Happy New Year from Here........
01 January 2018 | Chamundi Hill, Mysore, India
Dark and a wee bit chilly.......for India that is
No mental hogmanays for me this year, dinner with some friends last night (deep fried stuff, a Scotsman's dream!) and tucked up in bed well before the bells, however, I got up at 4am and dragged my poor wee arthritic feet up a thousand steps to the top of Chamundi Hill.
Named after goddess Chamundi, the Chamundeshwari Temple sits atop the main hill. The main hill itself features an ancient stone stairway of 1,008 steps leading to its summit. Approximately halfway to the summit is statue of bull Nandi, the vahana, or "vehicle" of Lord Shiva, which is 4.9m tall and 7.6m long and carved out of a single piece of black granite, you can definitely tell its a bull as it has a massive pair of granite bollocks! :-)
So I'm kinda hoping that climbing up heaps of steps in the dark to a temple squares me away with the big man upstairs for good behaviour....worth a try eh!
Had to wait a wee bit longer for the Sun to come up as after it pops over the horizon it has to make its way through a layer of pollution haze before we see it, and the area here is not particularly industrial by Indian standards.....crikey, makes you think eh......
I wish everybody a healthy, happy and prosperous new year,
Slàinte mhath