I had some pretty weird dreams the night between the 16th and the 17th-what's weird about them is I don't remember them now. Usually when I write down dreams I'll start to remember having them and kinda be able to see them in my head, but as I read the journal entry for the 18th and read about these dreams I don't really remember any of them. In one of them I was working at Blockbuster and my boss looked like one of my professors and in another we (I don't remember who "we" were aside from myself) were fortifying a house against an alien invasion. I had a lightsaber and was dueling or sparring with two other lightsaber-wielding figures (one of which had a HUGE lightsaber that made a figure-8 in the sky).
During the morning we drove to Kanchipuram. On the way we stopped by an abandoned Mughal fortress that bordered a lake. Like, right next to it the view looked like this:
You could hear the water lapping at the shore before you could see it-I felt almost as if we were in Prince Caspian rediscovering Cair Paravel or something :)
On the other side you can just barely see another town. There's a BMW factory over there on the right actually lol.
A random pillar standing right next to the lake.
The ride was an interesting one-it was the first time on the trip that I felt carsick the whole time so I couldn't read. Instead I just laid back and tried to sleep through the slight nausea. I didn't throw up or anything, but it was definitely unpleasant.
This is the inside of the hotel we stayed at. I just liked the way the lighting and the lines came together.
We visited two temples before the end of the day. This is Nandi, Shiva's "vehicle" that he rides around on. You'll always see Nandi sitting outside a temple or shrine to Shiva.
work it, Nandi!
The silhouette of the temple. They wanted to charge us something ridiculous (around Rs. 200 or around $3.75) to take pictures of the inside so I passed. Most places would charge you a tenth of that.
One of the figures on the outer wall.
The temple from the other side.
The second temple that we visited was larger: this is just the gate!
That in the background is the main structure.
A shrine outside the main structure but inside the enclosure.
Most all of the temples that we visited in the south had these really neat shrines in the middle of artificial lake/pond/pools that were just beautiful.
Nandi! And this time he's all dolled up ;)
The lighting isn't the best cause i had the flash off, but that's Norbert taking a picture of a group of Indians.
Apparently it was "clean the temple" day. How does one clean an ancient Hindu temple? The answer is simple: pour bucket after bucket of water on the floor and then furiously sweep it around with brooms until you feel like you're done.
I love love LOVE this picture of Grayson walking ahead of me. The hallway plus the pillars and lighting and perspective...just too cool for school.
I'm not exactly sure what it was for, but this was on the ground in the center of the hallways.
I took this picture to document one of the weird things we encountered in India: there were swastika's EVERYWHERE! However, it doesn't have anywhere close to the same connotation in India that it does for those of us familiar with recent European history and not much else. The swastika is actually a very ancient religious symbol that is very important to Hindus, Jains, and many other religious groups. So if you ever find yourself in India, don't just assume that there are Nazis around every corner ;)
This is the sacred mango tree in the temple. Every year hundreds of people just show up here on a certain day and get married to complete strangers here. Yup, complete strangers.
For dinner I had paneer tikka, which is one of the most delicious meals I encountered (Zack pretty much at paneer tikka and nothing but paneer tikka for the second half of the trip haha). Paneer, as you may recall, is hindi for cheese and tikka refers to the style of cooking. So this is basically cheese cubes with cooked vegetables and a mint sauce. It is fantastically delicious!
Here's a cow that has its horns decorated for Pongol!
I just liked the way these stairs wound around and thought it might make a cool picture.
At the end of the day we visited a place where we could buy silk-Kanchipuram is famous for its silks, and anyone you ask in India about silk will tell you about Kanchipuram. Upstairs they had a guy actually making silk saris and scarves and stuff.
It was somewhere around this point in the trip where I realized that we really didn't have that much time left in India-by the end of the week we'd be getting back onto Singapore Air and be LAX-bound! It was definitely a weird feeling knowing that I'd be back in classes in less than a week's time...but it was also nice to know that I 'd be back to familiar sights, sounds, and smells.
Tomorrow: more temples in Kanchipuram! One of our group gets REALLY sick! And we head back to Chennai to fly down to Madurai!
