle corridors, which surround the narthex. They develop on approximately 1.200 km in several sections of which the longest is 197 meters long. I went then to two other temples of less interest for non-devote, Gandamadhana Parvatham and Kothandaramar.
The borders of the island are occupied by huts of fishermen who bury fish in sand by covering it with salt. It was almost impossible to find a restaurant non-veg serving fish.

Rameswaram is located on an island connected to the sub-continent by the Indira Gandhi Bridge with, in the foreground, the railway very close to the water which connected India to Sri Lanka before a cyclone in 1964. It is under renovation until Rameswaram.
The 10/02 I arrived in the early afternoon in Madurai under the rain. Failing to find a public carpark, I chose that one at the Hotel Tamilian Nadu. After the installation of my bivouac, I left to look for a cybercafé and to make purchases. On my return, the truck was in the ropes of a reception tent installed for a wedding, to follow.

The 12/02 I visited the Minnaskshi-Sundareshvara Temple, Dravidian style, dedicated to Shiva and his paredre Minaskshi. It was built in 1623/1660 by Tirumalai. The double narthex is surrounded by three quadrilateral enclosures with four porches surmounted by will gopura. The afternoon I went to Tirumalai Nayak Palace. There remains only one large courtyard surrounded by galleries with columns and a room of dance.
Before leaving, I had learned that the reception of the marriage lasted from 9:00 to 15:00. When I turned over to the truck around 16:00, the tents were in course of disassembling. I will spend one calm night.

The use of the connection roads between the large agglomerations enabled me to note that Engineering Colleges and Universities are built in open nature. The buildings are modern and can be very vast like American campus. They have their School buses.
At the entry of cities where I was to visit monuments, I did not hesitate to inform me near the police. They cordially accommodated me after having mentioned that I was French. They informed me with kindness and precision to station my truck. To date I have any preoccupations to drive in the large cities.