december 11

i'm grateful to be building the site. finally, it means we're close to leaving.

december 13

building building building. played hooky yesterday. packing packing packing

december 14

why are loose ends so loose?

december 16

we lucked out and got bumped up to business class for the trip to delhi. very nice! the only way to fly. amsterdam for a day was good, nice to decompress from the first air flight. though our bodies are completely confused. i don't know at all when to sleep or eat... i guess, eat when you're hungry and sleep when you're tired, right?

december 17

yesterday was both invigorating and exhausting. so many beautiful and ugly things in such a close proximity. the buildings were amazing. the advancement of human scientific understanding -- the arches; the sorrow of the human heart -- the quwwat-ul-islam (made of plundered hindu temples so that the new ruler could truly show his strength --resistance is futile!) and humayun's tomb (a tribute to a beloved dead husband).

mr. singh's driving was amazing. i cannot begin to describe what it takes to drive here. poonam (our guide) delighted in telling us the rules of the road. first, yield for cows, then for dogs, then for big trucks and busses, then for the bicycle rickshaws, then for bicycles, then finally for pedestrians. i'll say just this, it's no surprise that i see so many people with one or another feet amputated -- i'm guessing their feet were run over... maybe an ignorance on my part. needless-to-say, we were amazed that we didn't hit anything animal, vegetable, or mineral.

a word about poonam -- she is an amazing lady. very knowledgable, very talkative. when she wasn't telling us about the "formal" sites we were seeing, she was telling us about indian society -- how the family structure works, about raising her sons (with intermittent cell calls by her son's girlfriend!), what all the people on the street were doing, why at particular markets we saw few women, etc., etc. she was also very inquisitive about us. dad was a smarty -- i guess he's travelled enough -- and had a small map of the united states with him. we showed poonam where we all lived and talked about the amount of distance and just how big the US is. she was clearly amazed by how far we lived apart, how rarely we see each other. though she's been a guide for many years, it seemed we shared something new with her. i feel we've made a friend.

after all the site seeing, we headed back to the hotel. we had decided to nap for a couple of hours, then go out to dinner. well, it turns out that our lunch had sufficiently filled us -- it was amazing (david, dad and jen tried paan too!), and that jet lag was going to have it's way with us. we met again briefly and then went back to bed. david and i have finally slept for more than 1-5 hours at a time. delicious.

the best thing is that everyone we've talked to that has been associated with the travel agent/tour company we worked with knew my grandmother or knew of her. that touches me. my grandmother was such a special lady, it's so nice to meet other people that she had impacted.

december 18

shopping shopping shopping. you don't want to haggle with my sister. she'll wear you down.

we also had lunch with the three partners of gatik ventures, mr. raj kapila, mr. navin pandey, and mr. brij parasher. they arranged all of our intra-india travel. if you look at the itinerary, you'll see the wonderful planning they did for us. we've been exceptionally well taken care of up to this point.

tomorrow we're on the train to varanasi. a 12-hour trip overnight.

check out some of the new video.

december 23

watching mya on mtv-india in a hotel bar. here in agra...

the train trip to varanasi was interesting. unfortunately i became sick on the train. luckily we were able to rearrange our schedule so that we could rest on our first day. dad reported that the guide said he'd pray for me that night.

we stayed in the hotel ganges view on the assi ghat. highly recommended. they serve all meals. i had my first encounter with porridge, which i liked. lunches were invariably a tomato soup with grilled cheeses -- these lunches became the butt of a joke, however, i liked them a great deal. dinners were traditional indian cuisine served family-style, very very tasty and different each night. there is a roof terrace and a very nice "lobby." no one wears shoes in the hotel, you leave them at the front door. the rooms were very nice and clean. however, they were having some sort of electrical issue in the building -- the faucets gave us shocks if you touched them while wet, we used a shower cap as a glove to manipulate the faucets. i believe it was more or less sorted out on the first day.

by our second day in varanasi i was feeling better. i think the prayers (and the tomato soup) helped quite a bit. our guide, rahi, picked us up at 615a to take a morning boat trip on the ganges and watch the sun rise. we each purchased a small floating offering. we lit the candles inside and launched them on the ganges after making a wish. legend says that your wish will be granted.

my grandmother dorothy had traveled to india many many times between her retirement and her passing. she loved just about everything she experienced in india. some of the last conscious reactions we had from her were about india, all of the nurses at her hospice said that she spoke endlessly of her travels in india. one of the primary reasons we came to india was to take grandmother's ashes to the ganges. we felt that this was what she wanted -- to be let free in the country she loved so much and for her family to experience india together for the first time.

rahi showed us many wonderful things. however, the most wonderful thing was his joyful acceptance of our ultimate purpose on the ganges. he asked to finish showing some of the ghats (steps to the ganges), then he would have the boat go to the middle of the ganges where we could release grandmother. he sang a prayer for us, then we released grandmother along with a few garlands made of roses, marigolds, and clover flowers. it was beautiful and we felt it was just what she wanted.

rahi is a very joyful person, full of spirit, mirth, and respect for the traditions around him. he was a wonderful guide telling us much about hinduism and buddhism.

we started out with the ganges boat ride, then walked through a labrynth of streets to see the vishwanatha (golden) temple and the jnana vapi mosque. then a short drive to the durga temple, formerly the "monkey temple." he then dropped us off at our hotel for some breakfast and to relax a bit. we were picked up again in the afternoon and rahi took us to see more of the city of varanasi and to see sarnath. rahi said that the city of varanasi is known for burning (cremation) and learning. there are several universities in varanasi -- rahi took us to Benares (an old name for varanasi) Hindu University to see the hindu temple there. a modern temple, but an interesting one none-the-less. there were many shrines of differing sizes to many hindu gods, including one of my favourites -- durga.

rahi also took us to a silk-weavers colony. the moment we began to enter the enclave all i could hear was children playing and the sound of looms. we were shown how the material is loomed and were shown the display room. we sat while two or three fellows showed us a variety of their handicrafts. the brilliant colors, intricate designs, and soft silk were tempting to say the least. i had the luck of being wrapped up in a sari. i know i keep saying amazing and beautiful, but i'm at a loss for words -- the sari was amazingly beautiful, a deep maroon/red with gold detailing. i would have loved to have it, but just where would i wear it? maybe next time. we did not get out without bringing something home. i would have loved to spend more time with these people talking about the patterning and especially their color work. such amazing color combinations taking me by surprise.

sarnath, outside of varanasi, is home to the stupa where buddah gave his first sermon. we stopped in at the archeological site where they've revealed the original temple and have preserved the one remaining stupa (the important one). we also stopped in at the museum which houses the actual lion capital which is the symbol of india (four lions facing in each of the cardinal directions). there are also a variety of relatively recent buddhist temples -- the sri lankan, japanese, chinese, tibetian, thai, and korean. (there may be others) we visited the sri lankan temple which was filled with an amazing fresco of buddah's life (painted by a japanese artist), outside of which is the grandson of the bodhi tree buddah attained enlightenment beneath. we also visited the japanese temple which was filled with the sound of taiko drumming. dad likens sarnath to a buddhist disneyland.

the traffic in varanasi was even more chaotic than we had experienced in delhi. unfortunately, we did not properly catch our driver's name. he negotiated the traffic smoothly. my favourite encounter is when he'd talk out his window to the driver next to us, apparently telling him to get out of our way. it seems that traffic here just sorts itself out. there are no traffic lights (that anyone pays attention to anyway), no stop signs, and no apparent rules of yeilding. well, i guess the cows do get preferential treatment, but other than that you only yeild to those vehicles bigger than you. each time we stopped, our driver would get out and open the door for me, always with a little smile and a bow. it became ritual between us.

we spent one day wandering through the street markets -- a truly chaotic experience i'm not too sure i'd like to repeat on a regular basis! overall, we loved varanasi and i'm sure i'll come back. maybe for a couple of weeks to study yoga, or just to sit on the roof terrace of our hotel and read.

we left varanasi on the night train to agra. our guide had us to the station three hours early -- much to our dismay. our 11p train was delayed two hours. so, we waited in the first class waiting room for 5 hours. i figured that we were taken to the train station so early so that we could get a good seat in the waiting room -- by the time the train had come we had to share the waiting room with many people as well as the rats. needless to say we were happy when the train arrived (1a) and we could finally rest.

the train rolled into agra 3 hours late. so much for the express! :) actually, we were happy to have had a couple of brief train experiences in india. we all wanted to get a taste of as much of india as we could comfortably. the train experience is an important one. my favourite part was the chai-wallas who wander the aisles chanting "chai? chai?"

agra's a strange place. seems like there's not a lot here beyond the taj and the fort. we met our guide amar in the lobby of our hotel (the amar!) at 2p in the afternoon. he took us to the taj right off. amar's a funny guy! i believe he told us that the guide profession has been in his family for some time -- he felt he had picked some things up from his father while he was in the womb... he knew all the "postcard" snapshot spots and gave us a great lecture about the mughal dynasties in india. we had heard the stories before, but it seems that each person tells it a little differently. for instance, amar told us briefly about humayun's fatal fall down some stairs, however poonam told us that humayun was suspected to have been enjoying some libations (wine and opium) which made him fall.

amar delighted in telling us much about the taj and showing us the variety of beautiful views of the place. ("look at it from here...") to be sure, the taj is an amazing place. the architectural planning is a feat i cannot begin to explain. beyond the architecture, the ornamentation is so perfect. amar explained to us about all of the inlay on the taj. the taj is made from one of the hardest marbles there is -- indian marble (it feels creamy beneath your feet) -- all of the inlay is of semiprecious stones. carnelian, coral, onyx, jade, and malachite are only a few of the materials. evidently shah jahan (the builder) purchased all of the marble, but the semiprecious stones were given to him by other rulers of the time. in the effort to restore parts of the taj, it has been found that they cannot replicate some of those materials, they just don't exist anymore. the taj took 22 years of day and night work. i'm unsure of how many people participated in the construction. imagine, working on a marble screen (about 3.5' x 5') for two years -- one mistake and the screen is thrown out.

well, i just can't describe the taj. you'll have to see it for yourself.

we spent quite a bit of time sitting and watching the parade of saris and shalwar kameez. jen and i were enraptured by the variety, the color combinations, and the beauty. it seems that the indians have been captivated by us, we find ourselves being photographed on the sly or being asked to squeeze into photographs with the "family." strange.

after sunset at the taj (amazing!) we were taken to a crafts village that actually houses some of the same family lines as those that worked on the taj. we got a brief introduction into what it takes to do marble inlay. of course we were also shown the showroom with many pieces for purchase. needless to say, most of these exquisitely crafted pieces were much out of our price range. maybe when i get that house i've been dreaming of, i can come back and purchase the beautifully inlaid table top with peacocks...

i must apologize for not updating the diary more often, it's been hectic and i've just gotten better from a little stomach problem...

i'd like to comment on the wild parakeets we keep seeing. we're so used to seeing them only in cages. at the taj i think there was a tree full of parakeets, you also see them flying in flocks. i believe i like the wild ones best, they're bigger, noisier, and free to roam...

december 25

on our second day in agra dad and jen went to the taj early in the morning. david wasn't feeling well so we stayed at the hotel. later we went to see the itmad-ud-daulah, called the baby-taj. it was a precursor to the taj mahal -- the first building to be built of white marble in moghul india. it was very beautiful. jen's thinking of moving in... we also went to see akbar's mausoleum in sikandra. akbar was the 3rd mughal emporer. the building itself is a weird composite building. akbar himself began the construction, his son jahangir finished it with significant modifications as each of them had different taste in architecture. the mausoleum was pretty neat, but neater were the grounds. you could imagine the splendor... there were also a troupe or two of monkeys running around as well as black buck wandering around the grounds. cute monkeys, but i guess dad had a run-in with one. dad said he was sitting down going through his backpack when one of the monkeys put his hands in dad's pack. dad zipped the pack up and the monkey got a little angry and hit dad. dad said it was like having a baby hit you -- of no consequence. though he did make sure to move on before the monkey decided to use it's teeth... :) i thought they were cute...

mr. singh's been with us since the train station in agra. he's a super driver and really fun. he's told us a little about being a sikh and has invited us to stay with him at his home in the punjab the next time we visit india. mr. singh is very protective of us. it's nice to have him since we have heard about a great number of rip-off scams. we trust him.

we to a nice shop where dad bought my favourite rug. it was a little expensive for my budget so i'll have to be happy with inheriting it. they showed us a variety of rugs -- wool and silk. i just happen to have a skill at picking out the most expensive...

today we drove to jaipur and stopped at fatehpur sikri. amar was there to guide us through fatehpur sikri which is more or less a ghost town. it was built to be akbar's capital, however when they started running out of water akbar moved back to agra. the palace complex was very interesting -- not only architecturally but because of the huge number of parakeets. akbar had been intent upon bringing harmony to the many religions of india. to show this, he combined many of the architectural practices from each of the religions -- i guess he even started his own religion. i wish we had had more time to wander around it alone. amar's a pretty speedy guy and we felt a little meek around him. we have learned to be more vocal about exactly what we want.

we will be in jaipur for the next few days. tomorrow's a day-long tour and i hear we get to ride an elephant...

i've been enjoying seeing more camels on the road. some have painted designs on them, some have their hair trimmed in interesting designs, some are just plain. my favourites are the ones with huge bundles of some sort of reed on them. from the back the camel looks as though it has some sort of wild hairdo bouncing with it's steps...

other interesting things on the road include mud huts with designs worked into them, covered jeeps with _way_ too many people in/on them, and fields of yellow flowers (maybe mustard?). i've seen more neon green saris here than i can count -- do rajasthani women prefer neon green?

december 27

jaipur's a very busy city with lots of markets, tourists, and monuments. we had a chance to see the observatory, the royal palace, amber fort, and the tiger fort. our favourites were the amber and tiger forts. the observatory is amazing as well -- many many instruments for charting the movement of our planet through the heavens. i splurged and purchased a garnet ring. jen checked her grades and found out she's a superior student. i finally found my rug. all-in-all a good stay. we very much like our hotel -- the arya niwas. we also cannot say enough about our driver, mr. singh -- he's a very sweet man.

right now we're in what they call the "golden triangle" of tourism in india -- delhi, agra, and jaipur. most people fly into delhi and tour these three towns. i think the hardest part of this for us is that we aren't "typical" tourists. we very much want to see what life in india is like, we want to eat spicy indian food that is not geared for the western palate. the drive between agra and jaipur allowed us to see a bit more of what village life in india is like (at least along the truck routes i guess). we've learned a little about city-dwellers from mr. singh and will learn more from our guide here -- pradeep. pradeep has invited us to his home for dinner tonight. i'm looking forward to it. we've purchased some small gifts and are getting dressed up for the occasion.

tomorrow we leave jaipur and head to delhi en route to chennai. the northern part of india has treated us quite well and we're looking forward to seeing the south. sadly though, this means that we're about half-way through our trip...

december 30

the drive into delhi was great. i still marvel at all of the camel carts and various modes of transportation... we caught a plane to chennai and arrived late. we were picked up at the airport and brought to the hotel. we're not too pleased with the new woodlands hotel in chennai. however, david and i were able to throw a big enough fit to change rooms which makes it tolerable.

chennai is a very tropical town, lots of lush green growth. it seems like a very modern city, we saw tons of big billboards and the traffic seems more orderly. we met sunithi narayan in the morning after our arrival. she was the first woman guide in all of india, she started guiding in the mid-fifties. this lady seemingly knows it all. she had lead most of the india tours that my grandmother had taken so it was very exciting to meet her. my grandmother admired her greatly and it was very good to get to talk to her. she lead us on a day tour of chennai. our favourite spots were one of the oldest temples in the city and a botanical garden that used to be a private residence. there are a lot of remnants of the british rule here so we got to see a scottish church, a catholic church which housed st. thomas' crypt (and a finger bone), and a british church. we also had a delicious lunch -- the food just seemed to come and come and come.

it's very hot and humid, evidently a cyclone went through to the south of chennai shortly before we arrived. each morning we've been here we've awoken to rain... but it's nice! it's truly tropical! i love seeing such an array of plants -- especially the ones we only see as houseplants in the states. our hotel has coconut palms with coconuts in them!

overall our time in chennai has been good. tomorrow we head for madurai. i think we're all excited about checking OUT of the hotel :) and taking our tour of southern india's landscape and towns. i'm looking forward to mamallampuram and the beaches...it will be nice to feel the ocean again.

i've had time to do a lot of reading -- i've now read all four harry potter books as well as a particularly bad pulp novel. today i'll start on some indian literature and umberto eco's foucault's pendulum which i've read before, though years ago. i purchased the books at higgenbotham's which is a rather old bookstore in chennai. the state of tamil nadu (of which chennai is capital) is one of the most literate states in india, surpassed only by kerala. actually we've seen lots and lots of books here -- always at good prices. from street vendors we paid 150 rupees ($3) for the fourth harry potter book in paperback. (ok, so it was missing 20 pages -- we could afford to buy another just for those 20 pages)

it's been difficult to find someplace that will even let us hook up our laptop, let alone get the connection right. i'm sitting in dishnetDSL while we wait for them to get us the right numbers for FTPing. maybe this won't be updated until amsterdam...

december 31

today we're driving to madurai -- about a 10 hour drive. dav and i were up late and rushed to pack up. we left the hotel a little late -- about 730 -- and hit the road. the countryside is even more spectacular than chennai. everything is verdant and lush. the humidity is a little oppressive, but manageable. there are a multitude of coconut palms, banana trees, rice paddies, cane sugar fields, and water buffalo. today, being new year's day, is a busy one in the contryside. i haven't seen a lot of farming going on, but i have seen hundreds of devotees dressed in vibrant, saturated red heading to the temples. one procession, made up of about 200 people, was lead with shiva's trident. overall, it seems that the people try to out do their vibrant surroundings and the food tries to stand out from the heat of the day.

when we were in chennai at the temple of kapaleeswarar we saw devotees preparing for their own pilgrimages -- these devotees dressed only in black and are supposed to make the pilgrimage to a temple in kerala barechested. part of the preparations included putting together their food stores for the trip. coconuts filled with ghee (clarified butter) sealed and marked with auspicious dots of red and yellow powder. the older men, who have made the pilgrimage many times initiate the younger men. women of child-bearing years are not allowed to participate so they gather around and watch, the children play drums, sing and watch the ceremony. the food-stores are then packaged in pouches that are, i believe, blessed or sanctified. i can only guess that the devotees we seen in red have gone through the same preparations, however there are women among the ranks.

men dress either in the dhoti (about 2-3metres of fabric wrapped around the waist and bucked up between the legs), western clothes, or kurtas (a long shirt -- mid-thigh to mid-calf -- over baggy draw-string pants). david has purchased a few kurtas and reports them to be very comfortable, even in the heat.

women seem to be dressed either in punjabi suits (also called salwar kamise) which have spread from the northern muslim communities, or saris. the punjabi suits are long shirts, much like the kurta, with baggy drawstring pants -- very comfortable! saris are made of a petticoat, around 6metres of fabric (silk or cotton) and a small top that i can't remember the name of. though women typically wear only these two types of dress, the variety of color, fabric, weave, pattern, and embroidery (with or without mirrors) is endlessly fascinating. i have purchased a few punjabi suits and plan to purchase more. they're incredibly comfortable and pretty practical as far as i'm concerned. one of our guides joked that when i got home no one would recognize me -- i said "good!"

i've been particularly admiring the way the women ride side-saddle behind their men on the variety of motorcyles and scooters we see, their duburtas (scarves) or saris flicking in the wind. the women in the south wear a lot of flowers in their hair, either rosebuds, or strings of various other flowers. i've seen honeysuckle and jasmine, but most others i cannot identify.

all along we have seen an incredibly variety of bindis and glass bangles as well. it's fun to see the variety and they're very inexpensive. bangles are about 1 rupee each and the bindis are about 5 rupees per pack, the dollar is changing at 1:46 so you can see how delighted we are! i'm bummed because i've already broken one of my bangles... oh well, there's more where that came from...

we've been passing quite a few oxen carts -- the oxen grow long curved horns, some of which have been decorated with pigment or are tipped with what looks like gold (or likely brass) ends. even though made to work hard, i guess they are thanked through the ornamentation.

overall we're liking the south, the people seem more outgoing and friendly, the air is cleaner because of all the rain (or at least it's clearer), and the green is a welcome change. i think our experience in the north was very different because we were in the "godlen triangle" of tourism, in the south there are many pilgrims and parts of the civilization are the oldest in south asia.

the indians have a sweet-tooth to rival my own. yummy gulab jamun at the restaurant hotel last night -- the sugar sauce was strongly infused with roses...

i'm looking forward to madurai, it is supposed to be one of the most ancient cities in south asia. they traded with the romans, the chinese, and the greeks. it was quoted of the roman geographer strabo in 320 B.C. that the city's silk, pearls, and spices were draining the imperial coffers of rome. mmmm, silk. maybe i will end up with a sari.

january 1

we saw the temple in madurai today. jen got a chance to throw butter at shiva -- we've heard a couple of stories about this. 1) shiva is dancing and grows hot, devotees throw butter at him to cool him down. 2) shiva gets really hot when he's mad so devotees throw butter at him to cool him down if he's mad at them for a transgression, or as a preemptive gesture in case they do something inappropriate. anyhow, it's pretty cool and jen hit him!

we're going back tonight to watch a procession. this temple is dedicated mostly to one of the incarnations of parvati (shiva's wife), though shiva has his place in the temple. each night at a scheduled time the temple priests take shiva from his place and bring him to parvati. i believe they even rock the two and sing lullabyes (though this could be only done during a particular festival). anyway, it's a big deal and a lot of people go to see it. there's a story that although shiva is a habitual philaderer, his marriage to this particular form of shiva is monogamous because she pleases him so much in the bed chamber. in fact, there's a particular festival where another godess is brought into the temple where she gains energy. evidently shiva spurns her attentions for parvati... now there's dedication.

last night we attended a party thrown by the hotel for the new year. although the food was not good, we got a kick out of watching the dancefloor and watching the woman emcee run the crowd through paces. there were several contests and games where people did not follow the rules. it seemed as though every 10 minutes the emcee interrupted the music to lead the crowd through some game. we DID win the lucky hat number draw -- we received a 1000 rupee gift certificate for a the shri krishna hi-styyle family store. david wanted to see if he could buy a little brother, instead i got a nice salwar... :)

our guide for the morning and evening is raj (he looks kinda like sammy davis junior). evidently he studied with sunithi which is pretty cool. we like him very much. he explained a lot to us about the temple and about the tamil people. we're going to have dinner with him tonight then go see the procession. we're looking forward to learning more about south india and its people.

postscript: the procession was cool. the priests are supposed to make five stops along the way to parvati's chamber, however when they're in a hurry and it's late and they want to go home they basically run along with the diety in it's palanquin. the music was great -- a drum, a double reed, and some cymbols. two priests fan the palanquin as they race through the temple. once they arrive at parvati's chamber some of the priests go in and give her a bath and a fresh sari, then they bring in shiva. overall a strange but cool thing. this goes on every day -- also, at 5am they take shiva back to his chamber...

raj was cool, but we had an incident we were more than a bit uncomfortable with. earlier in the day raj had taken us to one of the handicrafts stores to view the temple complex from their rooftop -- i guess a lot of the stores do that for visitors. anyway, after we took copious amounts of pictures we were lured into looking at more rugs and other stuff. we looked through the rugs and dad and david each found a rug they''d be interested in. the bargaining commenced and after some back and forth we decided we would not purchase the rugs -- they could not meet our price. we went through two other levels of the store, browsing, but the salesmen would not let up. they brought the rugs to each place we were saying that they could make a better price, etc., etc. eventually we were about to leave and dad gave in and purchased his rug, david and i decided not to purchase the other rug. off we went. well, when we went back to the temple that night, saw the procession and headed back to the car, the car was mysteriously parked in front of the handicrafts store and the same salesman was out in front trying to pursuade us to purchase the rug. eventually we did settle on a price very close to what we would pay for the rug so said ok, we'd take it -- partially just to get them off our back, raj seemed reticent to let us go without coming to an agreement with the salesman. the salesman rode with us back to our hotel so that david could pay with a credit card. we thought the bargaining was over. i left david to take care of the final work and dad and jen went up to their rooms. well, this salesman carefully gave david a rather unfavourable exchange rate capitalizing on the fact that dad was not there to recount the exchange rate he received and that we weren't all standing around staring at him. though the rate was only 1.5 rupees different than dad's, and though the total amount of money the salesman skimmed was only a few dollars -- the problem was that the bargaining had come to a difference of ten dollars and the salesman had given into us thus he decided he'd get his money anyway by doing the bad exchange rate. it left a very bad taste in our mouth for handicrafts stores, for kashmiri salesmen, and for whatever forces put our car in front of that particular handicrafts store on that particular night. we met good people and we met bad. we were told later that that particular shop was black-listed...

january 3

we've been travelling through the southern temple towns for a couple of days now. yesterday we saw the temple in trichy -- a huge complex, though most of the towers were being cleaned and repainted. this meant that most of the towers were covered in scaffolding with woven palm screens there were a couple of completed towers though. this temple is a vishnu temple so we primarily saw statues of vishnu, though ganesh always seems to play a pretty big role as well as hanuman. in the southern temples there's always a temple elephant. you give a coin to the elephant and it blesses you with it's trunk. kinda neat, though our minister of health and hygeine (jennifer) does not approve of elephant slobber. oh well. i got a few good pictures with dad's digital camera.

today we're heading for tangore which has a big temple with the largest lingham in india -- something like seven metres tall. the lingam is the symbol of shiva -- it's basically a big ole phallus. the lingam's base is a soft of recepticle which is supposed to resemble the womb. generally the lingam will have watter continuously flowing over it. water is a symbol for life. our guide in madurai joked that we should be prepared for the size of the lingam as it gives most women a fight... :)

our guides in madurai and trichy/tangore have both been catholics. i think it's kinda weird to be touring hindu temples with catholics. anyway, raj in madurai was definitely more informative than our guide in trichy/tangore (arul), though arul lets us kinda do our own thing after giving some brief information. anyway, i guess overall we're happy.

feeling a little sad that our time in india is almost over, though i am kinda looking forward to getting back to some of our western comforts. it's definitely been a good experience -- we've sampled a bit of the culture in many places, now the decision will be about where we'll want to explore more. the main problem is getting them vacation time to come here and have the experience...

top 5 things i LIKE about india:

• easy smiles and twinkling eyes
• food!
• infinite variety of colour, pattern, and ornamentation
• friendly inquisitiveness and easy conversation
• birds, goats, piglets, puppies, and meditating cows

top 5 things i DISLIKE about india:

• pollution
• public urination and defecation
• persistent beggars (including kashmiri sales men in madurai)
• incessant tipping - sometimes you don't mind, sometimes it's so expected that they won't leave you alone even if they did nothing for you
• traffic

postscript: the phallus was tall, but the most shocking part about it was that it was broad (or chubby). on the guide situation -- we'd have been much more happy with sunithi as our guide. she is so full of stories and could answer nearly every question we had. she also has a great appreciation for the art, religion, and culture of india which was, to say the least, infectious.

we just read a story about a temple elephant who mistakenly ate a plastic bag which a person seeking a blessing was carrying. unfortunately the bag had the family's house key in it and they had to wait for the key to make an appearance on the other end. they waited a day, but it actually took 8 days to show up in the dung heap. weird.

january 5

mamallampuram is an ancient sea port. the romans, amongst others, dropped anchor here and moved inland to trade in madurai (about 6 hrs by car). it was also the location of carving schools way back in the 7th century. we toured a few sites which were models of temples carved out of megaliths as well as the largest bas relief in the world which depicted people going to the ganges. there were also some temples carved into caves in huge megaliths. very impressive. we also went to visit a temple which is practically on the beach -- a huge thing carved in the 7th century. my favourite, the godess durga, had a great statue there. dad was scrambling to take as many pictures as he could in the warm light of pre-sunset.

our hotel was not so great -- the golden sun. we had a "deluxe" room, which meant that we had a television and a large stable of cockroaches. we named them after old detested bosses. we left the bathroom light on all night to keep the roaches in their hidey-holes.... the food at the hotel was not too bad, the show stopper however was the beach. we could walk about 100 feet to the beach and watch the bay of bengal crash into the sand. we had a 1/2 moon which shown very brightly. we watched the stars come out. so, all-in-all i guess it wasn't too bad because we stayed only one night and spent very little time in the room. i would like to go back and spend time on the beach -- in a different hotel.

in our hotel in trichy we had two or three chameleons which we named 'lil george (after a chameleon jen had in her room at the new woodlands hotel in chennai), 'lil gertie, and since we weren't sure that we had three we just called it gertie 2. chameleons are much better than cockroaches.

today we made our way from mamallampuram to chennai stopping at a couple of temples on the way. the temples were from the 7th century and largely carved into sandstone. very lovely, very quiet, few tourists -- just the way we like it. kailasanatha (mount kailash lord) was dedicated to shiva and had a few patches of ORIGINAL frescoes existant -- they were amazing and reminded me much of chinese art. the other temple, viakunta perumal (paradise lord), included carvings in a long open corridor which went around the sanctum sanctorum. the carvings told the story of the dynasty which built the temple -- starting with how they descended from vishnu himself, of course the temple was dedicated to vishnu.

we visited a silk weavery in kanchipuram. we watched a couple of saris being made. evidently in the more ornate saris it takes a day to do 6cm. in a less ornate sari they may get 20cm a day. we looked at some beautiful things and i almost bought a sari -- but what would i do with a sari? it's crazy that saris are about 6m of cloth and they provide about a metre for a shirt -- for this they charge about $175 US, remember how many cm they do a day...

i did purchase a rather beautifully woven wool scarf though. you must be prepared when you walk into a shop in india -- immediately there are two or three sales people ready to pull everything off of the shelves to show you. for me it is quite daunting -- i don't like to be followed around, and i like to look before i start asking questions. i was quite disappointed to see that jen had purchased some beautiful silk voile scarves which i totally missed while running away from sales people. i know that they only want to help, that they desperately want to show me the right things, it's just that i'm not used to it. well, i guess i'll just have to go back to kanchipuram some day.

our second stay at the new woodlands has gone much better. this time we received newly renovated rooms. if we had received this level of room in the first place we would not have complained... we mentioned it to gatik ventures after we left the hotel the first time, upon our second visit we received much better rooms -- a testimonial!

tomorrow our group is splitting up. we will leave dad here and he will fly to bangkok tomorrow night. jen, david, and i will fly to delhi tomorrow morning (they're picking us up at 530am --- eeeek!). jen and i hope to get mendhi (henna drawings on our hands and feet) and we hope to visit the spice market. i'd also like to visit connaught place to look for some more warm clothes for amsterdam...

david and i will have less than 24 hours in delhi, jen will stay on one more day then fly home. it's sad. our travels have been so good, so enriching, and it's been nice to spend time with the family unit...

january 11

we've been busy here in amsterdam. we've seen the historical museum and the van gogh museum, today we go to the rijksmuseum and plan to go to rembrandt's house tomorrow. we've spent a lot of time adjusting to time zone shifts, though this one was relatively small we've been worn down by it.

our last few days in india were very busy. the last day in chennai (5th) was spent largely driving back from mamallampuram and visiting kanchipuram. we had an early morning flight (6th) to delhi, then ran around delhi all day long. suddenly david and i were again at the airport early in the morning on the 7th. we realized that somehow our tickets to and from delhi were business class though we had no idea. it's not even listed on our reservations... oh well, just accept it, yes? we're hoping to upgrade back to san francisco since it's a rather long flight.

our hotel in amsterdam -- the nova -- has been great. we stayed one night on our way to india. they were kind enough to hold onto one piece of baggage containing some winter clothes while we were touring india. i thought that was a nice touch. highly recommended.

i hope you get a chance to read through the diary and look through the video. we have a lot of tape to sort through, there should be more video coming as time goes by.