Blogs from Mamallapuram, Tamil Nadu, India, Asia - page 5

So, it's been a while since our last blog, but surely you all realised the early excited momentum was bound to drop off at some stage.... All that aside, this tale of adventure takes place in mamallapuram, home of dave (jen's brother) and rob (an old friend of ours), and therefore one of the driving forces behind our visit to india in the first place... Our train trip to mamalla was the last one of our time in india, and again we met some interesting people, including some gorgeous kids (see photo in 'reflections' blog) that jen took to entertaining by making an absolute git of herself, much to the entertainment of the adults. Also met a freshly ordained catholic priest working with some tribesmen up in kolkata. he insisted we come and stay with him ... read more

Pondicherry when we arrived was quite different again to the other towns visited on this leg of the trip, the riksha drivers tried to charge well over the going rate and there seemed to be more people begging. The Park House hotel belongs to the Sri Aurobindo Society the body formed to run the Auroville project. Our room and the hotel proved to be an oasis of calm by the sea after haggling and battling our way there. The hotel is run by the Ashram and has well kept lawned grounds you are encouraged to walk barefoot upon; the room was spotless with 3 single beds a good bathroom with shower and just 500 rupees a night for 3 of us. Sue and George had not fared well on the journey and took to their beds ... read more

This small town 2 hours outside of Chennai is the home of the world famous Shore Temple, with a population of 13,000, it's no bigger than Maynooth Village. The shore temple was a beautiful building. Although we had expected to find the sea lapping at the base of the temple we learned that since becoming an UNESCO world heritage site, a sea wall has been built to protect the site from further coastal erosion. While this took away from what we had imagined to find, the carvings and the site itself were quite impressive. Coupled with the beauty and the skill evident at the Shore Temple the town also boasts a park full of carvings into huge boulders. There are numerous small temples dotted around and all this work was completed in order to showcase the ... read more

Instead of taking a rip-off rickshaw we opted to walk to the bus station for our 2 hour local bus journey to Mamallapuram. After asking at 6 buses and kept getting pointed to the next one along we finally found the right bus and proceeded to settle into some seats. As it was a local bus there wasn’t any room for bags so Donna put her big rucksack on the seat next to her...big mistake! The conductor on a power trip (aren’t they all?) came up, gestured at the bag and said ‘what’s this?’ Controlling the urge to be sarcastic the long and short of it is that Donna ended up with 2 dead legs as she had to balance the rucksack on her knees for the journey. The conductor then decided he didn’t know where ... read more

Mamallapuram was next on our list as it is famous for its ancient rock carvings. The world Heritage site has a solid days worth of carvings to explore, most of which were completed in the 7th and 8th Century. Cool little town. Only spent 2 nights here but are on a schedule so must move on.... read more