Namaste :-)

I am excited to be sharing with you the tale of our experience at a sacred Hindu temple in Ujain. K has informed you of how we got there and what happened thereafter, I am going to share with you what we saw but first can I just highlight the fact that it was yours truly who was soley responsible for making us both start our day at 3.30 that morning and getting us moving, this is rare for me as I favour sleeping until late morning.... :-)

We arrived at the temple via an auto rickshaw. We bought some candies and some flowers as offerings and we went to the entrance where we had to remove our shoes and wash our hands. It was a little unnerving that we had to leave our bags with a policeman because tight security meant that we could not take them inside.

It was very confusing for us because we did not know what to do but we made our way down through the chambers and across halls that were below ground level, marbled floors and an abundance of smaller shrines. We reached the allocated space for visitors and pilgrims that was behind the statue of the sacred cow and placed oursleves cross legged on the floor. Women were bathing the cow in flowers and whispering wishes in its ear. The cow faced the linga (A phallic symbol) which was naturally formed in rock and is unique and highly reverred because of this. In the shrine were Brahmins and sadhu's who had started to clean the linga. They were bathing it in milk and were scrubbing it vigorously, others were cleaning the walls and doors of the shrine. There was lots of clapping and chanting, this awakens the Godhead from his sleep, there was much merriment and it reminded me of a household waking in the morning. After the linga had been cleaned, a Brahmin began to paint an orange face of the Godhead onto the front. It was very tribal looking being blocky and bold in style and could have been art from Africa or Papua New Guinea.

Whoops, sorry..... I have run out of time, we are being thrown out of the Internet cafe, I will have to continue this story another time...