I realise that the last post contained 2 identical pictures of the elephant chariot. Far be it from me to go back and correct such an easy and easy reconcilable mistake, I believe that precisely none of you would bot5her to go back and look, even I asked you real nicely. So here is the promised Queens's palace from some 400/600 years ago:
Wasn't it worth waiting for? Well actually no, which is why I got some good shit for you later on instead 
The following, by the way, isn't it. It's just a bunch more statuary, engravings, carvings and the like thyat I was encouraged to photograph so as not to hurt my guide's feelings, which of course I did.
Photograph them of course, not hurt his feelings. That would just have been cruel:
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory095.jpg
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory096.jpg
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/evilhippy/Worldwide%20things/rory097.jpg
That last one is hard to see but it's of the spear, or rather the trident, that the god Rama cast at his enemies on the hills after the little rough 'n' tumble they all had with Hanuman the monkey god, you remember from the last post? You do remember I hope? Jeez, you're not paying any attention are ya? Well Screw it, I'm a-carrying on anyways.
Rama was, is, the principal character from that lenghty olof poen thje Ramayana, the one that, like the Mahabharata, forms the basis of all Hinduism.
Think of them like the bible, but with a bigger budget for actors, and a smaller budget for costumes.
You see these things on Indian TV all the time; re-enactments from both books; and all unsavoury and tasteless joking about people from one country all looking alike, these guys had literally one wardrobe manager for every show and he was a little bit slow in the head.
The servants and kings all have the same headress', helmets, armour and chariots.
I guess contracting these things out en-masse to the same production company back in 1981 wasn't such a great idea when they wanted to fire up the imagination of India's youth 
Anyway, at least the scenery far surpasses the early audiovisual skills of 1980s television companies; this is the view from the temple of Rama's spear:
I took a little walk out on the road to Anegondi one day; about 4km in the middle of the day, it wasn't a very clever idea; but I did get a couple of photos that show the river at its narrowest pass - here and one other place the normally 150-foot wide river blasts through these channels only about 8 feet across. The water must be about 40 feet deep and, if you fell in, the currents would likely tear you in half before you even left the crevasse:
More temples - there is a never-ending supply here, in case you hadn't guessed - this one of Ganesh although the monolithic statue is elsewhere; and is quite spectacular:
The carvings on the pillars are amazing, and these are just some very simple examples:
.....and I hunted high and low for this, tracked wild beasts (well pretty tame, actually) through temnples and towns, hills and valleys, tried in vain to catch a single image that shows you just how commonplace cows are in this country. The cows aren't all that is common of course; the course of nature runs easily for, through, these mild mannered beasts and thanks to a natural stoicism, a highly-evolved olfactory ineficiency, and a slightly ludicrous religious requirement to deny themselves of the tastiest of meats the domesticated realm of animalia has to offer, these beasts can walk the Earth unmolested by man and his well-sharpened knives.
Quite why these an animals are revered when pigs, chickens and goats are cooked for food, and when elephants and tigers are unthinkingly slain whenever they threaten crops or wildlife (something cows are quite adept at themselves) is beyond me, but hey. Here is a typical street scene from India:
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Tanks; not mechanised contraptions of mass murder but basically publiuc baths; are a pleasantly common and aesthetically superb part of many landscapes. I wouldn't bathe in one of these myself no matter how many bottle of SDailor Jerry you promised me, quite frankly, but still - they do look fanmtastic, don't they?
I must apologise for the brevity of this entry, the lack of interesting detail provided along aith it, and the slightly rude manner in which I have presented one or two details.
Rest assured all these are products of a long day, long overdue in fact, typing up a few thoughts and plodding steadily through the many hundreds of pictures I have left to go.
Do not worry however! All the entries concerning and containing photographs will be obviulsy labelled and you can skip over the dozens of boring carvings, idiotic temple structures, silly little bits of scenery and other such visual tripe as you might care not to see.
Now I'm off for lunch, it's 5pm, and since massacring the buffet at an unsuspecting 4-star hotel this morning I haven't had a thing to eat.
Really, I do almost feel sorry for the poor buggers who lay out these buffets when they bhave no idea, no idea at all that I am due to arrive.
Toodle pip!
