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