The temple is not the destination, it's the door
The Brihadeeswarar stands so completely that most visitors photograph it and consider themselves done. It is, after all, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The vimana rises 66 metres, built without mortar, and the capstone alone weighs 80 tonnes, moved into place by the Chola engineers of the 11th century using a ramp that scholars still argue about. You can read all of this on a placard and leave in two hours. What the placard does not tell you is that the temple has a second personality after 6 PM, when the tourist coaches are gone and the oil lamps come on and the stone corridor smells of camphor and wet granite. That version of the Brihadeeswarar is not accessible to the person catching a bus to Trichy at five.
