Mahabalipuram

Well it's our last stop before we head to Andaman islands (excluding Chennai). Its a beach town, but we didn't come here for the beach ~ its not that nice anyway. We're here to see some sights, have a day to relax, and perhaps go for a swim if we can fit it in! We're not too worried because we'll have 10 days of beaching/diving starting on the 6th...Our first stop was a 5 Rathas. A holy site dating back to the 7th century which was again apparently carved out of one solid stone. Pretty cool to see... all 5 carvings in one site.




A few goats climbing on this Ratha!
The pics above and below attempt to show all 5. Again remember carved out of 1 solid stone. Just a little bit of work I'd say!
The view from a temple on the top of a large boulder; we;re looking down on the lighthouse...
And many more carvings into the stones and boulders that are found around town. It took us a full day on the back of a motorbike to see all the sites!



Jillene seriously pushed this one to where you see it is now... strong chick....




On our drive out of town we came across a crocodile/turtle/snake farm. We decided to go in and this is what we found. It is essentially a croc zoo, with the odd turtle and snake. In this enclosure below there were 356 crocodiles! Those aren't stones or statues!
I hung over the top to get a picture below and the crocodiles quickly gathered below and opened there mouths. I guess they thought it was feeding time; which is cool, as long as they didn't think I was their lunch.

And more crocs! Next to the Andamans for white sand beaching and diving until the 16th. Then to Sri Lanka until March when we head to northern India. We're excited for the beach. Don't expect any posts now until march when we get back from Sri Lanka as we won't be online much for the month of Feb. Have a great month and we'll talk to you then.... Cheers, Derrick & Jillene

Trichy (Tiruchirappalli)

We made it too Trichy a little over 24hrs after leaving Ooty. It was late, we were tired and looking forward to a nice place to clean up and relax. Well, we shouldn't have been looking forward to that, as it is not what happened. We arrived (little to our knowledge) on an 'Auspicious Indian Wedding Weekend' and apparently Trichy is THE PLACE to get married. Over an hour walking around going from hotel to hotel and finding out they were booked. No worries, we'll just grab and auto-rickshaw and check a less popular area including the outskirts of town. Well, that didn't work either, after an our in the back of an 'auto'. So we spent our first night here sleeping (well Jillene did) at the train station and watching movies on the laptop!

In the end, luck did find its way to us early the next morning as we found what I believe to be the only hotel with one room checking out. We snatched up the room, took a shower, and headed out to see Trichy's sights. First off the Rock Fort... a temple on the top of a big rock! Very interesting from far... but as many of the temples we've visited, nothing to special once you get up close.
A church we came accross along the way...
And then a bigger temple - unfortunately I don't have the name infront of me, and that is the only way I'd be able to write it out! It was pretty crowed here, it seemed to be important!




One of the few man powered rickshaws we've come accross thus farAnd a lady selling 'nuts' on the side of the road...

In the end because of the rough start we weren't really sure Trichy was worth the effort, although people with easier/more pleasant experiences would say otherwise I am sure!

Ooty!

After Mysore we worked our way to Ooty (Udhagamandalam) via a day in Bangalore. Ooty, is a hill station in Tamil Nadu, so it's a little cooler here and was a bit of a respite from the hot and sticky temperatures we'd been experiencing so far.A veiw of the town as we bussed to a lookout point 10km out of town.
A view from the lookout....
On the way backdown I helped some Indians load cement mixer into the back of their truck. We saw them struggling with it as we walked down, and they really hadn't moved it by the time we got there. Trust me, the thing was bloody heavy, and these were not big men. With my help (and I gave it all I had) we barely got it in. Unless someone else came to help (which I am sure would have happened) they could have been there all day! Regardless to say there were pretty happy to have me helping out, as I don't think they would get much assistance from many other travellers foreign and/or local.
The highlight of Ooty was the setting itself, so after 2 day and a night of walking the town and taking it in, we jumped on the next highlight, the train down! Here are some of the stunning veiws that we saw.

Now the other novelty about this ride was that the train was a steam train! And because the decent was so steep they had a special method to ensure we didn't go flying out of control. I know there is a common name for this, but it has currently escaped my memory. In short it's operates like a cog/gear. See below to better understand my brutal description!

Stopping for a little water for the steam engine...
The track...
How the cars connect to the track...
And a sample cog/wheel on display at one of the stations.
Heading into a tunnel...
We arrived in Mettapalayan from the steam train, where we only spent the night before working our way to Trichy. Above is a picture of how cargo trains are unloaded. Of course it is all done by man power. And below is a couple guys on break whom were most friendly and REALLY wanted to have there pictures taken. I should have told them I held the power to make them famous simply by posting the picture on my blog! :)

Mysore

After Hampi came Mysore. There were 4 highlights here for us, a temple on top of a hill/mountain, a fantastic Palace, a very interesting market, and then one of the biggest cathedrals in all of India.Above is a picture of the temple at the top. Nothing much to look at in our opinion, but we were told it was one of the holiest places in India for the Hindu's. There certainly seemed to be a lot of Indians there visiting, and apparently many people make pilgrimages here...
We bussed up, but walked the stairs down (45min). A third of the way down was another sacred monument. I don't go into whom/what/or why because I'd probably mess it up. Lets just say it was a big cow carved out of a single stone! Pretty impressive...
Mysore Palace and below its south gates. This place burnt down in the late 1800's and was rebuilt/finished on 1912 if I have my dates correct... A VERY impressive building.

The market... can you say BANANAS!

Jillene and I were disputing what the coloured piles were for, which is silly because we could have easily found out. The shopkeepers were touting pretty aggressivily to get us to come over ~ but we ignored them as you have to do most of the time in India otherwise it would take you 3 days to walk 1 block down the street. I'm pretty sure it is used for making incense though...
And finally, St. Phillamena's Cathedral. Was pretty impressive, and very difficult to get the entire structure into a single frame on the camera.

In the end we had a great couple days in Mysore, and the sites were only half of the highlight. We ate some SERIOUSLY good food here as well, as we hit the jackpot with an awesome restaurant on our first night here...