So I guess it's time to update everyone again on my life in India! Since I last wrote, we have stayed at a beach resort, saw some crocodiles, and went to a village. I'll start from the beginning. On Wednesday we left to go to the beach resort. On our way we stopped at a crocodile bank. It was crazy to see that many crocodiles in one place. They also had snakes there and some of them watched them extract venom from one of the vipers. It was a little scary but hey I'm still alive! Another thing we went to on our way to the resort was dakshina chitra. This was an outdoor art museum in a way as it showed different housing structures found in different states. It was really interesting to see the differences between their houses depending on the region they lived in. I also got a tattoo at this place! It's just henna so it will be gone in a few days don't worry!
After this busy day of driving we finally landed at the beach resort and it was awesome! I have now seen my third ocean! Although the east coast of India is technically the Bay of Bengal they basically just call it the Indian Ocean. The waves are really rough in this region so it was basically prohibited that we swim but of course we got in as far as we could without the current being too strong! It was a lovely day at the beach. At night we went to a dance festival and saw a group of people before the same dances we've been seeing. This was a better atmosphere though as we were right on the beach and it was next to the shore temple.
Our next day in Mahabalipuram we went a saw major tourist attractions. This place is a very populated place for tourist and it was really weird seeing a lot of white people by us. The first place we went to was the stone temples. All of these massive monuments were created from stone each one being its own. It was crazy to see how much detail went into all of them. None of these temples were finished as they started over every time a measurement wasn't exact or they messed up. After this we went to another stone structure which was made for 5 brothers. Each one had their own separate hut and animal to go along with it. They were so huge and I couldn't imagine creating them! The next temple we saw was the shore temple was the most amazing temple we've seen because of the story that went along with it. When the tsunami hit India a few years back this temple was affected by it. When the waters pulled back it uncovered 6 other structures that went along with the one that was already shown. Then when the waters went back the other six stayed under the sea and the 7th that can we visited underwent damage to it structure. You can tell the detail was lost due to the waters. This just amazed me because I could compare it to the floods that hit Cedar Rapids in 2008.
After this busy morning we were given the afternoon to ourselves to relax because it was so hot. So some of us spent our time soaking up the beach and pool. I collected many interesting sea shells and saw some amazing sights. One of the coolest things I saw was the sunrise on Friday morning. I woke up very early for me and watch the sun come up over the ocean waters. Although it was cloudy and we could still see the sun come up and it was a sight to see! After this early morning I went back to bed for a few minutes before we had to check out. After waking up again I was ready to capture the day. We stopped at the IT park on our back to campus. This was a very interesting stop as we saw a lot of young people at this place. This was a huge building and it was very crowded with many people going to work. We had lunch their and I had subway!!! It was very yummy! Once we got back to campus we didn't do to much. The girls all headed out to the market and went shopping for a bit.
Then we come to today. We woke up at 6:30 and had our first yoga class. It was very relaxing although I had a late night because I got to Skype Kelly for a little bit last night from Spain!!:) We had yoga for about an hour in a field where we could hear the nature all around us. It was very peaceful. I mean how many times can you can you did yoga in the nature in India! After this we went to a village which was fantastic! We were basically celebrities to them because I'm sure they rarely see people of our skin color. We were probably followed around by a group of 20+ kids the whole time we were there. I fell in love with a little girl and her grandmother asked of I could take her home. I said I would love to but didn't know if I could really do that. She wanted her to come home with me so she could learn to speak English fluently. That response kind of surprised me but it was very uncommon for people to speak English in these villages. Overall the village experience was one of the best I've had because it showed me how people outside main cities lived and how they worked with the materials they had. Tonight we are going to an Indian movie. I'm really excited to see how this will end up! I will post again tomorrow which will be our last day in Chennai :(
No comments:
Post a Comment