Trip South with my parents

Temple carving in Chennai
see all photos »

Well, the SIT program is done...somehow I've finished undergraduate while in India! It's very strange to think that everyone at home has graduated and may be leaving the area.

My parents came to our final banquet. My mother wore the sari I got for her and my father wore his kurta. They also spent an evening with my host family.

I spent the last week travelling a bit in Southern India with my parents...quite a different kind of experience from the ones I've been having. I felt like I had travelled to a different country for most of it. Almost everything felt different...the language, the dress, the food, the music, the pace, the people...

Chennai
see all photos »

I met my parents in Chennai and spent a few days by the ocean. I think I ate the best prawns of my life. We had a series of intense temple visiting days and spent hours in search of the perfect silk. We never found the perfect one, but we managed to get a number of shop owners to pull out whole walls of saris in an effort to help us find it.

In Madurai we visited the Meenakshi temple. It's definitely the one of the most vibrant places I've been. As a spiritual center, it's really different from any other that I've visited. Although there was a huge amount of energy there, it didn't create the crazed feeling that so many other places created.

Mom & Dad in Chennai
see all photos »

There were lots of elephants in south...

My father was blessed by an elephant! We were held hostage at the side of the road by an elephant demanding rupees. He tried to steal the driver's Ganesh from the dashboard, honked the horn, and sprayed the windshield until we gave him more money. We also got to go to the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary and saw wild elephants feeding in the morning.

We visited a spice plantation in Thekkady and I watched my father turn red and spray sweat when he tasted a very hot pepper...he declined when our guide offered him the "eardrum popper" pepper though.

My Dad & I
see all photos »

The last night we spent on an incredible Kerelan house boat on the back waters. There is no way to describe what it was like...a full staff (I felt just a wee bit memsaab-ish), amazing food (enough for six), and intense pre-monsoon showers.

I'm back in the bowels of Delhi right now, but tomorrow I'm heading out of the heat and going north to Darjeeling and then to Sikkim with my friend Eleanor...