We leave Chennai and travel to our first temple town of Kanchipuram. Its not far, about 90 kms and not the most pleasant of drives, it seems just as the sprawl of Chennai ends the sprawl of Kanchipuram begins.

Kanchipuram was once the capital of the Pallava dynasty during the 6th to 8th centuries. Today a typically hectic 'modern' Indian town, famous for not only its high quality silk saris but more appealing to us its numerous important and vibrant temples.
You leave your shoes and the hectic city at the door of the Kailasanatha (Shiva) temple and enter an oasis of calm, the silence broken by chanting and singing, the air filled with incense and jasmine.