The adventures began with the train ride. This was an interesting experience and a good one to say I rode an Indian train. We are all a little nervous to sleep but once we got on it was a little safer then expected and we were all asleep faster then we thought. See the pictures below to see where I stayed in.
After this tiring ride, we started a very long and tiring day. At first though, we arrived at our beautiful hotel/resort, in which I thought I was actually at paradise. We were greeted with jasmine flowers put around our neck. It was the most gorgeous place to stay at in which we all needed that little vacation time. It felt like we were in Hawaii not India. After seeing our new humble abode for a few nights we took off to see our first temple. We went to the small temple which was very pretty as everything is very colorful and beautiful. Next went to the Marrabu Foundation in which we were greeted to one of the best welcomes ever. First, we ate lunch off a banana leaf, which is their plates. The food is pretty good, but a lot of it tastes the same. The foundation is run by a lady that brings in kids coming from bad backgrounds to introduce them to the fine arts. The kids were all their dressed in their traditional attire and were just beautiful. At night, we were fortunate to take part in their river ritual, in which they rearranged just for us. It was a very interesting experience as we traveled down the road and stopped along the way to have the girls dance and then it led to dunking a figure of their god into the river in hopes to bring rain. This was a good experience yet a tiring one to say the least.
The next day was another day of seeing famous temples. This day we went to the big temple! It was huge! I got to conquer part of my bucket list my getting blessed by an elephant!!!! It was awesome! Next step is to get on top of the elephant!:) While walking around it was interesting seeing all of the different attire the people were wearing. The girls were often wearing bright red, orange and yellow sarees as it is part of a pilgrimage they are making this time of year to all of the temples. After this I went to a bronze statue making place which was very eye-opening experience. This place was very famous and they have been making these sculptures the same way for 35 generations! Wow! After this, I got back to the hotel and we all had wine and a nice fish dinner. This was a good time and a few of stayed up late to hang out with one of our tour guides!
The next day, we traveled to Madurai and went to an even bigger temple. Although I started not feeling good I still had a good time. It's been interesting traveling because bathroom breaks are scarce and when we are trying to stay hydrated we have to learn to manage ourselves. At night, we went back to the temple and saw a nighttime ritual where we witnessed them placing the god and goddess together in their bed chamber. It was a really big ordeal and a lot of incense was circulating through the corridor. It was a very good seeing all of this take place as it was a really big deal and there was a lot of people there! http://www.view360.in/virtualtour/madurai/ This is a link to the temple we went to.
We took a six hour bus ride back today to return to M.C.C. It was a very nice bus as it was a Volvo made bus in which our seats were basically recliners. When we got back, we were treated with dominos to give us American food again! It tasted so good!! Tomorrow our day is a busy day again so hopefully I'll post again tomorrow!
Below are views of the train and our resort.
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