Well this past weekend in India went by fast. Well Saturday couldn’t come any faster since I worked until just about midnight on Friday. Yeah it may be a blessing it may be a curse, but the time difference is getting a lot of work hours out of me.

Despite having a 5:45 wake-up, I felt ready to go when I woke up. Little did I know despite how ready I was, my driver well he wasn’t so ready. I don’t what it is with the cab drivers here in Bangalore, but the only place they know how to get to is entrance/exit of the place you are currently at (yeah not very helpful). If I was on the meter I guess I would really be paying through the nose, fortunately this was a flat fee, just as long as he could get there. Well long and the short of it, after several U turns and asking directions from ½ a dozen people we finally made it to the departure point for my tour. I was off on a Karnataka State run tour (KSTDC) with myself as company.

I’m sure when I got on the bus everyone was finally relieved, relieved that we could finally get going not that I made it safely I’m sure. Yes I was the last one on, but from my perspective I didn’t really have to wait… just worry I was going to miss it. With a long bus ride ahead to see Belur, Halebid, and Shravanabelagola, I decided to get some sleep.

In Shravanabelagola, there is a temple and statue nearly 1000 years old. The statue of Gomatheswara dates from 978-993 AD. It is the world’s largest monolithic stone statue…. of a naked Buddha. All the temples made on the top of this hill side are made of granite. The temples included the naked man himself are over 680 steps up to get to where they are built. You have to marvel at the amazing feat of determination, engineering, and craftsmanship that went into this. Here’s some of amazing pictures I took while I was here.

As if all this wasn’t enough to make the whole trip worth it I was going to see more places. Of course before that could happen, I had to work my way through everyone trying to sell me something. Little hand stone carvings, postcards, pictures, bronze statues; you name it someone is trying to sell it. I kind of got the reputation as the ‘deal maker’ on the trip. Heck the postcards started out at RS 100 ($2.50), by the time I was done I got them for RS 10 (25 cents). Honestly I would have paid the RS 100, but the fun of it was to bargain. Ravi and Vighnesh gave me 2 rules…. There’s nothing I can buy on the trip worth more then RS 200 and don’t tip more then RS 30…. I say I succeeded!

In between here and the next stop we got a chance to eat lunch. Now the place we stopped for breakfast seemed lacking in hygiene, so thank goodness I brought a few snacks. Lunch on the other hand was at a plain but respectable looking place. So without hesitation I looked over the menu. Thanks to all the help I had in the weeks leading up to this trip I was well equipped to order food on my own, and since I had tagged along with a few Americans I met on the trip I was sure to show off…. Ok so I knew to order a rice dish with what I ordered, besides the naan I needed something to soak up that butter chicken gravy.

Well after this I was off to Belur, here there was many more amazingly carved stone temples. The big attraction is is the Chennakesava temple complex; the main temple took about 121 years (3 generations) to create. The guides on this trip were very knowledgeable; they were full of many anecdotes about the carvings on the temple. How the sculptures of the queen dancing show her beauty and skill as show by how many ways she could turn her body at the same time. Some were about the sculptures of the queen looking at herself in the mirror as she admired herself so much (yeah even back then women still gazed into the mirror forever). The final stop was Halebid, this was really a lot more of the same thing. I actually slipped away from the group and wondered around the grounds. I met an Indian family that was out site seeing and had a nice conversation with them. It was nice to be on this trip and not have someone running up to me to sell me something; instead they just had questions about the United States. They enjoyed telling about the places they knew there and where they had family that was there. Well here’s some pictures, the grounds here are very nice though some of the carvings are a little more in disrepair then I saw at the other locations.

Well the week ahead includes the fun of training and making myself available to my peers State side. The big NETWORX migration is supposed to happen this weekend; here’s looking forward to it! In the mean time I guess I can go watch some more cricket as well.... yeah people here are fanatics about the sport so it's hard not to get involved!