Dear Mama, place no one above ya

Now that my trip is completed, I'm going to take a little time to write about my favorite spot:

Mamallapuram (Mahabalipuram)

Remember this map?  Mamallapuram is the big red dot in the middle.

Picture, if you will, a slightly grungier version of a beach town like Tybee Island or Myrtle Beach.  Except, instead of the Atlantic you're looking at the Bay of Bengal, and instead of seeing cookie-cutter beach condos along the shore you're seeing a 1,400 year old temple.  I know what you're thinking: No, no.  Surely not!  No one was alive then!  But it's right there, look down...

See?  Told ya.

There are still all the usual things you see in every other beach town: surf board stands, tourist-trap souvenir shops, seafood restaurants, etc.  All the houses in Mamallapuram are painted in the friendly pastel hues customary to most seaside dwellings.  It doesn't lack Indian-ness either.  You'll still see cows relaxing in the middle of the road, the driving is still terrible, and good luck finding a bathroom with toilet paper.  The locals are all neighborly and eager to chat.  More than one shop-owner beckoned us inside, not to buy anything, but just to shoot the breeze.  One of them went out and bought me a cup of tea next door and we sat for about 30 minutes talking about his native Kashmir, the difficulties of learning Russian, and the best places to work and party in India.

Bill and I also met a lot of travelers from different countries.  It became a kind of game to guess their nationalities.  I got to practice my French with Dominique and her 16-year-old son Alex who were our neighbors on vacation from France.  There was one couple, two backpackers, that we kept running into in every city we visited in Tamil Nadu.  We never did introduce ourselves, but we're pretty sure they were European.  There's no actually basis for that assumption; just an arbitrary speculation based on their general unshaven-ness.  Which is ironic given our own grungy, unshaven states, but never mind that.



A few reviews for future travelers:
Tina Blue View Lodge: B-  
र400 per night (roughly $8)*

All in all not a bad spot to throw down your packs and sleep.  The road it was on made up for a lot.  It was quiet, right next to the ocean and shops, and had a pretty little garden with lots of lazy guard dogs.  I recommend getting one of the bigger rooms if you can, though, because those little ones are pretty cramped.  There's one huge bed in the corner with a mosquito net canopy, and not a lot of room for anything else.  

Pretty garden, useless guard dog.

*This was during monsoon season; prices may be higher during the peak tourist months

The Fisherman: A

My new favorite restaurant.  The design, alone, is genius.  It's a big sand pit with soft, cool sand and a palm-thatched roof supported by sturdy wooden poles.  For a restaurant that is right on the beach, the simplicity of its design is a huge advantage: they can just pick up and scoot a little further back or relocate with relatively little effort.  That may sound like a silly thing to review, but when every other seaside eatery in the town sports a poster saying something like, "Hey guys!  Here's what we used to look like before the tsunami hit!" you start to appreciate a place that looks like it wouldn't do you much harm if it fell on your head. 

Now, I love food.  Who doesn't, really?  It's pretty great.  But seafood is my absolute favorite fare, and the fisherman had some of the best I've ever had.   This place had hands down, the most delicious meal we ate all trip.  It was also the least expensive place we ate in Mamallapuram and it came with good conversation.  Bonus!  We ate like kings on a huge plate of fish (the catch of the day), french fries and fried rice; and with two Kingfisher beers, it went down delightfully.  It was deliciously seasoned to spicy perfection and I liked the fried rice, which is saying something, because I generally loathe the stuff!

Plus the lights are pretty cool, right?

Mamallapuram is also home to a couple of Jamaican restaurants with Bob Marley themes, as well as German and French cuisine.  The amount of competent English speakers, the beautiful and ancient sights, comparatively low expenses, small size, and beachfront locality make Mamallapuram a heavenly little spot for tourists, history geeks, surfers, and seafood aficionados.  I highly recommend it to anyone traveling to India, and I wish we had had more time there. 

Dirty hands, happy heart

Firstly, I can't even express how happy I am to be back in Bangalore.  I've had a great time traveling all over the country and everything, but damn!  It's good to be back in this city.  Yes it's polluted, loud, abrasive, and crowded, but it's the next best thing to coming home.  For one thing, the temperature is at least ten degrees cooler than every other place I've been in the last two weeks.  Not to mention all the constant uncertainty and moving are finally over.  Just a few short days until home!  I've loved almost every minute of this trip, but I can't wait to see my family, friends, and animals.

Pathetic.

Secondly: success!  They said it couldn't be done, but we found some records in Bangalore.

I'm going to kill the mystery and thrill of the chase for some people by giving their names and general location.  Future record hunter: you may choose not to read this if it offends your adventure sense, but good luck finding them on your own!  There are two antique and curio shops on Avenue Road called Balaji's Silk Complex and Seethaphoneco that have pretty large collections.  We looked for about an hour before we finally found Balaji's in the winding alleyways of Avenue Road.  It's like a maze over there and it's absolutely packed to the brim with shop fronts, buyers, sellers, mannequins, motorcycles, rickshaws, and cows.

Balaji's: B-, A
र150 per record (roughly $2.50, $3.00)

We almost passed up the tiny alley that leads to the shop.  This place has hundreds of them stacked on rickety shelves.  I felt a little like Indiana Jones walking into a booby-trapped and extremely dusty treasure chamber.  My fingers were black with dust by the time we were done rifling through the goods.  Eventually we came out, having barely scratched the surface, with a handful of gems--old movie soundtracks, devotional music, and more, in a handful of different Indian language.  I'm pretty green when it comes to records in general, but Indian music is something totally new for me.  In other words most of the choices I made were based on album art.  Some of the vinyl was scratched, but still playable.  When we went downstairs to pay for them we discovered that there were at least another hundred more on the shelves along with stacks of old comics.  It was well worth the black lung--this place was pretty cool.

Seetha Phone Co.: C-
र100-र500 (roughly $2.00-$10.00)

The second place was less impressive.  The collection was smaller and, whereas Balaji had records in Tamil, Telugu, Gujarat, and every other Indian language, Seetha Phone Co. had only Hindi and English music.  They also charged different rates for different records, which was kinda shitty since the shop owner had initially told us that they were all the same price.

So for those of you I promised to find records for: I think you'll be satisfied.  And to all record lovers in Bangalore: good hunting!

I'm going to take a moment to slack off and write a blog entry.  Homework, schmomework!  Pfft, I didn't come to India for that crap! 


This weekend we went to a lovely little place called Coorg.  In a country that's never heard of smooth paving, interstates, or going three feet without hitting a giant speed bump, it's about a 6-7 hour car ride from Bangalore.  I've certainly had longer car rides, and with much worse company, but rarely have I traveled so far for long so incredibly uncomfortably.  I'm not kidding about those speed bumps, and people with long legs beware: do not ride in vans in India.  Unless you like cramped knees, in which case, go nuts!

Coorg was worth the hassle, though.  The general consensus was that it was the best place we'd seen so far, and it was (at least for me)!  For one thing, it actually felt like a vacation.  Technically I'm here to study, and blah, blah, blah.  But I really came here to have an adventure and (hopefully) some fun.  Coorg was both of those things.

We stayed at a resort where we were housed in cute little cottages and tidy hotel-style rooms.  I was strongly reminded of Gatlinburg, actually.  The plaster decor was kitschy and fun, and we had a little dance performance before our dinner--so relaxing!  The air was actually quiet and refreshing, too.  Not a honk of a rickshaw horn or a whiff of that delightful feces/burning-trash aroma you find in the city.

 

Before dinner Jacob John, who is the USAC director and one of the silliest, most fun people I've ever met, arranged for us to have a jack fruit picking competition.

He also looks very fetching in a skirt, apparently.

The game went like this: we split up into two teams, the team leader for each team cut the jack fruit into halves, then quarters, etc., until it was small enough for us (the rest of the team) to pick out the bright yellow fruit.  My team dominated!  Woo!  And our prize was to taste the fruit of our labor, pun very much intended.

If you don't know what jack fruit is, it's those two big, green, kidney/lung/testicle shaped things.

Prior to this game I had no idea what the heck a jack fruit was, although apparently about 25 tons of it are consumed annually in America.  It's much more delicious than it looks from the outside.  They're very sweet, and have a taste that I can only compare to banana Starbursts.

Gory aftermath.

After the jack fruit shenanigans, the dinner, and the dance performance were over, a large group of us went on stage with some of the vacationing families and danced with the performers.  It was really goofy and fun.  Someone got a video of us doing this, which I'll share on Facebook someday. 

----

Today was a lot busier.  Our first order of business was to go to an elephant reserve to (finally) ride an elephant--or so we thought.  Alas, it was raining, and our hopes were dashed!  Rain + elephant footing on muddy terrain = no fourth Punic war.  Oh well!  We still had fun feeding them and fawning over how cute they were.

When we disembarked from the boat that carried us to the elephanty side of the river, we ran immediately to the bathing elephant, who promptly proceeded to spray us all with water from his trunk.  I found this adorable, but also annoying, because the kurta I was wearing was poorly dyed.  I turned teal for a little while. 

After our fun, if slightly disappointing, trip to the elephant camp, we stopped for lunch and did a little exploring.  The place we stopped had a pleasant nature walk (this is where I found 28rabbit, Dad) where we could climb tree houses and feed some very pretty deer.

Look how pretty I am!

Several Snickers- and Toblerone-flavored milkshakes later, we drove to a Tibetan Buddhist monastery.  This was stunning!  I was taken aback by the unexpected size and beauty of the temple when we first caught sight of it from the entrance.  Both the interior and exterior were covered in ornate gold and brightly painted depictions of Gods and buddhas.

All in all it was a great weekend, and I will be riding elephants one of these days...Maybe Tuesday?  I don't know.  All I do know is that I'm going to sleep now, because it has been an exhausting few days.

-Liz

Sorry everybody--I know this blog has been poorly maintained.  I'll try to make my posts a little less sporadic from now on. 

The last three days have been spent taking trips here and there, but today was the most fun by far.  We went to a little village an hour or so outside of Bangalore.  The air was exhaust-fume free, the people were pleasant, the food was good, and we got to have play time with the local school children!  Yeah, making messes with crayons and paint!  My favorite interaction with kids: half and hour of doodling with neon-colored crayons and then running away before any actual responsibility gets involved.  I'm sure they're teachers were just thrilled.

Kids are such adorable little monsters! :)

The night before the trip we (my fellow USAC students and I) went out and bought some toys and goodies for the kids.  I bought a big stack of notebooks and some crayons, and I'm really glad I did!  Kids are the same everywhere.  I was quickly surrounded by little artists who grabbed my arms to get my attention every time they drew something new.  I got some amazing drawings! 

Look out!  It's the elusive Four-legged-chicken-baby-demon!

There was one little boy who went to town drawing me pictures.  It was so awesome! 

I made him write his name on this one.  I still don't know what it is, but it looks pretty.

There was a little girl who didn't actually want to draw--oh no--she was having more fun being the crayon police.  All she wanted to do in this world was organize the crayons in order, put them back in their little box, and make sure that people asked her permission before selecting their next color. 

No Dad, we did not sit around making pamphlets or smoke pot.

This was all part of the group called CSA (Center for Social Action), which tries to bring a better standard of living to poorer areas in India, like the villages and slums.  They educate people, help them find ways to make money, attempt to eliminate things like child marriage, and generally empower them to help themselves.  We got to talk to some of the women in the village who were part of a self-help group.  The group serves to give the women more power and respect in the male-dominated society they live in.  It was inspiring to hear them talk about the many ways that their lives and attitudes have changed for the better since they started this program.

Three generations of empowered women.

We were only there for a few hours, which was the perfect amount of time to suit everyone's temperaments, so everyone had a good time.

We wound up the days by going out for coffee and Italian food at Pascucci's and eventually splitting off into smaller groups.  Some would go home, while others would find themselves sitting around a small computer screen watching the live action version of The Jungle Book--which is a delightful movie--with a small but fabulous, funny, and intelligent group of people.

 That's all for now, but I'll post something about my trip to Mysore soon.

Love your faces
-Liz

The first three days have been crazy!

I've got a lot of catching-up to do...

Flying over France!  Magnifique!

So after a good 20-24 hours of flying--it took 5 different planes to get here--I was exhausted and my brain was feeling more than a little addled.  I got in at 3:00am.  Getting into the country wasn't so bad.  Everyone spoke English, more or less, and my bags made it through the whole checking process intact.  The only real problem was that I had absolutely no way to contact anyone.  My phone, despite having been told that it would work once I got there, was completely useless.  And of course I couldn't access WiFi anywhere, because why would it be easy?  That's not fun!   After assessing that situation and taking out some money I decided that I would just go ahead and take a taxi to the University.  I knew what road it was on and what it was called, so I figured, what the Hell?  No point in waiting around, I might as well jump in head-first.

I went to the counter with all the taxi stands and asked around about getting a cab to Christ University.  Before I could get there, though, one of them saw where I was headed and told me to come with him.  He was very polite and soft-spoken, he showed me his business card and offered to carry my bags as he took me to the cab where the driver was waiting.  They drove me out a little bit, asked me where I was going, and showed me a little chart with fares for the different parts of town.  We figured out which one I needed and they wrote me out a receipt--so far so good.  It was at this point they asked me to pay them, and when I said that I didn't have enough money on hand they said it was fine, they'd take me to an ATM.  In my mind this meant that we'd find one when we got to my destination or we'd go back to the airport.  No.  They took me to a desolate, dark, dirty, side-alley hole in the wall ATM, the likes of which can only be seen in Doom.  As I watched a dead cat drawing flies in a corner I began thinking, oh shit, oh shit, I'm going to die or get robbed and ditched. 

I didn't take any pictures because I was a little too busy being overwhelmed, but this should give you an idea of what I'm talking about...

...except it wasn't that clean or well lit.

Or maybe like this...

When I got back in the cab I told them I wanted to go back to the airport.  I politely made up an excuse and offered to pay them for their trouble, but they insisted that it was all official and that they would take me to my destination safely.  Finally the driver told me that, as long as I could pay, we could use an ATM near the campus.  Relieved, I agreed and we started driving again.  In retrospect, I probably seemed pretty stupid, but between being fresh-off the 20 hour plane ride, a single white female, traveling alone, it being pitch black outside, not knowing where I was going or anything about where I was, and seeing my life flashing before my eyes in the ATM from Hell, I was a little on edge. 

At this point I started to pay more attention to my surroundings.  India is awesome--not like 'dude that's rad!' awesome, I mean awesome like a million hot dogs.  Everything is ten times bigger, more crowded, more pungent (or fragrant).  One minute you're smelling the foul odor of the piles of garbage littering the streets, the next you're overloaded by the scent of flowers and fruit.   I can't talk about it without sounding cheesy, but it was exhilarating; this is what traveling is all about! 

After getting lost for a while we finally got to the college at around 6:00am.  The campus was totally deserted.  Fortunately the sun had come up by that time, so I was feeling a little less nervous, but there were almost no people around.  So I wandered around for about an hour trying to find someone who spoke English and could tell me what time the college would open.  I finally found an old woman who told me that it opened at 9:00am, but people would be there around 8-8:30 who could help me.  I washed my hair in a bathroom and waited.  Eventually everything got sorted--I figured out where to go and found my fellow USAC peeps who were smarter than me and jumped on the group transport. 

That's all I can share right now.  I have to get up extra early tomorrow for a tour of Bangalore!  I'm sorry that this is taking so long to update, but from dawn 'til dusk we're out doing this and that and the internet connection has been horrible.  I've only been able to get on for a little bit at a time.  I'll try to get some more stuff cranked out tomorrow.  So far this only covers a small portion of the first day and I've been here for four days already.  Today (June 1st) was just a bunch of sitting around while I waited for my residency permit to go through, so nothing exciting there.

Love you nerds!

-Liz

Maps 2: Return of the Maps/Battle for Bombay

I've had some complaints about the clarity of my maps (Mom), so I'm going to go into some more detail.  The complaints were about the size and descriptiveness of said maps. You wanted the bigger picture, so here's the Earth!

See that little green one with the arrows?

Mom's something of an atlas-o-holic.  It's a weird addiction; we don't talk about it.  Anyway, maybe that was a tiny bit bigger than she wanted.  Let's get a little closer shall we?  Remember those two states of India I was talking about in the last post, i.e. Karnataka and Tamil Nadu?  I outlined them for everyone (including me) in big, bold lines, 'cause maps of India are an ADD kid's nightma...squirrel! 

Jungle red!

I will be doing all my traveling exclusively in these two states.  The first three weeks will be spent in Bangalore (also known as Bengaluru), the capital city of Karnataka.  I'll be taking classes there and trying to acclimate to the overwhelming culture shock...and also riding elephants! 

The first USAC study abroad summer session will be happening from May 29th-June 24th.  If you want more info on that click the link in the previous post, because I'm waaay too lazy to tell you all that stuff on this blog.  It's already written out on that website people!  Their site is considerably more coherent than my nonsensical ramblings and jibber-jabber.  But I digress...

We're gettin' to know each other now!

Okey dokey pig in a pokey!

Aaah!  Oh God...Sorry.  Pauline scares me.  Where was I?  Oh yeah!  So after Bangalore I'll be moving on to the second state outlined above: Tamil Nadu.  It's one of the oldest continually settled areas in India.  You can't throw a statue of Shiva in that place without hitting Hindu and Buddhist temples and ancient stuff for tourists (like me!) to ogle.  The history geek in me is pretty psyched.

Those large red dots indicate the three cities/towns that I definitely know I'm going to see.  If you can't see them, they are (from top to bottom): Chennai (Madras), Mamallapuram, and Pondicherry.  Everything else is up in the air.  The plan is to see as many temples, ruins, etc. as possible before the three remaining weeks are up.  There are lists of temple sites in this region here and here if you simply must know where I might go.

That's all for this post, but let me know if there's something you'd like me make clearer or Photoshop less lackadaisically.


-Liz

Random picture of the day:
Look it's the Indian Richard Dreyfuss!

Which one's which?  I don't know, it's uncanny...

வணக்கம்

That's Tamil; it means "hello"!  Sure, I could just say hello, but வணக்கம் is so much prettier.  (It's pronounced 'vaNakkam')

So, as most of you know, I'll be heading to India on the 27th of this month--i.e. Sunday--for six weeks.  Bangalore is where I'll start my adventuring, and then it'll be off to Tamil Nadu.  Here's a picture I made for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about:

Southern India and a little bit of Sri Lanka

The green area is part of the state of Karnataka, the capital of which is Bangalore (or Bengaluru).  The plan at the moment is to start in Bangalore, where I'll be enrolled for three weeks at Christ University. After that the plan gets a little vague.  

Ponducherry is missing and you should ignore Mumbai up there being all out of place, but other than that this map hits on all the cities/towns involved in the travel plan.   Basically I'll start in Bangalore, then go to Chennai, then Mamallapuram, etc., down the list until we run out of time and have to return to Bangalore for the return flight on July 14th.

That's my intro, so everybody knows something about what I'm doing.  If you want more info on the program abroad you can look on the USAC website.  I'll post some specifics later this week, and if I don't have time before I leave, I'll definitely do an update once I get settled (as settled as possible anyway) in my apartment.

Love your faces!
-Liz