A Wonderful Weekend in Kerala

Hello everyone!

Thanks to all who have been reading along with my trip and offering comments. I'm happy you like it, and appreciate the feedback.
Well, as you can by now tell, this trip
to India has been all work work work, no rest for the weary and all that.
But seriously, folks.....So, Dinesh has a friend named Manish, who's family lives in the beautiful state of Kerala, located on the other side of the Indian peninsula. He generously offered to take us all out for a weekend to celebrate our successful matches, so with much arm-twisting, we all agreed. As the trains were all booked up already, we rented a private minibus for the trip with a driver. As we headed out, we saw what is the native water buffalo in an almost-native setting: the back of a truck at a tollbooth.

Long story short, it was a very very very long drive. The bus had a dvd player, and I borrowed some dvd's I'd seen sitting in the lounge of the hostel. Have you ever seen the episode of Seinfeld where he starts recording movies illegally in a theatre with a video camera, for sale on the black market. Well, apparently that same technique was used for our version of I Am Legend. It was hilarious. There are people's heads in the way, you hear the audience cough, only 2/3 of the actual screen is visible, and occasionally a person in the row in front will get up, presumable for curry-flavored popcorn. At the end, you hear the audience in the theatre applaud. Whahahahaha!! We also had a version of Transformers dubbed in Tamil. Its pretty funny at first to see these big robots speaking Tamil, but it gets old rather fast.

When we got there, though, our journey was rewarded. We were taken out on a houseboat. For those of you unfamiliar with this kind of thing, the "backwaters" of Kerala are loads and loads of canals and rice paddies, with the most commone form of transport being boat, and many villages are isloated. With the advent of heavy trucking, a lot of the big rice barges became somwhat unnecessary. A brilliant person years ago had the idea to turn these barges into floating houseboats and charge to take people on relaxing cruises through the backwaters. Today, it is an enourmous industry, and the town of Alleppey, where we embarked, is the center of it. I was excited to be here, but felt a little guilty, as I had already planned to make this trip separately with Felicia. I firmly resolved to have as little fun as possible, so as not to ruin it for our visit in about 2 weeks.


Here is the houseboat Manish set us up with. Three bedrooms, a/c in all of them, plasma screen TV with dvd player, running water, showers. Plus a crew of 3 to cook and supply cold beverages at our request.

So we set off. FYI, I think this backwater cruise thing is on that National Geographic list of "things to do before you die". Well, check this one off. So we headed out. We had an awesome lunch of fresh fish, vegetables, cold beer. I have to say thay the food up to this point in Vellore had been rather disappointing. Lots of carbs, lots of spice, but not many veggies, and unsafe to eat any raw ones you didn't prepare yourself. (by the way, the Ciprofloxacin + Immodium cocktail = success!!!) The food I ate in Kerala was amazing! All hail Keralan cuisine! Lots of fresh seafood, lots of veggies, yum yum! And all home-ccoked helped a lot too.

So we cruised around for a bit, and then stopped off at a local "boat-up quikie mart" to pick up dinner.

This is what a large prawn looks like in India.
Seriously. It looks like it could eat a lobster for dinner. And those crazy long blue front claws. Whats up with that? Well, I bet it tastes good!

Behind the prawn shop is a rice field. Here I am. I was careful to look for snakes, but they sent a local with me just to make sure. Probably always a good idea with me.

So, we cruised along some more.

Here is a guy herding ducks. Really! Hey paddled around and they all swam together into this little canal, there must have been 100 of them. That is something I have never seen. An aquatic duck herder.

As we continued our leisurely afternoon, I was struck by the beauty of the area. Here is a view out the front of our boat, over the driver's head. Pretty nice, eh?

Still, as I had foresworn, I was having absolutely no fun at all.

Later on in the evening, we wound up in a little canal behind a rice barge still being used for its original purpose. Here is the rice guy poling it along silently through the evening. This is incredibly serene.

A nice view of the sunset from the backwaters of Kerala.

As promised, I am miserable. No fun at all. The stress is crushing me.

As you can plainly see, my classmates decided to show solidarity with me, and also refused to have any fun dancing with the crew of the boat. We were lucky to meet some med students from Oklahoma in Vellore, and they came along too. Thats Kevin in the black shirt gettin' down with Vida, Jamie, Dinesh, and the rest.

Again, no fun at all. Here we see Jamie and Michael (Oklahoman #2) so unhappy at the pressures of the 4th year of medical school that they seem to be having some sort of breakdown. From the foreground, you can tell that in the Indian heat every effort was made to maintain adequate hydration.

In the morning we cruised over to another boat-up mart to get some fresh eggs for breakfast. We passed this guy washing his cow. I wonder if this is something he does every day? Maybe it is a show cow? Maybe it was just really dirty. Either way, it is clean now.

We also passed these guys loading up rice onto another barge. I tried to not look like the annoying tourist who takes pictures of other people working really hard, while I am not. But I kind of was anyways.









Just a close-up of a hard-working Keralan man. Actually, I have been using that wrong. The state is Kerala, but the ethnicity of the people there is Malayalam, and their language shares the same name.

After we got off the boat in the AM, we were taken to Manish's family's house. His family is usually out of town, so the house-staff was happy to have someone to care for. We also got to meet his grandmother. She though we were a very attractive group of people. So wise, she is, so wise. We rested, checked email, had lunch (more awesome home-cooked stuff), then were taken to see the local sights.

Nearby was an old Malayalam palace which we checked out. It had some old artifacts, paintings, and neat woodwork.

Here I am in front of the palace. Keralan architecture looks a little more like Chinese/Japanese, with pagoda-like roofs.

An upper-level walkway in the palace, with slatted windows which look out on the garden.

Fun with black and white at the same place.

Detail from a very old frescoe inside the palace. Very vivid colors.

One of the other places we were taken was local ashram apparently very well known around the worls. Like our guy near Vellore, it was run by someone named Amma. This Amma is a smiling middle-aged woman known for spreading love and happiness by hugging everybody she meets. see www.amma.org Apparently she's been doing this for a long long time, and her ahsram is really huge. There is a 17-story apartment block just to house the people who come for stays. There were lots of Westerners there. Unfortunately, she had just completed her hugging for that afternoon when we got there, so we were too late to meet her. We were given a tour, no cameras unfortunately, and supposed to go with the PR guy to meditate up on the stage where Amma meditates. As she was not avaialble, there was just a giant picture of her, and strangely enough, a second one below that just of her feet. Hmm. Anyways, he told us that the energy in that spot is amazing, So we sit there quietly.....and some lady come over and pulls a bag of silk flowers out and starts dumping them in front of the picture. That seems like nothing much, except her plastic bag of flowers went "CRINKLE CRINKLE CRINKLE" every time she moved. CRINKLE CRINKLE CRINKLE....pause.....CRINKLE....thump.......CRINKLE CRINKLE CRINKLE...etc. This occupied almost the entire time spent "meditating". When we were done he asked us "Wasn't that wonderful? Didn't you feel the peace and energy?'. As we all tried not to snicker, Vida did her best and said "It was amazing!" I guess this made him happy. We all found it pretty funny.

Amma's ashram is right on the coast, and was hit hard by the tsunami. Apparently she paused that day, said "something is not right with the sea my children", and ushered everyone in her big hall to the 2nd floor just before the wave hit. She worked very hard to help rebuild the area, and got lots of great photo-ops with local, national, and international leaders. Even donated about $1million to the Katrina relief fund. Still, as a living god, you'd think one would have more notice about pending natural disasters. Thats not really my field, though, so draw your own conclusions.

"Wait" you might be saying. "The tsunami came at India from the southeast, and Kerala is on the west coast, how could it be affected?" Yes, you are paying attention. A very good question indeed. Now, we have all seen how the wave hit the east coast of India (i.e. Mamallapuram) since it origninated off the coast of Indonesia (also to the southeast of India), but it actually wrapped around the bottom tip of the landmass like a whip and smacked the lower west coast as well. Wierd, but I remember seeing a NOVA special on PBC that discussed this phenomenon.

Here is the coast near the ashram in Kerala. There were many homes here. Apparently several hundred people died in this area when the wave hit. The homes were not rebuilt. The palms bear many scars on their trunks, up to about waist-high, from all the debris carried with the water.

The people built a stone sea wall at the water's edge to try to prevent further occurances. I had a pic and then just deleted it by accident. Anyways, just imagine a big pile of rocks at the water's edge, running up and down the shore.

Manish lived right down the road from and Ayurvedic spa/hospital. This is traditional Indian hebal medicine. It was pretty swanky. He paid for us to all get massages. Well, it wasn't the typical; swedish massage I was hoping for. I had to strip naked and put on the skimpiest of loincloths (please please, please I hope they autoclave these things in between uses) and get on a very oily table (apparenty the same one Dinesh had just gotten off of....we all shared each other's oils...ugh) and then a swarthy Indian man proceeded to rub oil all over my body. No reall muscle work at all, no loosening up of tension, nope. Apparently this was medicated oil being appliend through the skin. A lot of oil. The whoke thing lasted 1 hour. I was not relaxed at the end, just oily. So, if you're looking into Ayurvedic massage, just bear my experience in mind. It could have been worse, though. One of the treatments their involved all of the following: herbal enema, oil enema, oil emesis (I think you drink oil and then vomit it back out), purging (what it this if not vomiting, I'm not sure and don't want to know). amd some other thing. No Thank You. I walked back to Manish's house and tried to get all the oil off. Not very successful, despite several showers.

Well, the fun was over after a very entertaining weekend.

We had a wonderful time in Kerala, ate amazing food, saw great stuff. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Manish and his family for their generousity and hospitality. They threated us very very well, and we all truly appreciated it. This is where I put in my plug for the new medical school in St Lucia in the Carribean that his dad runs (UTHSCSA is, of course, the best ever in the US, but if you are going to go Carribean, think about St Lucia).

I was so miserable the whole time that I can barely think about how I have to come back to this paradise, just me and my beautiful girlfriend Felcia. Somehow we'll make it through. (acutally, I got to see where I'll be staying, and it looks great!)

Stay tuned for my next post. Not as happy as this, but bear in mind that it all turned out relatively OK in the end. Lets just say that I got to experience Indian emergent care from the 1st-person viewpoint. And listen to me now. I will repeat it again for any readers who may be headed to India later. DO NOT DRIVE ON THE ROADS IN INDIA AT NIGHT IF YOU CAN AT ALL HELP IT. It is all dangerous. Sometimes, unfortunately, unavoidable, It is also very dangerous in the day, too, make no mistake. But avoid it if you can.

OK. I'll have all the gory details soon.

Market Pics etc..

Hello,

Well, I tried to be strong. 36hrs with only a few potato chips and a flat coke, and still no luck. Cipro it is, with lots of H2O. Will go to the "supermarket" today to see if they have something like gatorade too. I'm sure you are all fascinated by this. So lets move on, shall we?

So, I've found an internet cafe which 50% of the time works pretty good. Rs15/hr (lees than 50cents) is a good deal.

So heres one more pic from last weekend at Mamallapuram.





On the pediatric side of the N2 neurology inpatient ward is the childrens' entertainment area. Not much, really. But this familiar character was on. As it was in Tamil, I have no idea what number of bats he was up to. I wonder if they even are familiar with the concept of a vampire, much less one who is friendly and "Counts".

This is just a view down one of the corridors at the CMC campus, out to a really pretty courtyard. Its like a little oasis in there.

Here are two of the monkeys I saw yesterday outside the computer lab window. The pic is a little blurry, but it'll have to do. Perhaps Felicia will be so kind as to offer a guess at what kind these are? Mom and baby, very cute, but I'm not going to try to pick them up.

This is a view over part of Vellore, across the roofs near the central bazaar. I just read that the combined population of Vellore and its surrounding villages is about 300,000. I bet this "town" has 150-200,000 alone.

A view down one of the lanes of the central bazaar. They cram a lot of stuff in here.

Here are Anne and Cristina being asked where they come from.

All kinds of fruits I have never before seen for sale.

Wow. Thats a lot of garlic.

Most of the vendors there begged us to take their pictures. This guy wanted his friend in too. the friedn did not. Guy #1 thought this was hilarious.







Two guys selling piles and pilse of flesh blooms. For all the incredibly disgustingly stinky places in town, this aisle was very pleasant.

Closeup of one of their flower piles. Simply gourgeous.

Big chunks of incense, all different types, some you dip in water, some you burn. I think I'll go back and pick some of this stuff up.

Lots of piles of dyed powder for your forehead, incense figurines, and some sort of food items. This was a "satellite" store for the golden temple.

Closeup of some if the dyes. Very vivid pure colors.

Well, thats about it for now. Neurology has been very interesting, and my tropical disease bit will touch upon the neurological implications of it.

Now I'm going to the drugstore. I am so hungy. So very, very hungry.

Thoughts for Today

- I have become that which I despise: the idiot foreigner who thinks that talking louder will make it easier to understand me. I will do it for a while before I catch myself. Indians often speak very softly (especially the attendings, which makes it really tough to understand on rounds). I sound like a foghorn. I'm sorry, people of India.

- The CMC radiology department is pretty nice, if I haven't mentioned that before. The reading room is 70 degrees, and the MRI suite looks nicer than the ones in San Antonio. And then you walk out the door back into the heat and chaos.



- Indians have no qualms about coming up to me and asking where I'm from. Actually, in my arrogance, I assume they can tell I'm from the US. Nope. And most of them have no clue what Texas is...ha ha ha. Indian deference to the male > female is pretty evident when Cristina, Anne, and I go out to eat. The waiter often asks me for my order first, only asks me if the meal is OK, only takes the plates when I say I'm done, despite what the two of them say. They hate it, and let me know regularly, as if I set this whole thing up. This culture is rather conservative. But strange. Exposed midriffs on women are standard here, but if you dare to show your shoulders or ankles, you are a loose woman. Whenever a large group of us students goes out for dinner, we obviously have a bunch of males and females socializing. However, you never see males and females socializing outside of families. Actually, you never even see groups of females out at restaurants. Lots of groups of men, familes, but no women. They are out together at the markets, but not in restaurants. Hmmm.



- Cristina and Anne get stared at by men a bunch, and I have a feeling it is the same for the other ladies as well. Now that I think of it, I get stared at a lot too. People keep saying that this a very cosmopolitan town, that they are used to lots of westerners due to the CMC. Well, that may be true for lots of the businesses, but the average person on the street definitely looks at me like I just got out of a flying saucer. Sometimes it is very off-putting, feeling like they are really rude. But I think thats just their way. I know the ladies have it much worse, though. Last night at dinner, Vida was telling us how in the middle of the day a man started following her and Jamie around the town. They went into several stores and he kept following them. They finally were at a travel agency and complained. The guy there yelled at the man, and summoned a police officer, who then promptly slapped the man in the face and threw him into the street.



- Even I had an interesting encounter. Last night while at dinner, in a pretty empty place except for the 7 of us (the San Antonio contingent united: Me, Dinesh, Claire, Vida, Jamie, Cristina, and Anne), a man at a nearby table asked to speak with me. So I go over and talk with him. He says he is upset with me, he saw me in his building earlier and needs to settle this. He claims I was in his building at the very time I had placed my order at the restaurant. Won't tell me what it is all about. Wants me to go outside with him. Well, thats not going to happen. So I tell him he's all confused, I don't know him, and go back to my table. He keeps looking over at me, and about 1/2 hour later tries to send me a beer. Wierd. Dinesh goes to speak with him in Tamil to see what his deal is. Apparently he is so drunk now he can't even speak clearly. Eventually (another 30min later) he gets up, comes over and apologizes to me, and leaves. ....OK then....This town is generally pretty safe, but obviously its a good idea to watch your back. He did not try to follow my rickshaw back to campus. Maybe he just thought I was very handsome. I can understand that. Happens every day when I look in the mirror.

- It seems that the predicted GI distress has now beset me. I'm holding off on the antibiotics at present, hoping to ride this thing out with just fluids and bowel rest. Its not terrible, just really inconvenient and uncomfortable right now. I had to duck out of Neurology early today because it just wasn't worth it to keep standing next to a patient while my insides go all spasm-like. As we have a trip coming up this weekend, it would be nice to have this sorted out before departure. I have my fingers crossed. Cipro at the ready if it comes down to it.

- we went to the main bazaar here the other night, obviously where the locals shop. It was awesome. Just about everyone wanted their picture taken with their produce, piles of iron products, various dyes, big chunks of incense, and buckets of fresh flowers. I got some great pics, as did Cristina and Anne. I'll try to post some up tomorrow. And I may get my infectious disease profile up tomorrow too, we'll see.

I guess thats all for now.

Neurology at CMC Hospital

Hello all,
Well, this week I'm on the Neurology service, mostly with the N2 service. The wards at CMC are like the old-school kind we used to have back in the US. There is one big room sub-divided into three "halls". Each subdivision is just a big open room with 4-6 beds along each side. Not much privacy, although you can pull drapes when dealing with sensitive issues. The patients are grouped by sex and adult vs pediatric. Most of the kids have at least one parent sitting by their side at all times. These people had to leave their jobs and make the journey all the way here, so the staff trys to make them as comfortabel as possible and get them discharged ASAP. Mixed in with our patients are Neurosurgery patients. One of these is attended at all times by what I believe to be her son. He has not left her side the whole time I've been here, not even changed clothes. I wonder if he sleeps here too? There is also a neuro ICU on our floor. You take off your shoes and put on their flip-flops when you go in. It has a/c! What I noticed in there, though, was how quiet it was. No beeping or booping or other loud alarms like I am used to in ICUs. No ventilators either. Patients that had tracheostomies were on CPAP only. I'm told that the ICU downstairs has vents. Maybe I will see that later this week. The hospital is crowded, but other than the ward set-up and heat, pretty much like other hospitals. All the windows are open and the fans are going, but it is still pretty toasty. I can't imagine what it is like in June when it is really really hot.

The residents stay pretty busy, handling about 10-15 patients each. Several days a week they spend in the OPD, which is the outpatient clinic. They will have two exam tables crammed into a room we can only fit one into, and run through patients as quickly as possible. Because the neuro exam takes a while to do, they may see only twelve patients an afternoon each, but that still means getting out after 6pm or later.

Some interesting cases I have seen so far:
- Cerebral venous thrombosis. Not commonly seen in the US, it is very common here. Occurs predominaely in post-partum women. The residents I spoke to said the etiology is not completely clear, but trhey blame it on local customs regarding childbirthm not giving the mother anything to drink, etc. It presents as a headache with bilateral neurological deficits, and occasionally seizures. This is a diagnosis of exclusion, but is high on the differential list due to the history and physical findings. They rule out Cerebral Hemmorhage because the headache is not as severe, the patient is not so severely obtunded, and the neuro deficits cannot be localized to an arterial source. They also use neuro-imaging regularly, so the MRA helps cement the Dx.
Treatment is similar to a DVT: heparin for several days, then discharge on anti-coagulants for 6 months. Most patients recover well.

- a case of possible Isaac's Syndrome. Isaacs' syndrome is a rare nerve and muscle (neuromuscular) disorder. It may also be referred to as neuromyotonia, Isaacs-Mertens syndrome, or continuous muscle fiber activity syndrome. It's characterized by abnormal nerve impulses from motor neurons of peripheral nerves. These impulses cause continuous activity in muscle fibers. Our patient was in to get an EMG, and the history I gathered was that over a 2yr span, he has developed weakness on one side when trying to run or exert himself. Sometimes when running to catch a bus his hand will clench up in a claw and his foot will suddenly internally rotate due to muscle spasm. He can avoid this if he sees the bus coming and starts to pace a little, "warming up" before he has to jog over to it. The Dx on him is still pending.

- a case of Hansen's (leprosy) vs Myeloradiculopathy. A 63yo male with a history of decreased sensation of tough, temperature, and pain, beginning in his distal lower extremities and progressing proximally up to his mid abdomen (approx T10). He alsso reports recent onset of parethesias and burning, and again greatest in distal lower extremities, gradually diminshing proximally. These have also abated distally as total insensation has set in. Of note, he states the right side is worse in all symptoms than the left. As the Over the past 6 months, also onset of urine retention and constipation. His symptoms have all prgressed to the point where he is bedridden now and dependent on intermittent catheterization. He was diagnosed originally with Hansen's disease at another hospital, and given a course of antibiotics, but these were discontinued after less than 2 months due dermatologic reactions. On physical exam he exhibits significant bilateral lower extremity muscle atrophy, complete lack of sensation to pain, temp, touch, and vibration in both of his legs. He regains sensation around navel level (T10), which is a burning sensation when touched lightly. The jury is still out on him too.

So, due to a case of "thats how it has always been done", the neurology service also gets every attempted suicide by hanging. They don't want them, provide no psychiatric treatment, but still they get them. I saw a resident advise a patient to next time try to drown herself, as it is less traumatic. I think he's pretty sure she'll try it again, but if she fails he doesn't want to have her on the service again.

Also of note, the CMC is apparently not a public hospital. Patients come up to the residents throughout the day complaining of their bills and their inability to pay. I've seen this handled relatively well by the younger residents. The upper levels, who have been dealing with this for years, have not patience. I saw one yell at a woman to sell her bad and her house, do whatever it takes, but pay the bill. Pretty brutal.

Ok, thats all the medical stuff for now. Will post again later.

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.