Pondicherry and Thiruvannamalai

Weekend in three sentences:

"Bread bread, mr. bread, bread breaded bread? "
        "French Quarter? Pshh, more like the French Eighth..."
                 "Is that East of Pondicherry?....don't overthink that one..."

AKA

Weekend of lovely company, endless good laughs, French food, colorful houses on winding streets, a little bit of beach action, and a spontaneous adventure to a mountain and a temple.

Hotel with a beach view. Check.

French food. check.

Wonderful company in wonderful little beachside neighborhoods: check.

Thiruvannamalai.
A random adventure that consisted of:
"Hey. Want to leave Pondy the last night?"
"Sure. Where to?"
"I dunno, open Lonely Planet."
"Thiruvannamalai....want to go here?"
"What's there?"
"Annamalaiyar Temple, one of the biggest Shivaite temples in India, and Arunachala Hill, where legend has it Shiva appeared as a column of fire."
"Yeah. sounds cool. let's go."

Thing about India, spontaneity seems to work wonders for travel.

After a three hour bus ride, we found a tiny hotel, dropped our stuff, and went exploring. We encountered wonderfully happy people, like these guys that threw colored powder all over us in honor of Ganesh:

The Annamalaiyar Temple was incredibly impressive. One of the biggest in India. (You can spot it in the background below.)
We climbed Arunachala Hill and found a cave. Still not sure if it was one of the caves we were supposed to find. But interesting nonetheless:

I think part of my insanity last week was a result of being in a loud crazy noisy polluted busy megacity for too long with no break.

Pondicherry was beautiful and relaxed and happy and clean and small and colorful and lovely, even outside of the ridiculously touristy and white-people-filled French Quarter.
And though Thiruvannamalai was noisy and crazy, it was much smaller than Hyderabad, and set in the middle of nowhere, and had that small(ish)-town happy feel, and the combination of these cities and the beautiful people I traveled with made me really unwind.
and breathe.
and realize that I only have two and a half months left here.
so I damn well better make the most of it.
and that I damn well better make the best of everything, actually.


Ahh India. you have the most complicated ways of teaching me lessons.

Possible Insanity

I've been in the most insane mindset lately. I'm simultaneously overwhelmed and bored and ecstatic and depressed and calm and angry and a million subtler other things.

I might be going insane?


Here: words.

Oh Heart of strange things
  of diagonal stretches and
      plucked harmonious heartstrings
Heart of simultaneous shriveling
   and expanding,
of aching and fluttering
Heart dripping in curry and spices
  contaminated by Indian breath
    saturated by Indian air
restless Heart of Hindustan--
     barely contained in my chest,
      Heart of silk and sarees;
      Heart of rolling tongues
     and sunkissed skin
     and winding roads.
my Heart---
    my Indian Heart---
                Om.
                   Namaste.




and here: picture.

are you satisfied? Do you need more proof of my insanity?
Of my endless swirling thoughts on everything and anything?
Jumbled together in a maddeningly tangled web of inextricable streams of ideas,
from how ice cream is made with buffalo milk here
to how deeply self conscious I feel whilst being stared at
to "hmm, I wonder where I can get a golden flower nose ring, like that beautiful old Indian woman with black eyes black hair bright smile wears so delicately"
 to climbing mango trees for Amma to pluck little green mangoes from precariously flexible branches
 to moshing at Indian metal shows (not kidding, it happened)
to the crunch crunch crunch of my feet on the crumbling pavement on my daily morning walk to the gate of Doyens Township, waiting for the guard to nod his head in a polite "Namaste" which I think he only started doing because I did it first, but nonetheless it makes me feel better---
all the time think think think what? who? where? self? not self? philosophy? purpose? you? her? he? them? world? people? billions! me? why? here? HERE! now! when? NOW! Today!!

see? I seriously am going crazy.



Eh.
You know what.
9,000 miles from home, from anything familiar,
surrounded by different languages, cultures, people, food, clothing, thought processes, songs, religions, social norms, expectations, even insects---

I don't mind.

I think I'm allowed to go a little crazy.

Hampi (Time Doesn't Really Exist)

I spent the entire weekend clambering through five-hundred to one-thousand-year-old-temples.
That enough should tell the experience.

I refuse to try to reconstruct everything we did. It was organized by CIEE (our study abroad program) so naturally it was jam-packed with a trillion touristy things, like fancy dinners and cultural performances and nice hotels. (There were swimming pools. In India. Did I feel like a tourist?)

Though it was convenient to literally decide nothing for myself, which was in stark contrast to my trip to Araku two weeks ago, the extensive planning sort of stole from the experience of Hampi itself. It's a place of very easy-going vibes, just begging to be utilized for adventures and spontaneity. And we were denied that. Chartered around on a giant bus that absolutely screamed "Look at me! I'm a privileged white American! Look look look!!"

BUT.
Beyond that.
We were accompanied by a really wonderful professor from a college in Bangalore, who definitely told me a thousand and one things about the iconography of the temples, which I would have never ever known without her.
And I adore everyone in my program, including our three fantastic facilitators.
And what the hell, I've been to upwards of 20 ancient Hindu ruins. I've walked on 1300 year old floors and touched 1300 year old sculptures, where souls have lived and thrived and died and been reborn for seemingly forever.
What nerve I have to complain!

First day:

Lord Ganesha; monolith, around the 16th century.  This thing was well over 12 feet tall.

Virupaksha Temple. Wonderful old stone carvings just absolutely riddled the place. In addition, I was bitter-sweetly blessed by the temple elephant. It would have been incredible, were it not for the profound sadness in the animal's eyes. A very sad blessing.

Krishna Temple, built by the king in the 1500's.

Narasimha monolith--an avatar of Vishnu, I believe. He's a really awesome combination of all of these dichotomies-- half-man half-lion, neither inside nor out, neither in night nor day, etc. Hindu gods and goddesses never cease to impress me with their intricacies. I think there's upwards of 30,000 different deities in Hinduism. Incredible.

Shiva Linga. Commissioned, as the story goes, by a poor woman, and has stood the test of 500 years, found in situ in the water like that. Shiva linga represents the unity of the male and female; the totality of creation of the universe.

Mango Tree Cafe. Seriously, hands down, without a doubt, not exaggerating, the BEST plate of food I've EVER consumed. Veggie kafta, holy lord. And it loverlooked the most incredible river valley with these terraces full of tables.

The Goddess Pampa (the Tungabhadra River)

Om indeed. Hamekuta Hill. One of my favorite moments of the trip was scrambling back to the top of this hill with Sarah and raising my eyes up to behold this incredible sight. God rays spilled from behind every cloud, and dazzled the ruins, the river, the endless banana trees with intense golden sunlight. Wind whipped my hair, my scarf, my eyes, my spirit. It was magic.

Karnataka Classical music concert. This guy LITERALLY played a clay pot. The most amazing drum session I've ever witnessed.

Day Two:

Some of the most incredible rock trimming ever.

...on the kings old throne! Overlooked much of Hampi.

Originally buried, when this was excavated archaeologists discovered carvings in each stone that almost read like directions on how to assemble this. "turn right, next to block A." stuff like that.

Whuddup, women hunters.

Secret passageway! Tunnels that were pitch black and winded in confusing directions to lead to a secret chamber below the ground. Where the kind would go to do some secret business. Secretly.

One of my favorites. The Hazara Rama Temple. Translates to "1,000 Ramas"---Literally, 1,000 Ramas depicted in stone throughout the temple complex. The entire story of the Bhagavad Gita, actually. Totally bitchin.

I think this is Vishnu behind me, I can't remember. Either way it was just one example of some amazing iconography and stone sculpture throughout this temple.

The Queen's Summer Lotus Palace. Yeah. Can we build a summer house like this one? Thanks.

If I were an elephant in the 1500's in India, what would I see... oh, right, the inside of this elephant stable. Bahaha.

Vittala Temple. Probably the coolest temple complex. There were upwards of 10 different temples.

....I have nothing to say. This place was just really cool.

I've done it! I've stolen Indian Magic! Really this was just an underground portion of one of the temples where glittery shafts of sunlight sneaked through and made my hand look like a crazy glowing orb, but who needs to know that.

Giant stone chariot of Vishnu. At one point the wheels actually turned. They didn't when I tried.

Day Three:

Badami Cave Temples. The most unbelievable warp in the fabrics of time. over 1300 years old, and still incredibly in tact. 

Cave number one: temple of Lord Shiva.

 Cave two and three: Lord Vishnu.

That wonderful knowledgable professor lady I mentioned. Telling us the story of this version of Vishnu, when he saved the world from drowning. Or something like that.

The first sign we saw here just said, "Beware of Monkey Menace."

Hanuman!

Dibs on ceilings like this in my future house.

 Cave four: Jain temple.

 

I must have gotten lazy and stopped taking pictures. But here are the 24 Jain Saints depicted in stone.

Aihole:

The state of Karnataka is beautiful. And look! Sunflowers in India! Gobs of fields of them.

Kavitha, one of the most beautiful and intelligent and wonderful women I know. And her unbelievably adorable son, Bobby. I actually don't think it's spelled that way, but that's okay.

Pattadakal Temples:

Pattadakal Temple complex-- I think 7th century.

Again, no words. If someone sat me down and showed me this and told me I had to replicate it in ten years or the world would end, you'd all be dead.

Magical live temple in the middle of the complex. Dark hallway to a candle-light shrine. Beautiful.

Shortly after taking this picture, I was curiously approached by a very large, probably extended Indian family. As with many instances here, I was stared at, questioned, laughed at, and asked for "just one snap." Usually I get really antsy when that happens: No, sir, I would not like to take ten different photos with your ten different relatives. And yes, I am walking in a certain direction not because I want to be stopped and eternally questioned, but because I actually have a place to be. But for some reason this time was very different. I don't know if it was the magic of Hampi or the outrageous cuteness of the little girls in silk dresses smiling shyly from behind their fathers legs, but I had a really special and spirited interaction with this Indian family. Just one of my many vivid memories of this place.

And so.
I apologize for the ridiculously long post.
But as you can see we stuffed four days to the seams with things to do, so naturally I took twenty thousand pictures.

One night we snuck out of our hotel and climbed to the top of this rock plateau behind the road. Hampi is famous for its impossible rock formations, geologic wonders of piled rock balanced precariously atop one another. This particular cliff stretched high into the sky, and at night overlooked a sea of blackness with dotted twinkled lights, and bright stars behind strewn clouds. Monkeys howled in the distance, stray dogs sang twilight barks below, and the few of us that ventured off into the Indian night were greeted with adventure and wide-eyed wonder of the magic of Hampi.

Of course, since India always, without fail, brings the unexpected, we were then (very unnecessarily and awkwardly) escorted down by hotel staff.
"Danger, madam! Monkeys!"
And alas, the mountaintop moment was altered into a comical procession down the slope of flashlights and starched white hotel shirts glinting in the night.


Yet another random anecdotal memory.


The train home took about 24 hours total.
Yikes. But on a FIVE HOUR LAYOVER (so the train could split in half and go in different directions!?) we explored the local town.
People were ridiculously friendly, and within a span of about ten minutes we had amassed a following of about 50 screaming, dancing, laughing children, mimicking our answers to their enthusiastic questions and energetically shaking our hands.

An interesting conclusion to an interesting weekend.

Oh, and sleeper trains are a blast.