I've decided to split this update into two parts since
we are over 1 month behind.  The rest of our visit in
India after visiting Mumbai we spent seeing the caves
of Ajanta, the carvings of Mamallapurem, South India's
largest city Chennai, and the holy city of Varanasi.

Saturday night, March 24th, after the concert we left
by train to visit the caves at Ajanta, northeast of
Mumbai.  In the morning I awoke on the train to find
my boots had been stolen.  I suppose after 8 months we
are lucky that my boots are all that has been stolen. 
A backpack would have been harder to replace.  

Sunday March 25th we visited Ajanta which is known for
the temple caves carved into the basalt of the
horseshoe canyon walls.  There are about 25 caves
along one side of this canyon.  These temples are
ancient Hindu and Buddhist works some with very
extravagent carvings and paintings inside and outside.
 Most caves had an ornate facade with idols and scenes
carved into the rock and a small entrance leading to a
large chamber often lined with carved pillars along
the perimeter.  At the back side of the chamber is
usually a small chamber displaying a large carved
buddha or hindu idol.  The walls inside the large
chamber were often painted with colorfull scenes
dipicting stories of their idols.

After a few hours exploring we took a bus on to
Aurangabad about 2 hours south.  At Aurangabad we
could have visited more caves with even more elaborate
carvings, but we decided we had enough and wanted to
attempt to head to Hyderabad across India on the way
to Chennia on the east coast in true South India. 
Unfortunately we were unable to get the ticket we
needed so we spent the night in Aurangabad relaxing
that evening and the following day before our
overnight train to Hyderabad.

On the Tuesday the 27th we arrived in Hyderabad early
in the morning.  We just planned on spending the day
visiting the sites before continuing on to Chennai on
the overnight train.

Hyderabad is a fairly large and modern city.  There
was a large buddha statue sitting in the lake along
the city which reminded me of the statue of liberty. 
Like other cities the roads were clogged with buses,
rickshaws, cows, and people with the air polluted as
ever.  We saw the ancient fort atop a hill but fell
short of going inside after finding it was $5 like all
the rest.  Instead we visited the tombs below.  These
were large domes in a park.  Not much to speak of
really.  Although, we were approached by some guys
working for a movie studio who wanted us to stay and
be extras in a movie.  We had to say no since we were
leaving though. After, we visited the Charminar
monument situated in the center of a traffic circle
like a cross between the arch de triumph in Paris and
a Muslim Mosque with 4 minarete style spires on 4
sides.

Wednesday morning on March 28th we arrived in Chennai.
 The is the main city in South India.  We quickly
found
a bus south to Mamallapurem where we could see the
ancient carved temples and rock carvings near the
beach.

The drive was along the coast which is quite tropical;
 There are palm and banana trees all over.  Most of
the land is divided into small farming plots all along
the way with a few small roadside shops/villages. 
Toward Mamallapurem the ocean side plots were all
resorts, or the Indian equivilant of a resort.  There
was even a Disney Land type amusement park.

Mamallapurem is not quite so cheesey, but does have a
few bungalo style thatched roof restuarants off the
beach and a several roads lined with tourist curio
shops.

We spent a couple of days here taking the place in at
a leasurely pace.  The beach, like most in India, is
not a place for tourists to swim or lay out.  Instead,
you could watch the local kids playing cricket, see
the fishing boats and nets, and walk around an ancient
stone hindu temple along the beach.  The temple is one
of the oldest and most influencial towards most of
India's other temple styles.  It was interesting to
find out that the Roman influence spread this which
you can detect if you look close enough.


Just inland is a stone hill along the road with some
elaborate carved temples and scenes.  They figure some
of the carving was mostly for display purposes and
that many stone carvings were shipped out of the area.
 Even today the streets are lined with locals hand
carving stonework into some of the most beautiful
Hindu idols you can find in India.  This would be the
place to buy these types of carvings.  The sound of
stone chipping is heard all around here.

We were very disappointed to find that the hill
carvings were surrounded by litter and almost all of
the temples smelled of urine!  

On Friday March 30th we headed back to Chennai and
spent one and a half days there before heading all the
way up north to Varanasi.  Chennai has the worlds
longest city beachfront.  Mostly it is lined with
merchants and locals giving horse rides.  The city
itself has little to offer really.  Parallel to the
beach runs another one of India's disgusting water
ways.  And the underclass can constantly be seen using
the walls and SIDEWALKS as toilets.  We did see some
very ornate and colorful South Indian style hindu
temples and even witnessed a festival where they
paraded the temple idol around town.

We then spent 38 straight hours on a train to
Varanasi!  That was our longest train ride to date. 
Fortunately we met Tim, an english fellow living and
teaching in Hong Kong for the past 8 years, and
conversed with him most of the time.  We even ended up
spending the next several weeks travelling together.

Varanasi is India's holiest city.  This is where the
Varana and the Asi rivers dump into the Ganges and
where thousands of pilgrims come to bath in those holy
water.  It is an amazing sight to behold these
pilgrims and their rituals along the river on the
ghats (concrete steps into the water).

Although the water here is extremely polluted, at
least it was not black and smelly like so many other
waterways we encountered.  The city teams with life,
but has a unique character that we all really enjoyed.
 I even took the time to shop for a sitar.  The fellow
I bought it from took me to his home with the sitar I
picked out and had his uncle show me something about
playing it and tuning it.  I also saw where they made
the instruments.

Since we had such a long train ride and I had
recurring sinus problems, Than and I decided to catch
a flight to Kathmandu, Nepal instead of taking a
hellish 2 day bus ride on questionable roads.  It cost
us only $80 each and Tim already had a ticket so we
all went on April 4th to Kathmandu, Nepal.

India was a real experience to visit.  We were
surprised to see the extremes of poverty and excess
and were amazed by the variety of cultural influences
everywhere we went.  This is a place that you could
spend years exploring and our 1 month trip gave us
just a taste of what this place has to offer.

We found that the other travellers we encountered were
not as social as elsewhere and the locals are known to
run every scam in the book. This is why we had less
interaction in India with locals and travellers
compared to other places.  This would be a great place
to visit somebody living here or who has lived in
India.

Next time I'll write about our time spent in Nepal and
Tibet.  Hope you have not grown too tired reading this
lengthy email.  Than and I are doing great and have
some excellent plans for our 2 and a half weeks left
in China.  Details will be forthcoming.

Hope everyone had a nice Easter weekend,

Chris and Than