Templicious...then GOA

This blogpost is going to be a recounting of my two week trip around south India in which we saw temple after temple after temple until they all looked the same and we were completely templed out. 


First, a quick note of the process of going to temples: first you head over to the "shoe-minder" who you leave your shoes with and you're forced to tip at the end for literally watching your shoes. (mind you, people do walk around barefoot all the time but it's hard to believe there's any crisis for shoes going on when they're all over the sides of the road, which I've never understood). Anyways, after that you pray that the stone isn't so hot it threatens to burn the soles off your feet and make your way to the temple. So you take a look around, maybe take some photos if they allow it, and then make your way out.


Now! On to those temples. On our first day out of Mysore we climbed an outcrop! This basically means we climbed a whole bunch of steps and found out how out of shape we've become. Below are some photos from said outcrop. Our purpose was of course to see the temple complex at the top but also to see this enormous (18 meter) carved stone statue- and by carved stone I mean that he was carved out of the mountain so...they could make no mistakes! And they didn't. He was flawless--well done, people! I'd tell you more about the history and such but I threw out my "field notes" and truth be told I wrote a 10 page paper talking about this...that's quite enough of that. 

Looking up from the bottom 

We reach the top!

The view from way up there

The man we'd all been waiting for

The next day we spent in the bus driving to Hospet, which is the gateway town to the ruins of the Vijayanagra capital. More on them here. Our drive was pretty uneventful aside from the bathroom stops which are always amusing. By bathroom stop I mean that our bus pulls to the side of the road and we all hop out. The boys are assigned to one side and the ladies to another and we all meander around trying to find the perfect bush to hide behind. As you can guess I'm now a master of the squatty-potty practice. 

When we finally got to Hospet, or at least as we approached it, we got into the traffic jam of the century (I'm really not kidding) where we sat in the bus for four more hours- I'm not sure if we ever moved but somehow we made it to Hospet. The jam was absolutely insane because it was just a mess of cars all sitting together--not normal gridlock, just lock. Awful awful awful.

We spent a day at the capital of Vijayanagra (or Vij, as we call it in the biz) seeing--you guessed it--about ten thousand temples. We even ate lunch in one of them! Here's some photos of them, but I'll warn you these places really all do look the same (however my trained eyes can distinguish between early-Vij and late-Vij architecture). 

The next day, we climbed a mountain! It was one of the highlights of the trip I really enjoyed the challenge. We kept going up and down and recalculating where we would try and climb because the path that's normally used was occupied by a large herd of goats and cows. Reaching the top was a great feeling and it was especially great because our whole group made it together (all 26 of us!). We then toured a megalith complex at the top of the mountain. Oh, and here's a photo of the cutest puppy. We found him in Hampi, near Vij. 

Please please pet me!

climbing up with the cows

here's me at the top!

The trip culminated with the last three days which we spent lying on a beach in Goa. Yes, it was incredible. Pina coladas and spicy crab and mojitos and SO MUCH SUN. I can't describe in words so here goes..

Oh and here's a mosque we went to at sunset

Yes I LOVE pina coladas- and getting caught in the sun

paradise