Versive

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:

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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!

I am behind. Waaaaay behind in all my computerised dealings - finally having caught up with Mangalore, I now realise I missed out on another important city, Mysore. Well, I sorta missed out - I missed all the important stuff anyway, fom your point of view so now, I am playing catch-up. Get ready.... -

Temples in Hampi, rocks in Hampi, many more and other things from, surprise surprise, Hampi. Here are many of the best:

The walled palace of siome queen or other (it was such a long time ago, sorry..) but please, notice the detail on the wall carvings - these are some of the best in all of India:

The Underwater Palace - the whole centre of this thing is flooded. VERY Indiana Jones

Direct links to some more pictures of the place; (clicky for biggy images):

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These things are wonderful - stonework guttering in the shape of Elephant's trunks - not to let the blood flow out, gore fans, but simply as guttering because water was used in many offerings at these temples.
Okay sometimes it may have been blood too, but it sure scrubbed up nice, huh? -

Great carvings - direct link so as not to bore too many of you:

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This iron platework was preserved and restored from a temple in the same underground complex. Worth a big picture, I reckon:

Pillars from the same place:

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The lovely history of the Mahabharata only joking - Greek stuff is far worse and the Mayans - phew. They had some anger issues no doubt about it. Anyway, here's a nice man being killed with an arrow, all in charming stone relief:

Now it is hard to grasp the scale of this, but this, this is an entire city, or at least the stonewallings that formed the foundations. And this is just the shot from one angle standing in the middle:

Here's another looking in a slightly different direction - this place was, as you can see, pretty huge:

Outside the archeology museum in Hampi (they just about allowed to photograph outside):

A temple of some kind. I can't remember for beans, to tell you the truth. Looks nice though:

he ueen's bath - no much to look at from out here:

Inside though it's pretty groovy:

And, some things from a place called King's Balance, if memory serves correctly:

Bunch of rock things linked through to the images to save your page loading times, that you may, or may not, find of any interest. I took 'em all for a reason though so, you never know:

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A temple on HemeKuta Hill:

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Hindus believe that if you touch the statue, the Earthly image, of a deity then thatr deities powers, prowess and favour will be bestowed upon you. I love to embrace the cultures of the world's peoples but if I want to go and grope a statue of Tony Robbins or Robin Williams then I have no illusions that I'm gonna get successful or funny. I'd just do it for ther sheer perverted pleasure of it all lol

Photos from inside the archeological museum - photos definitely prohibited but, as you can see, a little sleight of camera plus knowuing where the security office window is can work wonders:

Those last two are of a scale model of Hampi - and you can't even see that damn Virupakshur temple the place is so huge. 240 square kilometres of boulders, bouldered hills, hills of boulders and all manner of round-shaped rocks all piled up on one another.
I personally like the legend of Hanuman - that he, the monkey god of profound physical strength - had a bit of a neighbourly tiff with the other gods and they all legged it down to their fortress in Hampi, tens of thousands of years back in time. Hanuman, being the badass so-and-so he is then single-handedly took them all on in their stronghold around Hampi and the land of the ancient kings and, standing near the Himalayas he threw each and every massive boulder down on them and beat them into submission.

There is a place back up in the Himalayas where the scenery is quite similar - boulders and so forth - and story tells it that Hanuman went down to Hampi by which time many of the gods had fled back up home to the Himalayas, so just to make sure they got the message he chucked a shole shitload of stones back at them, whupping their arses once and for all and letting everyone know that he was THE man. Or rather, The Monkey. Either way - don't fuck with the Monkey God, especially when he's got rocks handy aboput the place.

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Okay this one is for archeologists and weapons specialists.geeks only: I snuck some shots of the stuff on display around the Elephant stables near Royal Centre about 4km from Hampi. The photos are blurry but there were guards all around; the finds are fascinating though. There is a kind of push dagger or arm dagger I've never seen before, although there other specimens in Mangalore.
Images linked because I know only a few of you actually give a damn about this stuff There are some knives from the 15th Century as well, and swords from the pre Vishayanagar empire that no doubt inspired and were responsible for the cavalry sabres used by Prussian, Napoleonic and British cavalry for the next 300 years. Personally I find it fascinating, but hye, colour me geeky -

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Okay, back outaide the museum I was able to take the camera out of my shirt pocket and get siome proper shots. It amazed me that some of the best sculpture was on open and extremely public display in the rather overly public gardens, free for children to stick gum on, draw all over (which I saw some of them doing) and dogs to do what they do best up against. But, hey-ho; at least we got the pictures:

There's that Virupakshur temple again:

eah, another temple. Click it if you want it, people:

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This is rather good - Jain temples, the Fourth and most easily forgotten religion in India but actually the third largest, bigger than Christianity despite the best efforts of the missionaries. Hinduism and Islam take 1st and 2nd places, in case you were wondering - Jain architecture started early with thousands of bsic cuboidal stone pillared temples, but progressed to an alm,ost oriental style around the 13th or 14th Century, if memory serves correctly. Anyway here are a few of the later examples - pretty strikingly different from the Hindu styles:

This is aty least a blend, if not an entirely Hindu structure - often the Islamic and Hindu styles cross ver so much it's hard to see what is what, this, well, this just looks pretty, dom't it? :

I thought this was kind of nice, whether you agree or not I couldn't say!

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Classic Jain temples:

From HemaKuta hill, Virupakshur temple to left, main climbing mountain over the river and far away, to right. Early and basic ain temples centre and bottom - a whole history lesson in one photo - cunning eh?

There are LOADS of rocks balanced like this and worse. One shove and it seems they would go over. They don't though, I tried; of course I did! -

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Cute little monkey in cute little tree - guard your valuables though, the76y know exactly wehat you need and aren't afraid to pinch it!

Cute monkey again - see above...

I think this was actually the smaller of the two Gopurams - gateway towers - of the Virupakshur complex. Still, pretty badass -

And here is the info board for Hemakuta hill - maybe worth a read? maybe:

And two of said Shaiva (temples dedicated to Shiva) temples on the Hemakuta hill area;

And a bunch more stuff linked directly because, by now, you may just be sick of all thes bloody temples. After Hampi, I am pretty much all templed out, but here they are just for you, just in case you ain't sick of 'em yet:

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This was worth a big picture though:

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Did you already see me with monkeys? I can't remember. The photo order of all this is confusing as hell - here y'are again just in case. Should I maske one of the my FaceBook proflie picture do you think? -

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The view from the Hanuman temple. Simply outstanding:

The gong pillar atop the Hanuman temple - like an armilarry sphere, almost:

Okay - you have GOT to click this one for the bigger view, it is something amazing. Really:

Wildly huge views of Hampi from the top of the temple hill. Click for biggy if you want some lovely scenery shots! -

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Okay these two are pretty damned amazing as well:

A rock. And a tree. Nothing special to see here folks, just a rock and a tree. Nicely framed though, I thought:

That river again - note the level of the water THIS time:

I stopped this poor guy, made hi drag his cattle and plow out of the field, took a couple of photos and literally ran away. I'm guessing he's used to gettign a little baksheesh for this sort of thing judguing by the speed with which he dragged his rig out of the firld and onto the road, but, frankly, at that time I was a little fed up with what amounted to one huge, conspiratorial tourist trap.
I see now whay they HAVE to do this, harvest time is the only time they have any money and capitalising on that is what keeps them going - and alive - in the monsoon.

Still, I snapped and ran, in the best traditions of the evil paparazzi
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Okay, I went to a temple; I couln't tell you which one now for love, toffe or beans; but I saw this on the wall and, well, I think it speaks volumes about the culture and religion. Not that I'm suggesting they are a bloodthirtsy lot, but really, is it necessary to be quite so graphic, in a place of holy worship? -

Okay, quickly now because it's a Sunday and I'm keeping these poor people at work!

The Queens temple in Anegondi, a few kilometres from Hampi. Sadly now in ruins and painted abou a thousand times, but originally over 600 years old:

And finally, this is something very very cool - an Elephant cart, pulled by ceremonial elephants during festivals, its wheels are armed with blades and the whole is adorned with garlands of flowers, blossoms, and lithe young women Sweet

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Anyway taht's enough for now - hopefully I'll find another 'net cafe across the street.

Ciao!!

Okay, it's just another little piece about Mangalore, not the city of Mangoes at all but, Bangalore meaning `the city of the boiled bean` (legend has it that an ancient king once stopped here in dire need of food, sustenance, and some people to boss about but was served only a humble meal of boiled beans. Being graciously grateful and, not stooping so low as to have the impudent peasant chopped into little pieces on the spot, he had a moment of good humour, founded his capital there, and called it Bangalore, the city of the boiled bean).

After hearing this story I always imagined that Mangalore was the city of the Mashed Mango, or MangoStewiStan or something like that, but in fact it is named after the Keralan princess Mangaladevi, who unfortunately snuffed it pretty soon after the naming ceremony was finished, leaving an awkward little quandary about what to do with all the canapes and dessert, I imagine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangalore#Origin_of_the_name

I found this city worth expounding upon a little more becaue I rather liked it. The first thing that really inpressed me was that the taxi drivers all, without fail, used their meters and the fares were minimal and fare (ha ha), not to mention so laughably cheap that I found myself cackling like an escaped nutcase as I traversed the city for an hour and a half in one of their black yellow contraptions for no other reason than that it was costing me less than half that of a ten minute ride anywhere around Goa. I got some funny looks, but was too busy bent double in gleeful joy to give a shit.

I took a few tours around the city: one day I visited all the churches, cathedrals and other testaments to Christ's questionable influence and all of them were daubed in some ecclesiastically institutional shade of grey. No doubt some homage to the level of interest of most of the memmbers of the catholic church and their enfeebled imaginations, my parents notwithstanding, of course Quite why they were ALL grey is beyond me: Rosario cathedral, a lovely building of decent enormity with some quite lovely interior stained glasswork and statuary (photography forbidden, naturally, but I have found that there is little one cannot photograph with a few distraction techniques, the cancellation of your camera's flash facility, a steady pillar or baptism font to lean upon and a decently increased shutter speed).

Rosario cathedral is, in itself, just one part of the impressive institutionalisation of India's youth. The large and mostly grey complex includes the Rosario infant and pre-school (the only building not actually grey in itself, but not far from it with all the peeling paintwork), Rosario High School where victims, I'm sorry, students from the ages of 8 to 18 are schooled further in the ideas of mathematics, religion, science, religion, arts, crafts, geography and religion, and, of course, extra religion, at least if they behave really well.

There is something called the Rosario Composite Pre-University college, also amazingly in shades of grey within the extensive grounds, and just adjacent to this praiseworthy compound is the Rosario Catholic University itself. Needless to say all these facilities have paths leading directly into the grounds of the cathedral, although, if one were being cynical, none actually leading out Give me a child until he is 9, and he is mine for life, or so they say. At Rosario they take you from about the age of 4 to 22, and then there is probably very little hope

There is also a Rosario gymnasium where the muscles can be numbed to make the mind a little less able to resist the imprecations of King/Queen/Saint Rosario (I gotta stop this I'm sorry, this is a bit one-sided isn't it?), then also The Rosario Hostel Hall where the recently graduated young professionals can be assured of not straying too far from the Motherland, and there is even the Rosario Cultural Hall to make quite sure no-one ever develops the independence of thought to leave the place after the age of 35.

Tucked somewhere around the back there is quite probably also the Rosario Elderly Care Home, the Rosario Graveyard and possibly even the Rosario Fertiliser and Compost Recycling Centre.

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The rest of the post is less anti-Rosario, whoever the hell he/she was anyway, I promise.

Another place of worship I visited was the Aloyitious(sp?) College Chapel (surprise surprise, it's a chapel in an educational establishment, and this time the whole bloody place was painted grey, all 20-odd buildings of it). And my, what buildings they were, each one larger than the entire college I went to, and at least I had the good grace to get my arse kicked out of that before it got it's claws into me too deep.
The paintings inside the chapel are magnificent - hardly a rival to the Cistene chapel but apparently the closest India has to it, and, having seen both now with my own eyes then I am quite impressed by the comparison.

Needless to say I threw some small change down the central aisle to distract the nuns and the stick-reliant and worryingly wobbly bursar while I sneaked some photos of the ceiling, windows and stonework, and just about remembered about the flash settings in time to get some okay photos, albeit a little too far away to capture the best of the detail.
I almost got caught that time but I gave them a hasty `shukrya, Sisters, Father` and legged it before they could fetch the thumbscrews or the collections box.

There was another (grey) church somewhere along the way but I can't remember much about it. Not much worth saying, I guess, but the day before that I found a real marvel of Indian culture.

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I took an early morning taxi to a museum recommended in the Lonely Planet. They said very little of importance about it but I found it fascinating - the statues, sculptures and weaponry dating fom 1100AD onwards was incredible, and the art - the Art!! I have never appreciated art in museums before but this one small room on enterting the museum contained at least 10 of the finest 15 pieces of work I have ever seen. There must be something about Indian artistry; the colours, the contrast, the capturing of movement and feeling in just a few simple brushstrokes, lines of penwork, or daubs of watercolour taht seemd to jump of the canvas' at me and make me appreciate, for the first time ever, what Art should truly be: something that moves you inside, without you even knowing how or why.

There was a portrait of an old man in indian headdress, glasses and suit and Indian-style tie that I swore was a photograph, even up close. The shading behind the glasses was immaculate and I half expected him to begin speaking to me. It was unbelievable, and even having seen a few pictures by world famous artists here and there I was still very, very impressed.

I wandered upstairs and found case after case of weaponry used in the First War of Indian Independance - the Sepoy Mutiny. I snuck a few pictures and was caught halfway through by the curator; I bluffed through pretending that I was only about to take a photo, explained my interest as a weapon collector and proved my point with knowledge of the works enough for him not to confiscate my camera. I tried to baksheesh him into letting me take a few pictures - without flash of course - but I learned another important thing about Mangaloreans; almost universally, they are honest through and through.

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Another morning before anything was open - I wake early in India because of the heat - and wandered down to onme of the citiies many small shopping centres or malls. Everything was shuttered closed of course but still I could get in and get around, and did my usual trick of sneaking past the early morning cleaning staff onto the upper floors and got some photos of the city from the rooftops. This is the best place to spot the Eagles, and they are eagles I am sure of it now. Once ono the roof of Hotel Poonja International one mistook me for an early morning snack and I got a head-on shot of him swooping straight for me - pretty terrifying (these things can achieve wingspans of over 6 feet and are armed and ready to kill small dogs and lambs) but an amazing photo, even if I did duck in terror and only get him from over 30 feet away.
Still, it shouod be a good photo.

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My main note of praise for the people of Mangalore though is that they are not tourist hunters, the panhandlers only rarely are even noticeable (but the few kids that are aound are vastly more persistent than those anywhere else, I have noticed, so I tended to slip them 5-rupee notes when no-one else could see me doing so) and the taxi men NEVER, I mean Never ask you if you want a taxi. This, in itself, makes the city worth a visit.

There was a time on my final day when I realised that, aside from needing some change for the buses the next morning, I would rather like some decent drawing paper and a notebook. I have been reading a book called The Monk Who Sold His Farrari, and when I get off my arse and onto a form of public transport not designed to crush the human spine (i.e. not a public bus) then I will read it all again. The book urges one to keep a notebook, which I now do, and seeing a stationers across the way I stumbled in, tripped over a small dog or possbly just a very ugly child, and before the girls at the counter could stop laughing I bade them Namaste, which means hello, goodbye, how are you and all that sort of thing.

My pronunciation is not good, I will admit freely, but the looks they all gave me led me to think I had just asked to sodomise their mothers, and furthermore to do so live on the internet for personal profit and in a public place. They looked as appalled as you might if some had asked you if you'd like another cup of coffee, but had instead apparently said "fuck off, aye?" in a thick Scottish accent right to your face.

Thankfully the proprietor kenw more about foolish Englishmen than the appalled young girls she employed, explained to them what I had said and they giggled uncontrollably for half an hour saying `namaste` amid hushed giggles in much the way I imagined I had said it myself. The importance of correct annunciation has rarely been more apparent to me; the next 20 minutes asking for paper, drawing paper, plain paper, plain paper please, A3 paper, pens, biros, gel pens, ball-point pens, unlined paper, yes unlined paper, please, and other assorted disasters caused me to turn to a shade of red that any beetroot farmer would have been famously proud of, and caused the girls behind the counter to actually require assistance with their breathing such was the hilarity of my failure to speak properly.
They may have just escaped from the Rosario home for the mentally irritating for all that I know (it was just across the stree) but in any case the fault was all mine, I'm sure.
I tripped over the dog-child again as I left and even at knife-point I shall never enter that shop again.

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One final thing I saw which was beautiful and somewhat poetic: two tiny rust-red butterflies dancing together in some primal dance that no doubt would have lead to lots of little caterpillers sometime in the future; jutting and weaving around the base of an ancient tree - and I hear a screech above and just 30 or 40 feet from me two rust-red eagles are matching their dance, wheeling about each other and stalling in mid-air, catchign themselves in perfct syncrony and swooping off together into the distance.

A perfect end to another perfect day in Managlore.