Yesterday Avi and I went to two temples (in Belur and Halebeedu) and Mysore Palace. All were insanely awesome. The temples, circa 1100's, were entirely covered with hand-carved figures, every carving completely different. The bases of both started with elephants all around the bottom (I guess indicating the use of elephants in either the building of the temples or in the rule of the people who made it, but just a guess). Further up was Kannada writing telling the story of the ruler, then higher up were all idols depicting different aspects of Hindu mythology. Note the sexual freedoms here 900 years ago - hair pulling, threesomes and all. I have way more pictures but it's kind of annoying uploading them one by one onto this site - I'll use Facebook for the whole album.
Mysore palace was also very cool, though they wouldn't let us take pictures inside. The highlights for me were the 80 kilogram gold seat the Maharajah used to ride on top of elephants, plus the generally decadent trappings inside - stained glassed peacocks, silver doors and more.
Nice pics Chris, glad to see you're enjoying yourself
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