The Mc Escher esq network of alleyways and collage of stairs trickle between the narrow alley ways down to the holy Ganges river where Indian's from around the country make pilgrimages to wash away their sins in the polluted Ganges river. An evening stroll along the moon lit treads guided me towards the sounds of rhythmic chisels. I followed an unmarked entrance up stairs that would only allow the most slender, around fractured corners, up ladders, through Boolean-cut portholes and along railess edges until I came across workers meticulously dissecting the heart of the structure by the light of the moon, very surreal.
Varinasi Scamapoloza
I got involved in an impressive scam that ended with me running full of adrenaline down the street yelling for the police while being chased by two men on a motor bike. It was only then that I realized the scale of the scam: the whole city is in on it. Indian's have a powerful way of manipulating that I've never encounter and all those skills of bartering go out the window. This is one of the most exciting stories I have from India, but you'll have to ask me about it when I return.
Khajuraho
Khajuraho temples riddled with meter high erotic karma sutra sculptures (I need the redundant descriptor “erotic” because all the KS paintings out there are anything but sexy) were as stark of a contrast to the conservatively dressed women as the lack of trash on the gound within this UNESECO's monument. Eroticism aside, the multi-teared structures are immaculately maintained, celebrately the highest level sando precision and relief construction techneques. We were so insipred, that we shot this fun video:
Blogger crops the right 1/4 this video frame in some browsers
Sanchi Stupa
On new years day, Mike and I finally got unstuck from the industrially toxic exhaust-filled unfriendly-urban trash-dump city of Bhopal to the calm and tranquil village of Sanchi. At dawn, we climbed the the singular hill overlooking vast landscapes of vegetation from the Great Stupa Mount (you Arch 170 students will remember.)
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| India day 29 - 39 Bhopal, Khaujaro, Udiapur, Johdpur |
