South Tour Pictures Part Four (Belur Temple)

A larger than life sized carved statue of Shiva's bull. The three main Hindu gods each have a "vehicle that they use for transportation and Shiva's is this bull. 

Belur is one of two temples that were built in to be a pair 16 kms apart. They two temples, Belur and Haldbidu are considered to be the most beautiful and detailed pieces of architecture in the state of Karnataka. They took hundreds of year to finish and were once at the heart of the Hoysala Empire.

The guide was demonstrating the detail by showing that each section is full carved through enough to stick a straw through. Yet the whole section is one stone, so one mistake and everything had to be restarted.

The temple was made in a sort of cross or plus sign shape. This is one of the extending arms ( I don't know how else to describe it). The main section of the temple was in the center of the cross and each arm had a little, minor shrine on it.

Each of the 12 (I think) layer represented something else and were carved with great detail. No elephant, dancer,  flower, or animal was exactly the same and these layer went all the way around the temple. 

The top of the gate leading into the temple compound.

South Tour Pictures Part Three

Southern India's (and maybe all of India) biggest botanical garden in Mysore (23rd November). 

A temple in the garden.

The rest of the pictures on this post are from a temple we visited. The temple itself isn't even visible in this picture. We had to climb hundreds of carved stairs to reach it (I forget the exact number)

About a third of the way up...

The last portion of climbing was sort of inside an exterior wall or compound that contained stairs and some small temples)

Looking back over the landscape there was a rainbow.

This statue is hundreds of feet tall and he stood in the middle of the temple at the top of the mountain. 

Goodbye Sebastian

Last night we dropped Sebastian off at the airport for his flight home. He'd already been here for a whole year!
The last two weeks he spent traveling around with his family and was supposed tot return to Indore on the 7th when we had planned to spend most of the day with him. Unfortunately, he missed his plane in Mumbai so had to spend the night in the Bombay airport where non of us could reach him on his phone that only works when he's in the same state as you...
Yesterday though, we got to spend all spent a few hours with him and got to take him to the airport. Amanda had come from Bhopal to say goodbye too. We went out to coffee and gave him an excessive amount of cards, candy, and some other gifts and he gave us each a printed one of his pictures.
I hate goodbyes when you don't know when you're nest going to see a person again if ever. Amanda made him promise to invite us all to his wedding whenever he got married...
Now there is very little to do besides live life here until the next tour in February. Except the wedding next weekend that we all got invited to!!! I'm very excited, seeing an Indian wedding was one of my goals for the year!

South Tour Pictures Part Two

A massive Buddha statue on an island in the lake that separates the two parts of Hydrabad. Our last stop on the first day of sight seeing was to take a boat out to the island. 

Mahabalipuram (November 18, i think). The beach here was amazing and the evening was a perfect temperature, slightly warm but just barely. After everyone had returned from an evening of wandering around the touristy town, we decided to build a bonfire on the beach. We sat on driftwood, listened to Bob Marley, danced, waded, and played games. It felt like a perfect summer evening that everyone dreams of having except it was the middle of November.

Mahabalipuram (November 19th, i think). We had a guided tour of some of the historical places around the town. 

I took this from a peninsula looking back at the beach in front of our hotel the next day. Looking at the picture, our hotel was just back off the beach from the part of the beach between the nearest person in a red shirt and the next closest person (I hope that made sense). 

A part of the temple located on the peninsula mentioned in the prior picture. 

These stands cam be found all over the south. They are sugar cane juicers where you can buy delicious and extremely fresh sugar cane juice.

Happy New Year!

I had intended to post this the day after NewYears but our internet was down, then it was my host mom's birthday, then I got distracted, basically there's a hundred excuses as to why I didn't finish it until today... most of them probably aren't very valid:

I spent New Years Eve with my family but in the afternoon I hung out with my friend Jordan. As soon as we returned from Nagpur, he was told that he had to move out of his current house until we returned from our North Tour in March. Instead of begin placed with another family, he is now living in a hostel type place that is actually more of a cult/commune/hostel. I guess he doesn't mind too much which is more than I could say if I were in his position, but he does get really bored there. He is also locked in (or out depending on what side of the gate he's on) at 8 every night. We hung out at a coffee place and basically wasted time until I had to go home. I felt bad for him because even on New Years Eve he had to be in by 8. I guess he ended up spending the night reading and on the phone with one of our friends who also had nothing to do. As for me, I went home, showered, and put on one of my traditional outfits. People made several jokes because I was wearing a salwar suit while my sister was wearing a western style dress. They called is a "true exchange". We had a neighborhood bonfire/potluck in the middle of the street in front of out house. Everyone brought a dish that could be reheated of cook and the ground floor of the building next to ours became a sort of communal kitchen where fresh chapattis were cooked and the food was prepared. To pass time before midnight we played group games like the Indian version of bingo and other silly group games. Someone also had brought a set of speakers so that people could dance. At midnight everyone went around shaking hands or hugging each other wishing them a happy New Year. Around 1, the women of my family, Ipshita, my mom, my aunt, my cousin Jhanvi, and I drove to the gurdwara or Sikh temple so that they could pray for the new year. I sort of watched and followed what they did. Like most temples here, you have to remove your shoes before entering a gurdwara but you also have to cover your head (like a mosque). You're also supposed to back out of the temple, instead of turning around. Sikhism is a relatively new religion that broke off of Hinduism. It's mostly practiced by Punjabi people. While almost all Sikhs are Punjabi, not all Punjabis are Sikh. The term Punjabi describes a person from the area of Punjab.
On the first, I spent the afternoon with my friend Amanda who lives in Bhopal. Her family had come to Indore for New Years and so her father could attend a funeral. We spent the day in the mall shopping with her host mom. Amanda spent that night at my house since my sister had to go to Bhopal for an exam.



Monday, I went back to school. I was only one of 5 students to show up. A similar attendance record has persisted for the rest of the week so far. Yesterday the state government announced that from today on, all classes in all schools public or private, from 8th grade and below will be suspended until the 16th due to unusual cold. In some parts of the state, the temperatures are hovering above and below freezing. There was actually snow in the capital yesterday. India's made me weak, the temperatures are in the 60's and 70's during the days, and 40's at night and I'm feeling cold. Obviously not as cold as the people here think it is but still, 70's should be nice weather for me.