Spring Break (of sorts)

View of Hampi from the top of the hill. Hanuman Temple, Hampi

 At the top of Hanuman Temple hill, Hampi

Vittala tempel at sunset, Hampi

 Lakshmi the temple elephant

 Lakshmi, again

 Part of the historic Hampi tour, monument made from one huge boulder

 15th century ruins, Hampi

Sanskrit on a stone tablet, Hampi

Marie goobering around, Hampi

Marie and I on St. Mary's Island, Malpe (with McChauffe, which she carries when she travels and takes pictures with it)

 St. Mary's Island, Malpe

Last week, half of my classes were canceled because the Sociology department was going on a 'cultural tour' aka educational field trip. So Marie-Cecile, a french classmate, and I decided to go on our own cultural tour of the nearby state of Karnataka. It was a whirlwind week of traveling, as we would spend one night on a sleeper bus traveling and the next in a hotel/guest house, staying in one place for a night before going to the next. We went to Hampi, Udupi, Malpe, Mangalore, and Bangalore. While it wasn't the most relaxing trip, I had a blast. Hampi was my favorite place by far - I wish we could have stayed there longer. Hampi is a World Heritage Site, and is surrounded by strange rock/boulder formations. The city itself has old monuments, ruins of 15th century temples and statues, and is one of the most laid-back places I've visited, full of Western backpackers and good food. At one store, I bought an embroidered camel leather purse but I didn't have enough change - so the shop owner told me to keep the purse and pay him later! (which I did soon after). Our first day, we crossed the river by boat and explored old ruins and went to a small temple at the top of a steep hill, from which we could see the quaint city beneath us, including the river and hills around it. After lunch at an Israeli restaurant we wandered around and stopped to get cake at a bakery before crossing the river and walking up a hill overlooking the main Vittala temple just before sunset. As we were eating our cake, I felt something wet on my head. I looked up, and realized that a monkey had just peed on my head!! It then tried to jump after us to get our cake so we ran away. Monkeys are vicious! The next day, Marie and I went down to the river to see the temple elephant, Lakshmi, about to take her daily bath in the river - we were a bit early though, so we just saw her before she took her bath (we had to leave for the bike tour at 8:30am). Then we went on a 4.5 hour bicycle tour of Hampi historic sites, which was fantastic. Afterwards we were pretty beat so we relaxed at a restaurant for most of the day.

The next day we arrived in Udupi by bus, where we wandered around the large Krishna temple in the morning with all of our backpacking gear before taking yet another bus to the nearby fishervillage of Malpe. After getting lost at the harbor, hauling our luggage for a while, we made it to the tourist boat leaving for St. Mary's Island. We hopped on and joined the 3 dozen Indian tourists for a boat ride to the island. Afterwards, we took a bus back to Udupi, then on to Mangalore. Once we got to Mangalore we tried to find a hotel - when I realized I had lost my passport copy (which I later found) and Marie didn't bring one...so we had to visit several hotels before we found one that would take us. Yikes. Good thing I had written down my passport and visa numbers just in case! We ended up having to pay more than we wanted to, but it was okay...in the evening we went to the mall to see a movie - the new Oz movie, my first movie in a theater in India. Also it was 3D...and it cost $3 US which was wonderful.

The next day, we decided to go to nearby Ullal Beach. As we were waiting for the bus to take us to the beach, Marie bought some sugarcane juice which was delicious. Then, we saw the bus coming - but it didn't stop! Marie gulped down her juice and chased after the bus, but it was to no avail - we had to wait 20 minutes for the next one. I cannot believe she ran down the street, chasing after the bus! After visiting the beach, we went back to the mall to kill time until our bus left for Bangalore that night.

We arrived in Bangalore at 5:30am, and met our friend Leon (poor guy, he stayed up all night and then had to wake up early to greet us, and it was his birthday!) at his house. Our time in Bangalore was really fun - one of the best weekends I'd had in a while. About 10 or so friends stayed at Leon's for the weekend, where his mom kept plying us with more home-cooked food than we could eat (it was all so good, though). We celebrated his birthday throughout the weekend, spending Saturday at his house with friends and family dancing and eating great food, and repeating the party the next day at his uncle's house, where we enjoyed Indian barbecue and a had another dance party (let me tell you, it's hard to dance in a sari). Indian birthdays involve the birthday boy/girl feeding everyone else cake, then they eat some. There's a lot of food, dancing, laughter, and love. It's great. I'm going to be traveling during my birthday, but I hope to celebrate with friends before I leave Pondicherry.

It was a wonderful week - I had a great time with Marie, and our friends in Bangalore. Marie also taught me some French - mostly incredibly useful phrases like "Bonne douche!" which means essentially "have a good shower!" (See, Amy, now I am fluent in French! Just kidding) This week is a bit like another spring break because classes have been cancelled for the rest of the week due to protests by Tamils in Tamil Nadu against the mass killing of Tamils in Sri Lanka. Hmm...my blog sounds like all I do is travel and hang out, which is moderately accurate. I did take a midterm yesterday though, so that's something, right? An official came into class as I was taking my test to say that classes were canceled, but I chose to finish my test before leaving for the day...