Notice the big V (Lord Vishnu) on the temple wall. Devotees of Vishnu traditionally wear black while on a pilgrimage. A pilgrimage can be taken any time - just before an important event -a marriage, a birth of a child, a retirement, or as a annual family event. Their pilgrimage takes them to many of the important temple towns in Tamil Nadu. Kanchipuram may be well on the pilgrim path but certainly not on the tourist path, it therefore retains its charm of a temple town which others may have lost.