The drive was non eventful really...except for the interesting signs along the way...."Accident Prone Area, Drive Slow". It was hot and humid as always..God what I'd do for A/C on the bus...and just outside of Mamallpuram we saw people working in the salt flats. We arrived at the Hotel Sea Breeze at about 1pm, unloaded the bus and headed to our rooms. I didn't think it could get any hotter in India, but it certainly felt like it here...not a breeze anywhere!!!
Mamallpuram is a touristy town, well know for it's stone carvers. After lunch we went on a 2 hour guided tour of the World Heritage Sites in the area. During our tour we saw Krishna's Butterball...this is a HUGE boulder sitting on a hill that hasn't moved in thousands of years...
Varaha Cave...beautiful stone carvings...
Arjuna's Penance...this carving is 27m wide and 8m high...
The Five Rathas....carved out of one piece of granite stone and took 80 years to finish...
and the Shore Temple...one of six temples carved in the 7th Century...during the recent tsunami when the water receded from the shore line, one of the temples was uncovered on the ocean floor.
These were incredible pieces of art work and awesome to see in person...worth the visit even in the extreme heat of the day.
We arrived back at the hotel around 4pm and I headed out to do some shopping....not much time left in India and I still have many things I'd like to pick up. By 7pm, I was back at the hotel and by 7:30pm, we headed out to dinner at the Bay Treasure Restaurant. Well this was an experience in itself. At our table we had three BBQ inserts where we cooked our own kebabs...some of us where better at this than others! We thought at first this was our entire meal because there was so much food, but then realized we had an entire buffet to eat from as well....I haven't eaten so much food in two weeks in my life!
We had great food, lots of conversation...especially about the dessert...a few cold Kingfisher beer and then we found out about the Sheeshas. I'm not sure the restaurant staff/owner knew what they were in for when they invited us to the lounge area to test these out!!! Typically a sheesha is tobacco smoked through a small bowl of water and sucked through a tub...here we had different flavours to choose from....mint, Arabian Night and NRG. Most of us had a turn trying this out and I have not laughed so hard in myl ife...we even had a few competitions about who could smoke it better. I really do think Colette was a pro and won hands down for best technique!!
What another crazy night. Headed back to the hotel around 10:00pm in our disco bus and eventually off the bed. Heading to the beach tomorrow!!
Until then....
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