The Sun Temple, Modhera India

On my last day in Ahmedabad I hired a car and driver to take me to several places north of the city which sounded interesting. The first stop was the Sun Temple at Modhera, about two hours north of the city. Unfortunately it was a rather gloomy rainy day.

These were about the biggest bulb based flowers I had ever seen in neat rows on the Temple grounds.
This is a grand temple to the Sun God concieved and built in 1026. As in the Sun Temple at Konark, this temple was so designed that the rays of the Sun would fall on the image of Surya at the time of the equinoxes. Whatever remains of this temple is grand; the shikharas are notaby absent but the Toranas in the frontal halls, and the intricate carvings in the exterior speak of the past splendour of this shrine, which still is home to the Modhera dance festival . The walls of the temple have representations of the sun god wearing a peculiar West Asian belt and boots . The carvings are really extraordinary considering they are almost 1000 years old.

This was not supposed to be a religious pool.










There were chipmunks everywhere in India, including my hotel in Jodhpur.




There is a wonderful road system in Gujurat, a real surprise for India. We met lots of herds of animals in the road as well as camel and bullock carts.