Day Trip to Mahabalipuram

Happy lunar new year! I’m starting the lunar calendar documenting the final day of Shasha’s and my trip to India last June. We spent it revisiting asian art history viaÂ a day tour to Mahabalipuram. This trip wasÂ booked at the service counter at New Woodlands Hotel the previous day, which included a private car rental to shuttle us directly from the hotel to wherever we wanted to go.

I’m so not a day person though. By the way, that’s an amusing Threadless t-shirt IÂ own titled ‘Cowboys and Indians‘ – you know, inÂ an alternate history. Shasha and I had breakfast at Krishna Restaurant located right inside the hotel. This was where Rohit had first introduced Chennai and itsÂ interesting food to us, where we quite quickly became addicted to Onion Thosai and the intimate manner of drinking tea in small metal cups teh tarik style in order to quickly cool the drink.

That’s a stray cooling under the shade of Krishna’s Butterball. The other images are pretty self-explanatory… but if anyone is unable to make outÂ the cow-elephant dual imagery carved into the pillar in the last picture, let me know!

Five Rathas was pretty busy,Â and rightly so for the ambitiousÂ monolithic work (despite it being unfinished and worn from the sands of time):

Climbed onto an innocuous piece of rock for a photo.

I brought my tripod out.

Our tour guide and us.

Shore Temple was our last stopÂ of the tour. Years of wear and tear from the elementsÂ rendered the heritage site quite degraded. Our tour guide sat down with us on the grassy patch a bit aways from the site and explained to us the history before leading us closer. I would have liked to see the details which had long ago been eroded by the salt air.

Quite amused at having managed to capture the bird perched right on top of one of the shrines.

My favourite part of the tour was something totally unplanned – cows by the beach! I don’t quite remember how we got the idea to go there, but I think Shasha had heard about the beach from someone, and so we got our driver to make a pit stop on the way back to the hotel.

Exploring the cultural sites hadÂ permanently smeared my jogger pants with red pigments on my knees and butt. They still haven’t come off with so many washes that at this point I’m considering those stains a souvenir.

Kid is cool.

I spent the better part of my time stalking this gentle herd of bovinesÂ as they grazed along the stretch of the beach. There were even calves! Took a lot not to pet them, but then again I guess it’s good that I’m alsoÂ slightly paranoid regarding hooved creatures and fatal kicks in my general direction.