Hyderabad and Varanasi!

 Charminar in Hyderabad

 View of the city

 Making some friends at Golconda fort, an amazing fortress near Hyderabad, which almost withheld Mughal war elephant siege in the 17th century

First view of the Mother Ganga from the train

 Crowded streets of Varanasi

 I should really make an entire blog of cows in India!

 Incredible fire/light show that has gone on every night for the last few thousand years!

 Beautiful light on the city at sunrise

Mysore and Hampi!

Mysore is one pretty incredible city. It was chosen for the location of our South India semester module mostly for its relatively small size (several million at least though), and its safe and friendly vibe. It seemed to pretty much embody the laid back culture of the south, and anywhere we would go in the city we would get curious stares and smiles. In the south, Westerner travellers seemed to be a bit more of a novelty to the local people, and especially at the tourist areas we would be asked if someone could take our picture, or if they could take one with us. At first we were all very flattered. It's not everyday you're treated like a celebrity haha, but sometimes people would walk up and take our picture without asking, and this repeated over and over drags on you after a while. I try not to take picture of individual people without asking, but it was a pretty funny switch from the tourist-local relationship. In the end sometimes I feel a bit more objectified! Although this does happen, it does not negate the fact that we are the foreigners, and everyday activities that we find interesting are completely normal and non-picture-worthy for Indian people. This relationship between tourist and locals has been constantly on my mind since being here

This was the place where we slept, ate, studied and hung out for about a month while we were living in Mysore. It is called the Organization for the Development of People, and is a Catholic NGO which does mostly work on rural human development and womens' issues. I was quite impressed by the progressiveness of their development work and the clear lack of a missionary sentiment in what they do. Catholicism was clearly left to the work of the church itself. The building we stayed at was mostly used for technical training and workshops. And yes, that is a giant statue of Jesus in the centre of our residence! Classes were really excellent, although the professors made it seem way easier than what was put on the exams! It was good to settle down after a while and get to know the city, though going to classes for 8 hours a day was rough. We also had a pretty great rooftop where we took yoga classes in the morning and hung out.

The city is famous for Mysore Palace, a residence constructed in the late 19^th century by the Maharaja of that area of South India. Pretty awesome lit up at night, which they do on Sunday evenings for one hour. Any more and it would probably cause a brown out in the entire city. And the power outages were already pretty frequent at about five a day! Highlights were the rooftop bar, the incredible incense, oil, vegetable, fruit, and flower market market (plus even more things), the crazy rickshaw rides across town when drivers didn't know where they were going (bus drivers included). All of the NGOs we visited, especially the Vivekananda tribal school and hospitals, doing amazing work in Karnataka, were definitely highlights of our stay there.

Hampi

Hampi, Hampi, Hampi. What a ridiculous place. Smack dab in the middle of Karnataka, the landscape surrounding this old ruined capital city was just unreal. There were huge boulders scattered everywhere on the horizon, with banana and rice plantations mixed around sparsely. This was capital city of the Vijayanagara Empire, which ruled South India around the 14th-16th centuries AD. Not too, too old, but when it was a huge centre for international trade it was compared by travelers to the magnificence of Rome. It is the largest World Heritage Site on Earth, and you couldn't even see the whole city if you spent many days roaming around. In the 16th century it was invaded by Muslim conquerors, and many of the Hindu-style architectural features were destroyed. Interestingly, the aspects of the city influenced by the Islamic style, such as the domes and arches, were left intact as you can see by the picture of the gigantic elephant stables. When we were there, we learned that the following day they were beginning the movement of settlements away from the ruins. When we went there was a small town full of guest houses and a pretty cool tourist beat, as well as a settlement of local people living their everyday lives vending and trying to make a living. To preserve the site, the people along with their settlements were going to be moved several kilometers away, to create what officials dub a "living museum" at the ruins. I remain pretty skeptical of this practice, seeing that the people who had made their homes there was causing minimal harm to the structures and were only being compensated for the value of their property. However, I have never felt more like Indiana Jones in my life. The highlight for me was definitely waking up in dark on the second day, climbing up the largest hill in Hampi, and watching the magnificent sunrise while being pestered by a gang of monkeys. I don't have photos of that morning, but as soon as I steal some from a friend they'll be up. Oh yeah, that's me on a motorcycle. 

Turtle Bay and Rainforest

We then carried on to Turtle Bay where we had a great time swimming and snorkeling in the ocean. It felt a little strange relaxing next to a fishing village, but we were also involved with the local NGO, which was putting in toilets in various homes the community, and we were graciously invited and brought by some people local people to their newly built temple, devoted to Brahma. Although I felt a little out of place in the community (20 Caucasian kids being stared at everywhere we go) , everyone we talked to welcomed us graciously. In Southern India there are many poor people, but I think there is less of an enormous gap between the rich and the poor, from what I have heard of the north. Much of the south is quite religious, and much less wealthy than the metropolises of the north, where inequality I've heard is much more extreme. There are rich and poor but it does not seem to be as visible as what I thought it might be. On the day we went snorkeling we started just off the coast of a town with the largest Shiva statue in the world!

Our last location before our study in Mysore was a rainforest, shade-grown coffee, vanilla, and cardamom farm, deep in the Western Ghats, the mountain range that runs all down the west coast of southern India. In the picture is Sujata, an incredibly peaceful and knowledgeable woman from Delhi, who with her husband left their research lab jobs to start a life farming in forest. They have an very thought out and diverse cropping system, which is completely integrated with local biodiversity. Our stay there included learning about different contour and shade farming methods, stupidly beautiful hikes in the mountains, one to a temple hidden away in the forest, very competitive ping pong matches, and picking of coffee beans, tea leaves, and vanilla. My time in India so far has been absolutely mindblowing.  

Pre-Mysore continued

Next was our stay in the university town of Coimbatore, where we made a day trip up the Nilgiri mountains to Ooty in the Western Ghats to visit the rural extension and research hill station associated with Tamil Nadu Agricultural University. We saw some pretty cool organic cow slurry being used for fertilizer and pesticide created from knowledge in the Vedas. We saw lots of tea farms and a big botanical gardens. The bus ride up 2000 metres was nailbiting, with the driver overtaking other tour buses in mid hairpin turn. So many people were sick for this ride up the mountains,so I'm extremely lucky my immune system has not let me down!

Next we took the train to Cochin, which is an historical trading port with the West, and one of the oldest Jewish immigrant settlements from 2000 years ago. The Romans came to the Malabar coast on the Arabian Sea in search of Spices. It's a beautiful beach and fishing town, and me, Sam, and Zach spent our free days zooming around on rented scooters. As you can see in the background there is a strong Christian influence, and some Indian Baptist ministers we met on the train were excited to tell us that Christianity has had its roots planted in India on the Cochin coast as early as with the first traders. We saw some dance unique to Kerala province as you can see with my awkward eyes closed pose.

Kanyakumari!

Our next stop was Kanyakumari, which is located at the southern most point on the entire subcontinent. This was an incredible place, and the meeting place of three oceans (Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean, and the Arabian Sea). There were many Hindu pilgrims here bathing in the waters and lots of Indian tourists, but surprisingly not as many Western tourists. You can see my compass pointing directly south, the pink Gandhi memorial where a portion of his ashes are held and where we given an incredibly enthusiastic tour and song. The guide made us go around for about half an hour and put us in different poses around the memorial. There were lots of vendors along the beaches selling fairly cheap tourist swag mostly for Indian people (kid's clothes). Everyone gathered on the west side of town to watch the sunset over the Arabian Sea. So cool!