Exploring Chennai: Mahabalipuram - Tamil Nandu (India)

 

It's been a month since I have come back from India and I am still not done telling the crazy stories. Every time I see a friend I haven't seen for a while, I have lots of fun anecdotes. It is not that I got to see or so a lot when I was over there, but I did see a lot of things that we do not have over here. I wouldn't say it was a culture shock, more a culture amazement. Not always in a positive way, but surely in a memorable way. Somehow, it's usually the daily things that I end up telling people about; like the traffic on our way to the office or the high amount of staff members we had to pass every time we entered the hotel (around 24 from entering the premises until entering the room).

I do realize that I might not be giving my days of sight seeing the attention they deserve. We did see a lot of nice things in those days. I've been very busy the past weeks, but now I finally had the time to upload some photos of my visit to Mahabalipuram.

 

 

On Sunday, we had two cars with driver to take us and two guys from the company around to some touristic places in the region. First we visited Mahabalipuram, a group of monuments which has been classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We were lucky enough to have a guide for our group, so we got to learn a lot about the temples.

 

 

Soon it turned out that this spot is not only a place for foreign tourists, but that it is also visited by many Indians. For them, our group was a walking touristic attraction. Many wanted to take photo's with us.

 

 When visiting the second temple, we noticed that there were three goats on top of the temple, casually taking a walk on it. They must have been mountain goats, because they did not at all seem uncomfortable with climbing on the carved stone at about ten meters high.

 

This big rock is just fascinating. It stands solid on a steep slope, with only a small surface touching the ground. The guide told us that many years ago, the British have tried to pull it down and that even elephants were not strong enough to get the rock moving. True or not, it's a great photo opportunity.

 

 

Oh yes, cows are just standing around anywhere here.

 

 

 

Later we moved on to the shore temple, where there is a separate entrance price for Indians and foreigners (about 10 times more).  In 2004, there has been a tsunami on this very coast. The guide told us that there used to be two more temples before that, but they were wrecked by the water. Some pieces of stone and sculpture were found back on the shore and have now been added to the remaining temple.

 

 

The temple is surrounded by dozens of life-size stone cows and many carvings and statues of the god Shiva. Because you had to pay to enter, the street sellers could not sell their souvenirs on the premises of the temple. But creative as they are, they did find a way to reach the visitors anyway.  They would stall out their products in between the bars of the fence surrounding the premises. That's what I call innovation.

 

 

Later we went back to the cars and had to drive a while to go to a place where they had recreated an old Southern Indian village. It was full of cute little buildings, which had small museums about the history of India inside.

 

 

 

 Unfortunately, we did not have a whole lot of time to walk around since we had a late lunch scheduled. At the beach! On our way to the restaurant, we noticed that the road along the coast was full of beach and water parks that looked like carnivals. Many were overly decorated with bright puppets, clowns and cartoon-like statues. Several of them could easily serve as the set for a horror movie. The restaurant turned out to be in one of those big, bright parks. Luckily, one of the nicer looking ones.

 

 

That day was international woman's day, so me and my female college were welcomed with a rose. During the meal we each received another rose from an Indian Charlie Chaplin impersonator (hilarious!). The meal was accompanied by live music. But not the kind of music you expect to hear when you are on a beach in India. No, we were treated on songs like "Stand By Me" and "Waterloo".  Wonderful.

 

After the meal we went for a small walk on the beach. This sign was very funny to me. The real reason swimming is not allowed, is because of the strong current. According to the sign, the reason you are not allowed to swim are the jellyfish. Of course, jellyfish can be dangerous. However, neither the guys from the company who went with us, nor anyone from the table next to us had ever seen a single jellyfish there. Another sign in India which did not make a whole lot of sense.

 

That was the end of a long and warm day. Time to get back to the reality of working life and start the laptop to prepare next day's training session. But this time charged with vitamin D and good food.