more on mamallapuram.

on our tour day in mamallapuram i think we literally saw every ancient hindu temple or structure that ever existed. okay maybe not really, but it was a long day and so unbelievably hot. keep in mind, too, that we take our shoes off every time we enter a temple....which means walking around on scorching hot rock....which means our feet were burning. good thing my feet are tough, right? i've never been so thankful for callouses in my life.

we really did see some pretty unreal stuff--some of the oldest hindu temples in all of india--like 6th century kind of stuff. one of the temples we saw doesn't even function as a place of worship anymore because it's been turned into a national monument--like india's version of stonehenge. at one of the temples we were each individually prayed over by a hindu priest. after the prayer, he gave us all jasmine flowers and marked our foreheads. pretty interesting, huh? at another temple, the town was having a temple celebration, complete with a parade around the entire town. the temple chariot was about three times larger than any baylor homecoming parade float i've ever seen. we thought it was a building until it started moving. highlight of the day: ELEPHANTS. clearly they were the best part of the temple parade. i absolutely freaked out. the temple tour was long, but it really was interesting and we got to interact with a lot of cool indians along the way. the secular and sacred are so intertwined here. i think christianity in the west could learn a lot from that. just a thought.

i think when i saw the elephants in the street is when i realized--india is absolutely unlike any place i've ever been. i mean, there is nowhere else in the world like this. it's so unbelievable.