Making the Most of Chennai, India

Visiting the city of Chennai in India is a trip that we will always remember. We have mentioned previously that it was a trip that not only had a profound impact on us personally, but also changed the way that we have traveled since that visit. Although we only had a limited amount of time to spend in Chennai, we certainly made the most of the time that we had. We tried to see as much of the city as possible, but also made sure to take a couple of day trips to see the surrounding area. It can certainly be overwhelming to visit a city with as many people as live in Chennai and it takes a little getting used to as you visit the various sites.  If you get a chance to visit Chennai, here are some of the places that we would recommend that you take time to see.

Kapaleeshwarar Temple entrance in Chennai, India
  1. Kapaleeshwarwar Temple – With all of the colorful details on the roofs, it is an amazing sight to see. Depending on the time that you go to the temple, you can certainly expect large crowds. The temple was one of the first places that we visited in Chennai and it only kept getting better.

    Main Building with Beautiful Architecture
  2. The Government Museum – Featuring exhibits that range from zoological, archeological, cultural, and historical, there is a lot to see in the second oldest museum in India. From the statues to the architecture of the museum buildings themselves, it should certainly be on your itinerary for Chennai.

    Standing Outside of the Cathedral
  3. Saint Thomas Cathedral – One of only three churches in the world to be built over the tomb of a disciple, it is also the location of the cave where St. Thomas hid before eventually being speared to death.

    Learning About the Ancient Temples in Mahabalipuram
  4. Mahabalipuram – The first of our day trips outside of Chennai, seeing the ancient temples of Mahabalipuram was probably the highlight of our time in India. There is much to see as you walk around the various temples, so expect to spend several hours at Mahabalipuram.

    House at DakshinaChitra
  5. DakshinaChitra – Meant to represent the culture and lifestyles of the entire Tamil Nadu region, where Chennai is located, this cultural center is certainly worth a visit. We stopped on our way down to Mahabalipuram and enjoyed walking throughout the different buildings within the complex.

    Tiger Cave
  6. Tiger Cave – Also located near Mahabalipuram, visiting this temple cave with tigers carved at the entrance is certainly interesting, but it won’t take longer than about 30 minutes to take a guided tour around the area. Although probably not worth a trip on its own, it is certainly worth stopping to see while on your way to Mahabalipuram.

    Buying Silk in Kanchipuram
  7. Kanchipuram – Known for its production of silk, it is certainly worth a visit to learn about the production of silk and to purchase silk items at prices that are better than in Chennai. We also visited the Ekambareswarar Temple while we were in Kanchipuram, which was another beautiful temple with many interesting features.

    View of Chennai

Chennai is certainly a busy city with a lot of technology and manufacturing businesses with international ties located there. The people were very welcoming and we enjoyed seeing the sights within the city as well as the surrounding area. Another highlight to Chennai and the coastline are the beaches, although we didn’t spend time at the beach during our visit. We are hoping to make it back to India in the near future and are looking forward to seeing more of this truly interesting country.

Mysterious Tiwanaku in Bolivia

Walking through the ruins of Tiwanaku brings both a sense of fascination and yearning for more. This once great capital fills you with a sense of mystery, both because of the seemingly impossible building methods used by the inhabitants over two-thousand years ago as well as the lack of knowledge that we’ll ever have because of the condition of the ruins.  Unfortunately, many of the stones that originally made up Tiwanaku are now used in the walls of the homes in the surrounding villages.  It has also suffered from a lack of preservation by the Bolivian government, which doesn’t seem to have the same sense of history, despite the fact that it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Walls of Tiwanaku
Temple Statue
Entrance to the Sun Temple with the Statue in the Center

As with pretty much everything that we visited while in Bolivia, when we walked through the ruins of Tiwanaku, we were virtually by ourselves.  Other than the small market outside of the site, hoping to sell trinkets to whatever tourists made their way to visit this important piece of history, we walked the trails along the walls of the ancient city alone.  Our guide, Ricky, told us of the history of Tiwanaku, which dates back to about 200 B.C. or possibly even earlier.  Most of the remaining ruins are those of the three temples that celebrated the three worlds revered by the inhabitants of Tiwanaku, Heaven, Earth, and the Underworld.  It isn’t the Heaven and Hell of the Judeo-Christian beliefs, but simply the belief that there were three different worlds that their gods inhabited.  Our understanding is that the pre-Incan people that inhabited Tiwanaku believed that all life on earth came from the depths of Lake Titicaca, which was much larger back when Tiwanaku was a bustling metropolis and its shores probably extended to the site of the ruins.

Gate of the Sun
Temple Stairs
One of the Statues

One of the greatest questions about the building was the skill in which the stones of the walls were carved to fit perfectly, without any gaps and without any kind of mortar.  Scientists have tried to recreate building the walls without the use of modern equipment and have not been able to replicate the work done by those ancient people so long ago.  And, as with other ancient sites such as the pyramids of Egypt, large stones were quarried miles away and somehow carried to build these temples, a feat that is seemingly impossible.  That has led some people to speculate that perhaps the ancient people of Tiwanaku had help from some sort of extra-terrestrial beings, but it is far more likely that they just had skills and techniques that have been lost over time.

Possible Calendar on the Gate of the Sun
Solid Wall with Figures
Entrance to the Akapana Pyramid

We enjoyed seeing some of the amazing things that still remained though, including the “Gate of the Sun”, which we were told contained an ancient calendar.  One could easily imagine the ancestors of the Amarya people using the different stone structures as a celestial calendar to determine the seasons.  The site itself is very vast and there apparently has been some recent attempts to use ground penetrating radar to determine if there are more ruins to be found in the surrounding area, perhaps buried just below the surface.  As we stood at the site where the priests would recite prayers and give speeches to the people, Ricky explained that there were other stone platforms every few hundred yards where lower priests would repeat the words of the head priest so that all of the people in the large city could hear what was being said.  It takes a little imagination, standing there pretty much alone in these ruins, to envision it filled with thousands of ancient people.

Supposed Alien Face in Tiwanaku
Akapana from the Distance
Very Worn Statue

Tiwanaku, despite its condition, was still definitely awe inspiring.  Walking amongst temples that were built in South America long before Europeans would make their way to the shores of these lands provides a brief glimpse into the pride displayed by every Bolivian that we met.  There was such a vast civilization with cities and buildings that have withstood the ravages of time that is truly fascinating to see.  If you visit La Paz, Bolivia, taking time to go to Tiwanaku is certainly worth taking the time to visit.

The Twin Towers of Gothic and Romanesque Cathedrals

One of the things that you notice as you visit cathedrals around the world are the twin towers on both gothic and Romanesque style cathedrals. They are certainly beautiful and provide a sense of symmetry, but we were curious if there was any particular symbolism behind them. We did what most people do today and did some searches on the internet to see if there was any significance in having towers flank the main entrance to the cathedral, but what discovered was that there apparently isn’t any particular meaning behind them, at least from a religious standpoint. More likely than not, it is just a preference by the artist or architect that created the design. One of the more interesting theories that we read about was that it was introduced by the Freemasons as part of their symbolism, but there are plenty of other theories surrounding the Freemasons. Regardless of whether there is meaning behind these pairs of towers, we have certainly enjoyed seeing them all around the world.

St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna
Notre Dame in Paris
Catedral Metropolitana in Panama
Front of the Basilica in Quito, Ecuador
Cologne Cathedral and the Rhine River
Chicago Towers
Twin Towers on the Church in Koblenz