Festivals are always fun; but, meeting people & seeing their culture is even more enjoyable.

We spent three days in Kalapathy, India. One morning we got up extra early to watch the women do their daily front door entrance decoration with intricate designs called a Kolam.

First, the woman of the house cleans an area outside her door which has the previous day’s design. She cleans it simply by using water & a straw broom.

After the area dries, the woman of the house then makes her daily design using two methods- using dried rice flower is called Arikkolam, or using a liquid paste of rice & water called Maskkolam.

On our first day we met this woman who sold candy & cookies from a small table cart. I told her she was beautiful. That made her day! She then told all her friends what I said. She told us she had always been told she was too dark to be beautiful.

We stopped & visited with her each day.

The festival also features unique fortune tellers. For less than a dollar, a tame parrot picks a card & the seer tells you about your strengths & weaknesses based upon the Hindu God picture on the card that the bird picks.

With our guide’s help, we were able to meet a local family & visit their home.

Each traditional home is built exactly the same. They have relatively small widths; but, they are very deep with a straight, unbroken hallway running from front to back to provide ample cooling & ventilation. They also all have a sump in them to drain the massive rainfall from the annual monsoons.

The front area is like a covered enclosed patio which leads inside to areas used for sitting, eating, & sleeping. Each house also contains the family’s Hindu Shrine for daily prayers. The last room in the house has the kitchen. Many years ago, the last rooms in the house were used to house their cows; now they are used for storage.

These homes only contained the basic essentials. The most modern appliance we saw was a flat screen television.

While visting, we had a chance also to see the family preparing for the festival & learned how they made ground sandalwood to make a paste that is painted on the body.

This family also lived near a small temple of which they were very proud.

Each temple also has a spirit animal that they decorate to carry through the streets. This temple’s spirit animal was a mouse.

Other temples had an elephant & horse as their respective spirit animals.

In the evening or morning, locals sit on their small porch to chat with passerbys.

The family invited us to return the next day for the daily lunch sponsored by their temple. We first saw this in Delhi where volunteers from the temple cook food for the community.

All the food was served on a giant banana leaf & eaten by hand. Unfortunately, we chose not to eat the food because we were afraid we might have tummy problems later; but, our guide said it was very tasty. In any case, it was nice to be invited.

The festival also brought in many vendors who sold their wares along the streets. They sold food, kitchen items, jewelry, bangles, shoes, seeds, toys, & much, much more. Most are not from the area & slept by their stalls.

One huge surprise was how many people of all ages approached us to talk & asked to have their picture with us. Some spoke English & others communicated through our guide. At times the requests for taking photos with us were so constant, our guide very politely asked them to leave us alone so we could watch the festivities. Then they would just take our picture without them in it.

I tried my best never to say no to children who wanted a photo.

Then there were the guys I called the paparazzi. A group of men constantly took pictures of us everyday at the festival. On our last day, I saw them photographing us, so I asked them to be in a picture with us this time.

The chariot festival was an experience we will never forget. This is because we had an excellent guide who made sure we were always safe in the crush, in the right location to see & photograph the event, & got to meet so many friendly people.