Great Temple Bay Resort Mamallapuram

... pants or shorts. It looks really funny to see all these guys wearing what looks like a skirt, but it is so common, I think I have seen it more often than regular pants. Also, you can buy bananas and coconuts EVERYWHERE. I have never seen so much of either fruit in my whole life, and both are very common ingredients in many food dishes. I soon found out how much I enjoy South Indian food, as the meals here usually taste more fruity, less heavy, and almost everything ...

... to 5am and transportation and food is included. I decide to accept the offer right away just to check out personally what this "Bollywood" is all about. I meet three other people in the taxi that drives us to the film studio in the outskirts of Chennai. There, the boys get disguised as early 20th century British soldiers and the girls get to wear some fancy costumes, as well as getting a brief make-up session where the boys get to wear some nice mustaches. And ...

... somehow that was fascinating to them. If I had blond hair I wonder if I would have come out alive. At the top of a hill where a lighthouse stood, a man called Raj started a conversation with me. I stayed there for 30-40 minutes chatting with him. I didn't feel very good and had to sit a few times. That was probably the heat as I felt extremely weak so I decided to go back to the car (after having given my email address to Raj who ...

... t remember - my mum later told me that she had in fact taken me to Mamallapuram when I was aged 3, from Chennai where we had been staying for the previous 3 months. I don't remember it obviously. Well not obviously actually because I do have memories of our trip to India, most worryingly of wandering alone on the streets. Mum tells me I'd gone to the shop down the road and started a mango juice tab before skipping merrily back home to find my mum and aunty going spare. I also ...

... tattoos or the like. But if this were the case, why were the needles buzzing and why did the fellow sitting in the dirt on the ground keep dipping them into thick, black ink? Unreal, for Rs. 3 per tattoo these guys were getting random tattoos right there and then, by a man sitting on the ground using the same needle (of course) for all people, giving tattoos in record speed then rubbing some goo on the boys' puffy dark skin while they beamed with joy at ...

This was the second stop on our brief (taking it eeeeaaassy) tour of the lower east coast of India. Mamallapuram is a sleepy - well I think it was just out of season so most of the tourists had left - travellers' enclave with a beach, some guesthouses, restaurants, plenty of tat shops and old rock carvings. We spent a relaxing few days here, gathering ourselves up before the big jolt home and getting some last minute shopping done. We didn't do much but had ...

... to softer beds, clean linens, hot water showers, the lack of roaming livestock, and the general lack of begging and honking. Mamallapuram is another common stop on the backpacker circuit, and the guesthouses and restaurants really cater to western tourists, and is a great place to hang out for a few days to recover from some of the frustrations of traveling in India. You can walk into any restaurant and order spaghetti or pizza, trade books at used book swap stores, use ...

... faced by India is the ruination of the natural environment. At times it can seem that entire towns and their outlying vicinities can be several inches deep in biodegradable and non-biodegradable rubbish. As is occurring elsewhere, the rush to become a consumer society has made no allowance for the correct disposal of the trash that it generates. In times past, one imagines, this problem would not have existed as all waste would be composed of such material as banana skins ...

... on Christmas day.<br><br>The bus journey to Mamallapuram lasted only a couple of hours. At least an hour of the journey was taken up just getting out of the traffic jams and suburbs of Chennai. On the way to the bus station we had had an unpleasant altercation with the rickshaw driver (the same one who had taken me to the fort that morning). Perhaps we had become too blase about knowing how to deal with untrustworthy people but we had neglected to ask all of the proper ...