A Whirlwind Week!

Since our last post, my dad has joined us here in India...it has been a wonderful adventure exploring new parts of India with him! His Hindi language skills have come in VERY useful as well!!

We spent a couple of days in Mysore, marvelling at the enormous Palaces (7 in total) that are within this city. Then wee explored the surrounding area as well for a few days...did a giant tour of the state of Karnataka with a car/driver...covering 900 kms in only 3 days (which in India is MANY MANY hours of driving!!). Saw some incredible ancient temples which were built 1500 years ago...and the ruins of mighty dynasties which ruled over the region - with the giant anceint cities on the backdrop of a boulder-covered mountainous terrain...it was really incredible. Then we headed to another area and explored 4 different cave temples which were carved out of a mountainside/cliffside back in 500 AD. After this whirlwind tour of Karnataka, we soaked our bones in the Indian Ocean at Gokarna beach for a day, and then hopped onto an overnight train to Kochi in Kerala, which is where we are now!

The Karnataka tour was tiring and stressful for more reasons than just the distance...you see, driving in India is a little bit like being on a rollercoaster ...at one moment you might be driving 80-90 km/hr - and then the next moment you're stuck behind a ox-pulled cart, or behind a herd of goats that are walking along the highway, or you are overtaking a truck on a two-lane highway only to find that you're playing chicken with a truck rushing towards you at 80 km/hr! It isn't that we had a bad driver...he was quite safe in fact...it's just the way things work here..you overtake other vehicles/goats/cows/bullock-carts/etc. constantly whether you're on a bend, or on a hill...whether you have perfect visibility or no visibility at all! Everyone does it...and everyone compensates for each other...noone gets angry, noone really yells, everyone takes it all in stride and moves along....except for us in the back-seat who were freaking out and scared stiff the whole time we were driving! :-)

Saw a really interesting and brilliant thing on the road...local rice farmers from the villages take their newly harvested rice plants, and lay them on the highway...and when cars drive over this pile of rice plants, the vibrations help to separate the rice seed from the leaves...which saves the farmers alot of work and time! I thought this was quite brilliant actually...after cars adn trucks go by, you can see the farmers adn their families separating out the fallen rice seed and putting it into baskets on the side of the road. I think we took some pictures of it...so i'll try to post some tomorrow...it really was the coolest thing!

Poor Jen is still battling her Delhi-belly...we've started some new medication today which will hopefully help...

will try to post some new pics soon!