Mahabalipuram

Giselle and I got away for a few days to the south east coast of India. We started off on Saturday morning by flying to Chennai. Cindy wasn't in very good spirits when we left, but fortunately that got better by the time we returned. The flight from Bangalore is only about 45 mins by Jet, 1:10 by turboprop (which we took back). I had gotten sick the day wen went to Mysore, but I figured I was over it by Saturday, especially since I had taken something to quell the diarrhea. As it turns out, I didn't get over it, but it wasn't too bad while we were traveling. It hit me much worse when we got back and I was out of commission through the next weekend.

Anyways back to Mahabalipuram. After arriving in Chennai, we were picked up by the car, and driven to Mahabalipuram. On the way we picked up our guide P.M. Raman. He knew a lot about the place, and had stories to tell, but unfortunately we had trouble getting him to understand our questions.

The site is very interesting in that it is comprised of 3 different kinds of temples, which came from different times in history. There are cave temples (carved into the rocks),temples carved from a single rock, with most of the decoration on the exterior. ( I don't remember what he called these last 2). And there are temples built from rock, similar to those in Hampi. This technology apparently emanated from Hampi, so I'm glad I went there first. Also many of the temples in the area are dedicated to Shiva, or his wife.

The most famous and largest of the last style is located very close to the ocean. It is in a park which didn't exist till after the Tsunami. Only a small part of it was government land which was excavated in the 70's when much of it was re-discovered. The Tsunami wiped out a whole lot of shops which were close to it, now they have been moved further away. In the picture you can see the seawall in the background. There is some speculation that the sea used to come up to the temple, at least to let people off of boats. You can also see that the sea has worn away one side of the temple.

The other thing that you can see there which is really spectacular is one of the largest Bas Relief sculptures in the world. It is a whole scene which I cannot describe all of, but there is a part of it from top right down towards the center which depicts a river flowing, I think bringing life if I remember correctly.

Last but not least we saw Krishna's Butter Ball. At any rate, Giselle and I had fun despite my occasional slowness from the fever I was fighting with aspirin.

More photos here.