Hi Everybody, well we finally let go of our security-grip on Thailand. We landed in Chennai (Madras) and immediately took a taxi out of the city to the small temple town of Mahabalipuram.
Apparently we are not the first Americans to visit (and neither was Andrew Harvey).
This town is full of giant granite boulders carved into temples and friezes, as well as hundreds of sculptors continuing the 1,400-year-old tradition. Here is an as-yet empty canvas, ready to squash Kate…
We visited the famous Shore Temple. Try to visualize it being pounded by waves, as it was for hundreds of years during high tides; today it is protected from further erosion by a rock jetty.
Nearby stands an unprotected and incomplete carving. We saw a number of rocks like this, apparently abandoned mid-creation. For scale, the opening in the rock is a full-size doorway.
In the center of town, numerous large rock outcroppings have been carved into elaborate friezes depicting scenes from Hindu mythology. These life-size elephants are only a small portion of one panorama.
Even after 1,400 years, the creative mastery of detail brings mythical beings to life.
After our fill of old rocks, we shared a car to Pondicherry with a young woman completing her master’s in computer science (and her dad). She peppered us with wonderfully personal questions (just like the guidebooks said people would!). She was sweet and we learned that even among forward-thinking families with engineer daughters, traditional arranged marriage is alive and well. (“When did you meet your husband?” “Oh, after the wedding, of course.”)
Remember Hanoi? Well, all our dashed hopes of strolling down charming tree-lined French-influenced streets — nowhere to be found in Hanoi — are fulfilled right here in French colonial Pondicherry.
Another two blocks and we stumbled back into India at its most magical.
This gracious temple elephant blessed us — and all other passersby — with a gentle stroke of her trunk to the tops of our heads.
Pondicherry is home to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, which runs a number of guesthouses throughout town mostly for ashram visitors. At one end of Pondicherry’s long, wide beachfront promenade is one of these, the Park Guesthouse. This is where we’re staying, for 150 rupees (~$3.75) per night. At this price, you may be wondering just how comfortable a place it is… well, see for yourself! Here is the guesthouse meditation garden, between the seaside rooms and the Bay of Bengal.
Of course the unvarnished India is here as well.
But the lotus motif, one of many chalked in front of doorways throughout the region, helps to fit these disparate elements together; for Indians, the lotus symbolizes purity, peace, and beauty emerging from the muck.
OK hope this finds you all well and muckless (or at least with some beauty arising…) Love, Derry & Kate
P.S. We composed this one together!!! Good job Team Schmoopie!!!
March 17, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Wonderful post. I love the pictures and the text is clever and informative. You do a good job together, Team Schmoopie.
I hope I never have to go to the Henry Ford Hospital. Don’t take me there!
And I am telling myself that the man on the sidewalk by the pedicab really owns it and is just taking a short nap before his next fare. That could happen, couldn’t it?
Still reading the Raj Quartet. Ummmmm…..
Love,
Mom/Sue
March 23, 2008 at 3:43 pm
I want a lotus chalk drawing in front of my door!! Perhaps I will make one.
That place you stayed by the beach looks fabulous. Glad Kate managed to escape that tumbling boulder in order to help with this blog post. I also noticed the “victory” sign on the ear of one of the elephants. Didn’t that symbol originate in India? I’m glad to see the Nazi’s didn’t ruin it for everyone forever.
About the unfinished carving: was there a room you could go inside or did they quit before they got that far? I think that would take some serious patients to carve stone for a living.
It’s rainy and spring-like there in Eugene. We’re all doing well! Obama came to Mac Court on Friday and by a fluke of luck me and a friend got in! Some people waited all day and the line was all across campus. I think “the pit” holds about 9000 and they had to turn people away. Crazyness. It was fun and he made a great speech… not that I could hear much of it since people wouldn’t stop cheering.
Miss you guys! Congrats on the new babykins!