Chettinad, India – January 10, 2014

A group of southern India merchants became rich in trading with Southeast Asia countries.  After they lost their homes and families to a tsunami while they were away trading, they decided to rebuild inland – away from the perils of the ocean.  During the 1800s they went to Chettinad and built mansions befitting their status and wealth.  Now, today, many of their descendants maintain the mansions for family gathering places on weekends and special occasions.  Many of the mansions have fallen into disrepair, and a couple have been turned into hotels.

We over-nighted in Chettinad and visited one of the mansions that was turned into a hotel and walked around the small town to see the remaining mansions.  This was a very different experience from our trip so far – to see the wealth that had been accumulated in the small, well planned community of merchants.

 On our way to Chettinad, we visited a couple of other Hindu temples.  One was in a small village where the temple had no structure but was located in a grove.  The pathway to the shrine was lined mainly with terra cotta horses about three to four feet high that had been purchased by the villagers as offerings.  At the end of the pathway was a makeshift altar that constituted the shrine.  We understand that this type of “horse temple” is not uncommon in small villages.

The second temple was one where there was a fort type enclosure on the top of a good sized sandstone hill and a part of the temple was cut into the rock at the bottom of the hill.