I’m currently in Tiruchirappalli, known as Trichy, pretty much in the centre of the state of Tamil Nadu.
Trichy has 2 major temples, one of them called Rock Fort and is built on top of a 83m rock outcropping – it takes 437 rock-carved steps to get to the top!
Today (day 10 in Tamil Nadu) I realized I have some Tamil (language) in my big LP guidebook (but not in my LP phrasebook, which has Hindi, Urdu and Bengali), so I learned hello and no and thank you on the train today (a day trip to another town, Thanjavur, for 2 temples, one of which is a World Heritage site). Hello went over well, returned with a (Tamil) hello and sometimes even with a namaste gesture.
Tomorrow I leave for Madurai (3 hours by train), which has another famous temple.
Another breakfast sample:
the mini-tiffin (Rs32/$0.80) including the tea (tiffin means snack); in the lower left are 6 mini sambar idly (spongy rice dumpling), in the lower right is a small dosa (lentil flour pancake), in the upper left is a small scoop of pongal (sticky rice w/ spices; Pongal is also the name of the big harvest in January)