Raja and Dan

If you look at the album called "Touring in Chennai," it chronicles my time in Tamil Nadu, the southeastern state in India. Saturday was our "free day," so I rented a car and driver, and rode 75 km or so to Kanchipuram, the "city of a thousand temples."

The first four photos are outside the temples, with one photo of me included, as per Betsy's request.

Then the photos are inside the temple. The dark stone pillars weren't that interesting to me, but the carved painted statues were pretty wild looking. My guide, who was Catholic (not Hindu), couldn't tell me much about them. In fact, when I asked how old the temple was, he said, "70 years." And I had to tell him that we weren't allowed into the inner sanctuary b/c we aren't Hindu. According to my guide, 30% of India is Catholic, 60% Hindu, and 10% Muslim. He may be right, but I'm not certain that he is too good with numbers. I saw as many Catholic churches (1) as other Christian churches (1) in Chennai, and I saw about 50 temples. Maybe all the construction workers were Hindu in the 1500s.

Anyway, look at the photos of the temples. They are interesting, and we can talk about them on the phone if you like.

Photo 12 is bad. Photo 13 is another "tank," which appears to fill with rainwater during rainy season, and slowly evaporate the rest of the year. It's interesting. They stock it with fish, and do acts of worship around it. I wonder if it represents valuing water as a source of life, especially as much of the water in the towns is stagnant and putrid.

Photo 14 is the first of many animal photos. Outide the city, there are livestock everywhere. And not everybody is a vegetarian. This is called a bullcart.

Photos 16 and 17 are elephants. Ganesh is a Hindu god that looks like an elephant, and elephants are used in temple worship. There will be more of that to come. More elephants up to 20. Interspersed are pictures of temples under construction and me standing in front of temples. Boring.

By the way, I videoed a bunch of this stuff, and we can look at the videos when I return.

21-26 is a silk loom. Kanchipuram is a textiles town, and I wished that I hadn't already bought the silk I was going to buy. The weaving is pretty interesting, and I can tell you about it by phone.

The queue in the next series of temple photos is people waiting to go in to worship at noon.

After Kanchipuram, we headed back tot eh coast for some lunch (some 60km away). It took forever, mainly b/c of traffic from a dancing festival in Kanchipuram.

I had lunch by the ocean in a town called Mamallapuram and took a few beach photos (30-31) just to prove it exists. Looks like Ocean City (though it's warmer in January).

Next I saw the only natural wonder of the day, a huge rock called "Krishna's butter ball," which appears to be balanced precariously on a slope. Since the earthquake and tsunami didn't move it, I suppose we're safe for now.

Photos 33 onward are my trudgings through what are called "caves," but what are really temples carved into rocks. Mamallapuram looks like a stone quarry town despite the sandy beaches. People were breaking large boulders everywhere with little axes, and there were lots of stone carvings for sale.

39 & 41 are a famous rock carving, but since I don't know the history of it, I don't have mch to say about it.

40 is some of those stone carvings for sale. I was riding in the car, so the picture isn't great.
42 is a better picture of more of the same.

43 is a goat. There were fewer goats than cattle, but there were some of everything.

After I climbed up the lighthouse and saw all around, we got back in the car for Chennai. I took some random shots of shanties on the side of the road to show a sense of the life of farmers and villagers. 44 is one of them, but mostly I got this through videos.

We stopped at Crocodile bank on the way home. There were a crazy number of crocodiles, as you will see in photos 45-54. There was also a King Cobra. So I did see a cobra in India after all. I hope that I don't see any others. Be sure to check out the funky crocodiles with the tiny noses. I think Wesley will like them.

Photo 55 is a silly amusement park I saw on the way back to Chennai. Do you think Walt Disney will sue?

The last three are some Cashmere rugs for sale for a mere $10K or so. I got shuffled into this store, and the salesman was not going to let me leave without buying something. I was firm, but polite, and I told him I would show my wife these pictures. So please let me know if you want me to buy a ten thousand dollar rug so our kids can potty train on it. Shipping is free.

I love you and will call soon.

Thursday

I'm running a tad behind, so I'm taking a little time this afternoon to post photos on snapfish.
The first two photos are my room in Chennai. It's nice, though it's the worst of the 3 rooms I've had. I thought you'd like to see where I'm staying. The other pictures are St. Thomas' cathedral. It's named for doubting Thomas, who is apparently buried there. I don't know how that happened, and we didn't have time to go to the museum, so I have no further information. I'm sure the internet can solve that.

Hyderabad

The next serioes were from 24 Jan in Hyderabad. This city was markedly more Muslim than Chennai, and very different. Whereas Chennai was just urban sprawl with no center, this city had the feel of a city.

The roads were much better, but the English was not so good. I was wearing shorts, which was a big mistake in such a Muslim place (I didn't know the demographic until we arrived). It was ironic that in some places I was the center of all angry stares, whereas in others, Vinod was attacked by people looking for money and I was ignored.

The first photos (599 and 601) are a big lake (12km around) in the middle of the city. There is a huge Buddha statue in the lake towards one side. This lake looked really neat until we got close. It was actually a cesspool, and reeks of human waste. We did not swim.

The roads in Hyderabad are much beter than those in Chennai. Some roads even had painted lane lines, which were observed in rare instances. Pictures 603 and 604 are bad pictures of some palace.

605 is me in front of a big arch, sort of like Arc de Triomphe. In that area was a huge bazaar in which I felt the angry stares of many at my bare legs, and had street vendors and beggars mercilessly pawing at me.

We went to a Hindu temple on the top of a hill that was beautiful. We were not allowed to take photographs. It's a fascinating philosophy, and I'll tell you more thoughts about it when I return.

607, 609, and 610 are ancient ruins. It was funny to be in a place where you know none of the history. Imagine seeing Roman ruins and not knowing that Rome was once the great world power. It was sort of like that. I have no idea what the castle was or why it got "ruined." But I got a nice sunset photo.

608 is the primary wildlife I've seen here. Indian chipmunks. There are also some birds, but I haven't seen them up close. And Vinod and I think we heard a snake hissing in the ruins, but we chose not to investigate.

When I next sightsee, I'll try to get more pictures with me in them. Yesterday was a work and travel day. Today (26th) is a work only day.

I love you and miss you all. Wesley, take good care of Mommy and Aidan while Aidan is sick.

Chennai pt 2

The first three pictures are from a street market in Chennai. THe streets are filled with these people around temples, where people buy items for worship.

The thing in picture 46 that looks like a beehive is the temple, which is covered for renovations. Normally it's covered by 3 foot high statues of Hindu gods.

Pictures 47 and 48 are a floating temple in "the tank" during an evening festival that we saw.

Picture 50 is the view from a rickshaw that we took to get back to our hotel. I had to hide when Vinod asked the price (it costs much more for Americans than it does for Indians).

I love you guys and I think of you often.

Chennai

Here is one picture I took in Chennai. Uploading takes too long, so I'm going back to snapfish.

1 billion people can't all be wrong.

Again, use the snapfish site for photos (you can log in as me).

First impressions of India? Traffic! There were no lanes. No paved streets, just cars and motorcycles trying to kill each other. See picutre 31 and 32. I would never drive in India.

We visited Vinod's grandmother's house. She has a very nice view of one of the most famous Hindu temples in Chennai. The picutre doesn't do it justice because it's being renovated.
There is a big pool in front called "the tank." That is part of the temple. See pictures 33-37 for views from Gma Vinod's porch.

How the other .2% lives

I'm having trouble uploading pictures, so I put them on a snapfish site. Click here for the images.
If you don't have a snapfish login, use account dmazzucco11@gmail.com, password "whitwicki."

I'm a little late writing this, but I wanted to write a little about my flight. I left New York at 10 AM and arived in Dubai at 8 AM the following morning. I had never flown business class before. Apparently, in business class, there is a lounge you can wait in where they serve you unlimited free food and drinks. Pictures of the food available are given pictures 1 and 2. Note the "mini filet mignon" on the right. Much nicer than the day-old sandwiches you can buy at the coffee shop!

Then the actual seats on the plane were absurdly spacious. I think Betsy and the kids could have fit along with me in the seat. I'm not sure the photos do the seats justice. The food was also very nice on the plane. Pictures 8 and 9 show the appetizers we were given. Note on picture 10 how small the plate is. Picture 11 is my main course.

Despite the comfort, 12 and a half hours is a long time in a plane, and I slept only about 3 hours. Picture 13 is what I looked like after the flight. I was able to ake a shower in the business class lounge at the airport.

Dubai was not really my kind of city. It was all under construction, with mega-high rises (like the tallest building in the world in picture 15). Picture 16-18 show life on the ground, which seemed to be mainly trading. There were a bunch of Souqs (outdoor covered shops) selling spices (picture 18) and junk. Dubai is in the desert, but there is a creek, and pictures 19 and 20 show a dock. We took a boat across the river (pic. 21-22).

Pictures 24-29 show me eating my first authentic middle eastern food. It wasn't that bad.

Dubai is a testament to self-aggrandizement and that's most clearly seen in the downhill ski slope (picture 30) in the middle of the desert. Why would anyone do this? Because they can!

Anyway, that's all there is to say about my time in Dubai. I was there for 19 hours, and I should have been sleeping the whole time, but I slept very little.