India, Part 4: The Culture and History

After spending time in the big city of Mumbai (India's New York), and then at the beach in Goa, we took a tour of the state of Karnataka aboard the new Golden Chariot luxury train. The historic stone cities were simply stunning, and the culture that we encountered along the way was always intriguing. Above you see the work animals painted and decorated in honor of the pongol festival. The day we arrived in Mysore, we were surprised to find pink and yellow cows all over the city.

The ruins of the city of Hampi were definitely one of the highlights of the tour. It is no wonder that it's a UNESCO World Heritage site. Not only the intracately carved temples and buildings, but the actual landscape it was built on make for a breathtaking view.

The sculpture carved into the granite in the cave temples has withstood hundred of years of weather and war.

Fishing boats--I loved the colors.


The temple complex in Hampi lit up just for our group. For my fellow Nikonians, this was ISO 3200 on the D300, handheld.

The government of Karnataka has a policy of getting schoolchildren out to visit their historic sites. We encountered many of them along our tour. These are at in Pattadakal.

This was one of the "menace monkeys" we encountered on the way to the cave temples. They will steal even your water bottles are you walk by.

The stone temple complexes not only served as cultural centers, but also stored literature in carvings on the exterior walls.

And finally, one of the few Asian elephants we encountered on our trip. This one was at the Bandipur National Park. We spent an evening at a safari resort there, and got to go on a short safari tour. We saw some elephants, peacocks, two different types of deer, an eagle and many kingfishers, monkeys, and warthogs. We looked hard for a tiger, but no luck.