World.
In the whole wide world.
Yeah.
Hello everyone,
Let's take a small step back. et me recap as fast as I can my travels in the neighboring state of Karnataka (NW of Madurai). It's probably going to be split into two posts (cause I need to do a ton of work desperately today-- seriously SITA? Why would you bog me down with work when I'm trying to love to India... figuratively...). I think Mysore and the first half of Hampi will be today. Friday I'll write the other half.
We left Madurai on an overnight train headed for Mysore three Saturdays ago (it really has been a long time since I've updated). The overnight train experience was quite that: an experience. We were seated in an AC three tier car that had no compartments, meaning we had to lock our bags and hope they didn't get stolen in the middle of the night. This was my first three tier train trip that I have ever taken (mom can correct that insignificant fact if she so chooses). Three tier essentially means that there are three beds on each side of a compartment (one is the seat you sit on, one you have to chain into place-- don't worry, the chains are quite sturdy... I think Shaq might be pushing it-- and the last one is kind of like the top of a bunk bed without a bunk-- chained to the ceiling). So that would mean there were six people in each compartment. When we finally set up the beds and got down to sleeping, I found it surprisingly cozy, and fell asleep within seconds of hitting the "mattress". I have snippets of being on two tier trains when I hardly slept at all traveling from Varanasi to Delhi to Jaipur (all three of which are in the north) engrained in my memory, so the fact that I fell asleep as soon as I hit the bed (and laid down the sheets that had housed about a billion people before me... yeah, it was not a very sanitary exp. The first thing I did when I got to Mysore was take a 20 minute shower) was quite surprising. I was just about to chomp on a massive ice cream sundae that my mom had bought for me from a horse vendor (don't ask me, it was a dream) when at 2:00 am, my dreamy euphoria came to a screeching halt. A man, cursed be his soul, decided to answer his cell phone and SCREAM into it. I am not exaggerating. the man screamed into that technological communicative device as if he expected people on the moon to hear him before the person on the receiver end... I almost got up and gave him a swift kick in the nuts with my left foot-- the foot that is considered the most unholy of all limb parts in Tamil... fortunately the PA got to him before I did and he shut up. *Sigh* my bad luck on overnight trains continued.
After a very very long bumpy ride, we reached Mysore. We all stumbled into jeeps the size of safari rangers and were lugged to the hotel at which we would stay for the next three days. After a long shower, me and the three other guys on the group started to explore the area. As soon as we walked out of the hotel door we were instantly bombarded by street vendors and auto rickshaw drivers, or as I like to call it, the Indian Papa Razzi. While we waded through the crowd, a man by the name of Joseph (or so he convinced me) started to talk to us. He told us that he worked in a coffee shop just up the road, and somehow convinced us that there was a "sunday only market" near his shop. We figured why not-- let's go see a market. We set off towards the market. As we walked, I began to notice many many differences from Madurai. For one, people actually used the sidewalks (yeah Sakshi, I'm shocked too). Second, the streets were extremely clean, even though I did manage to experience a cow repaving the road with natural excrement (which was then herded off by angry policemen). There were no trash piles or dust ranges anywhere. Third, there were POLICEMEN directing traffic (at stoplights... see stoplights here are more like guidelines... really, so people need an authoritative figure to keep them in check). I could go on and on with the differences. Suffice it to say that Mysore is much more "developed" than Madurai.
Anyway, I began to talk with Joseph; what a character. He had a black pinstriped nike hat with a steve tatko-like collared shirt, bellbottom pants, and a very Jay-Z like swagger. I began to ask him about his life-- he was 23 years old, just out of a local indian college. Throughout our convo about random things such as Obama, English TV and Indian auto rickshaws, he would continually ask me if I would like some hash or marijuana, never failing to add to his offer the following saying: "In Mysore we drink till we die, smoke till we fly... no woman no cry" (which STILL makes no sense to me). I declined him about 19 times before he decided I was a prude. Possessing drugs is illegal in India like in the US, and I would also get kicked off my program for even possessing them... so no dice (Joseph swore that it was legal in Mysore... then again, Joseph swore a lot of things). That on top of the fact that I actually don't really have any need for it. After an awkward 20 minutes to the market, he brought us inside. It was so colorful here; I was in love (not that I hadn't been this whole time here). "this isn't even the big market downtown" Joseph said. As we walked between onion baskets and tea stalls serving coffee in tall beer-like glasses, Joseph ushered us into a man's house. Joseph then bid us adieu, and a man came in and gave us a full run down of the perfume situation in Mysore. and I mean run down: the man had papers explaining each of his magical sensory potions, most of which smelled incredible. We also got to see a woman actually roll incense onto an incense stick that would eventually be sold on the street 3 hours later (side note: there was an incense called "Musk". The description, verbatim: meant to bring the inner aphrodisiac in you. Known to attract females and provide many, ahem, benefits...). After his presentation, he insisted that we buy some. I felt bad not doing it, since we would have just wasted 20 minutes of his life if we hadn't bought anything. I bought one called "lotus" which kind of smelled like Curve cologne back at home (it is supposed to "calm the senses" and "relieve stress" which are always good things). After exiting, we headed back to the hotel area to an Andhara restaurant. Hands downt he best sambar, rasam, and veg meal I've ever had. If you ever manage to make it to Mysore (which is definitely worth a two day stay), go to Hotel RRR (hotel can be used to describe a restaurant here in addition to a hotel). Be advised, those with very low spice tolerances (cough, Emma, cough) must temper the flavor explosion with a bit of curd (which is also provided).
That night, we went to the Mysore Palace. Incredible architecture-- there was a hall that would provide pretty hefty competition to the ball room in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. I'll let pictures tell this architectural story-- aka, click the link above. All I'll say is that the compound was ENORMOUS (like 10 acres of stone, marble, and murals). Beautiful place.
That night, I had my first legal drink in India. A Kingfisher 650 ml light brown beer. Not great, but it rekindled memories of the days of toasting miller high life with Kevin after being plunked on. Sentimental value is all that matters when it comes to booze anyway, I feel.
The next day we visited the "second tallest monolithic (aka, carved out of a single rock) statue in the world" located about an hour and a half away from Mysore. It was a jain man. He stood at 17.5 meters tall, blaringly stark naked (schlong included). In a way, it was beautiful yet also disturbing. He was situated on a large hill, only accessible by a 600 step staircase carved into the hill (hills here are mostly giant stones that randomly jut out from the relatively flat horizon). The site was one of the more holy places for those practicing the Jain religion, housing two temples, one of which was this massive naked man's dwelling place. As we walked up the stone mountain, I saw a number of carvings in Karnatak (the language in Karnatak) that had been left there by Jains who had visited the sites in the past. I don't know the exact date it was erected (poor word choice I know), but a guy at the bottom told me in broken english "it's, you know, abuh abuh (the South Indian "um") ooooollllddd." The view was to die for. Again I should probably let pictures do the talking here. I do have a story. When we got to the top, me and Mark climbed a hidden ladder (made of bamboo, so you knew it was illegal) to a landing that showed the backside of the huge statue (the backside was huge, in tail-- see pics when I get them up). Behind the statue was open landscape for miles and miles on end. Pics will elucidate this part of the story. Eventually police guys caught on and started to yell at us to get down. You only live once!
We climbed down the hill, ate lunch, went back to mysore, got more papa razzi attention, and then decided to climb the huge hill just outside Mysore This hill, housed 1000 steps. I got a work out, my limbs were sore, but I did it. At the top, the view was very disappointing: haze from the city made it impossible to see more than a few miles. We did experience social injustice. A young monkey had gotten a hold of a batch of bananas, and was about to eat them when a huge mammoth of a monkey attacked the young one and ate all the bananas IN FRONT OF THE LITTLE GUY. We all stood there cursing the fat monkey for being a horrible monkey being. It was a good bonding experience.
We were free for most of the next day. Me and a couple of people went to the Mysore market. It was huge, colorful, and by god I would argue that you could get any piece of produce you could ever want there (local crops, that is). Much more colorful than the "sunday only market", this market spanned about a km. It was huge. We bought some nuts and fruit for the imminent night train ride (which went well, only problem was that I woke up at 3 and couldn't fall back asleep... sigh...)
That night we packed everything up and set off for Hospet, a small village outside of Hampi (there are no guest houses in Hampi that would house 20 people for a night, so we had to settle for Hospet). After checking into the hotel, we set off for Hampi. Words cannot describe that first trip. Inside of safari-like jeeps (again), we began to see randomly placed hills upon hills of rock jutting over intensely green landscapes (most of which were rice paddie fields/locally run banana farms). Instantly we were surrounded by rock, it looked like the Israeli desert mixed with the view from just outside the Colby library (lovejoy side). Green and brown and orange shot out at you as the sun hit everything in view. It was an attack on the vision, the best one I've ever had. I don't have many pics of the drive there, but I do have a lot of the ruins and the landscape of Hampi (link above). The good news: those are only HALF the pics I have of Hampi.
The first day we explored the ruins. Truly beautiful architecture. The ruins were of the late Vijayanagar empire that ruled until the 16-17th century. (pics will make this clearer). The most cool piece of architecture, because I'm a huge music dork, was of the temple in the middle of one of the compounds in olden Hampi. The temple had these pillars upon pillars, about 5 feet and length, and were on every single structure within the temple. What was so special about these pillars? Well if you had a mallet (or a fist), whenever you hit the pillars, they would produce a different musical note. Yup. *cue Kevin's gaping mouth and "I have to go there"*. As if the landscape didn't give me enough evidence, I was truly in a heaven on earth.
That's all for now. I'll save my epic day in Hampi for my next post. I have to go eat lunch (funny how that always seems to work out... it's like the blogging gods' curse or something). Love and miss you all, keep being beautiful people, and tell me about your whereabouts!
Pakkalam,
Hasan
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