Electrical panels of CMC college campus

First off. let me tell reiterate how amusing India is. I'm sitting here in a cybercafe listenning to honking of rickshaws, high-pitched hindi music, and over this comes the call to prayer from the local mosque. This place does not let any of your senses rest for a minute!




Ok. Even on the CMC campus it is very entertaining. On the college campus, all of the electrical panels are dedicated to some scientist or other. I'm trying to catalog them all, but here's just a small sample.

Mamallapuram and Kanchipuram

For the weekend, Anne, Cristina and I hired a car (with a/c) to take us to Mamallampuram, on the coast. This is an ancient city, and listed as a UN World Heritage Site. The sculptures and temples here defined a style that then spread out over the rest of India and beyond. Probably the most photographed temple is the Shore Temple, dating from the early 8th century.

We also got to get our feet wet at the beach. Indian Ocean? Check.

Here is a guy selling food (fried fish) near the temple. All along the temple, and all over town, were sculptors. Stonework is the #1 industry in the town 9other than tourism), and you hear the "clink clink" of chisels ringing out all over. I bought a bunch of stuff (yes, rocks), and felt great about bargaining the stoneworkers down to less than 50% of their asking price. Until I showed my driver and he laughed at how much I overpayed. I will not show him anymore stuff. Still, my black marble dancing Pravati and red marble Shiva are something to behold. I have absolutely no idea how I will get these home intact.


About 1.5km south of the village center is a "plaza" containing the 5 Rathas. These are all carved out of solid stone, dating from 630-670AD.

Here we see the largest and tallest, the Dharmaraja, and Anne and Cristina resting inside it and listening to our guide (Rs100, a pretty good tour).

This is the Dharmaraja again.

Here's a view of the plaza. On the left is the Nakula and Sahadeva Raja, named after two brothers. Just to the right of that to that (tough to see) is a life-size stone elephant. On the mid-right is the Draupadi, apparently based on the design of a straw hut (note the roof). And on far right again is the Dharmaraja.

We stayed a pretty good little hotel (Rs1200) with a/c. The girls got mosquito net, I covered myself in deet and braved the malaria. The town is definitely designed with tourist in mind, but its is so hot that the season is winding down and there was almost nobody there. although definitely more westerners than in any other place so far. The ladies shopped with a vengeance, I picked up some stuff for friends. I also got a great little box that you can plug into the wall. It play 18 different mantras over and over again. I will drive my neighbors in the hostel crazy with this thing. We ate at a restaurant right on the beach, fresh seafood!

In the morning we got free breakfast, and then headed over to see the rest of the stuff.


This is a giant bas-relief called Arjunas Penance. The story goes that Arjuna did penance on the bank of the Ganges in the hopes that Shiva would part with his favorite weapon. Shiva eventually materialized and picked a fight with Arjuna, and basically kicked his behind, but eventually gave him the weapon as a reward for trying in the face of inevitable defeat. Arjuna is on the left, the elephant is on the right, and the cleft in the middle represents the Ganges.

Closeup of Arjunas Penance.

There were many other temples and bas-relief around, and we saw almost all of them. Mamallapuram was awesome, and I'd love to go back again. It was hit pretty hard by the tsunami, but has recovered well. Our dinner restaurant had a pic of how it was before it hit, and they definitely rebuilt well. The wave actually uncovered a bunch of new structures previously unknown, now being excavated. There will be even more stuff to see when I come back!


Then we got in the car and headed home. On the way is the town of Kanchipuram ("Golden City"), known for 2 things: 1) it is the silk capital of India 2) it has some serious temples.

We stopped off at the Varadarajaperumal Temple. In this lagoon, under the gold thingy, is a statue of Shiva. They drain the lagoon and take it into the temple once every 40 years (next time, 2016). Apparently 4million pilgrims will descend on this town then. Good luck townspeople!


Inside the temple is the 100 Pillars Hall, a wedding hall with intricately carved solid columns, many with risque scenes from the Kama Sutra.











More from the wedding hall.

View from main entrance in. The hall is out of site over to the left. I could not go any further as a non-hindu. And my feet were starting to sizzle on those hot stones. Native Indians don't wear shoes a lot, so they're tough. They laughed at me as I ran from shadow to shadow, but it is really really dangerously hot out there.

Closeup of one of the pillars

Another temple we passed (pretty darn tall)

A third temple we peeked into. All in all, a great trip. The car and hotel were incredibly good deals, and I'll just pretend that I made out like a bandit with my rocks! Maybe I'll post some pics of them later.







Whew. I think I'm all caught up now. Feel free to post comments or requests.