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We left Kerala and flew to Tamil Nadu in the far southeast of India. This part of the country was never Islamized and Hindus here are fervent. We set out to visit as many of the temples in the Cauvery Delta as we could manage in 2 weeks, beginning with the Shore Temple of Mamallapuram - the oldest in southern India (800 AD).

It stands on the beach and for centuries has weathered whatever forces the Bay of Bengal could muster, including the tsunami of 2004, which devastated many parts of this coast.