Visit to island temple

[As an aside, all of India is 9.5 hours later than EDT. So, as I start this at 6:30 in the evening, it is 9am in Lexington.]

We had a great time on the island. Here's a photo of the small boat we took over to the island. On the way we pass a very small island (half the size of a football field) that

is the home to a lot of black kites, a large hawk-type bird with a slightly forked tail.

We got to the island, off the boat and started heading up the many steps to the temple. We

were greeted by several small goats. These are brought to the temple and given as an offe

ring. They live on the island thereafter. They were cute little critters. Then one of us saw one of the monkeys. They are endangered Golden Langurs. There are seven of them on the island and we a got to see all seven of them. They are really cute and fun to watch swinging through the trees. Here's a photo of one of them that held still long enough for me to get his picture.

After we were enjoyed our furry siblings for a

while ;-> we continued up the steps to see the temple grounds. As with all the temples we have gone to, we have to take off our shoes. If you

want to wear socks,

that's ok. What

is different here in India is that it's not when you go into the temple, it's often when you get onto the temple grounds. So for most of our tour we were barefoot or stocking footed. We had to watch out for goat poop and other things we might not want to scrape off our feet.

We first saw a small altar to Gonesh (here's a photo).

Then went and found an early temple

to Shiva. This island became an island during a large earthquake in the 1950s which changed the course of the Brahmaputra. Up until that time it was a small piece of land jutting out into t

he river. Though the temples are just 2-300 years

old, the area has been sacred "forever." This is a photo of the altar of the Shiva temple. As is typical it has a carved rock symbolic of the vulva with a stone phallic symbol on it. We have seen

many of these. Here's a photo.

We then went into the main temple that is the newest one. That altar is to three of the gods. As we looked at it the priest came up and put a spot of bright pinkish red in the center of our

foreheads. It was a blessing. He then gave u

s each a marigold flower as another blessing. It was very nice.

The temple has beautiful tile work at its entrence. Here's a picture.

Then we wandered until the sun was low enough that we thought we should head back. Here are photos of the local boat traffic and of Lea, Stu

art and Som relaxing.