Even when you aren't a buyer you must be on alert as to what a friendly chat means. Lesson learned I hope. I continued to the other side of the shrine. Only Hindus can enter the temple. All leather must be left at the door to the shrine.
Cows are holy animals.
Most of the people seemed to be wearing sponge thongs but some left their shoes at the gate. There was a gigantic golden bull about seven feet tall and 20 feet long up on a pedestal inside the temple. There were all sorts of other statues which the people honor by giving food offerings or putting daubs of pigmentation that can be purchased outside the gate to the temple. I have pictures of the stands outside the temple selling these things. I was asked to visit a person who had housed them on a medical mission a couple of years ago.