It was still a little drizzly when we went to bed last night, but we set the alarm for early o'clock in the hopes that the weather would clear for sunrise. It did, and some bovine beauties were already meditating on the beach when we arrived. This one may have reached enlightenment.
The holy cows share the beach with the fishermen and their boats. The sea was still quite rough, so very few boats went out. The sun hid a lot of the paint chips on the weathered old boats left on the shore, making them bright against the sand.
After breakfast and showers, we made our way back to the archaeological complex. The rain yesterday drove us in before seeing everything, and we wanted to re-take a few photos with better light. The large one with two elephants is Arjuna's Penance from yesterday's post. The other bas relief is from a Shiva rock-cut cave also
on the grounds. Although most of the images are of religious figures, this was never a holy site. As mentioned before, Mahaballipuram was a stone-carving center. Yesterday, I made the hypothesis that these huge carvings were really nothing more than an enormous PR statement. Today, at the Shiva cave, we ran into a professor of architecture and his students. The gist of his lecture, beyond some interesting history, was that, yes, these carvings were essentially a big advertisement. A 7th century billboard, if you will.
There were a few sights along the road to Chennai that I had wanted to see, so we hired a car for the afternoon to do some sightseeing before our flight. Our first stop was at the Tiger Cave, another rock-cut cave. This one, however was used as a theatre and festival site. During the rainy season, the pool in front would fill with water and be used as a freshwater swimming pool after bathing in the ocean. In the dry season, dancers would perform on the stage while the royal family watched from the sides of the now empty pool.
Near Tiger Cave, the Watcher Rock towers more than 30 feet. In the Pallava period (when Mahaballi was at its pinnacle), it was used as a signal tower to give orders to ships at sea during naval battles. It proved useful again in 2005. Our guide had been a coconut seller on the beach. When the tsunami started rolling in, he scrambled up the rock using the ancient hand and toe holds. Even at the very top of the rock, the wave touched his feet. He was then stranded up there for hours until the water receded/ settled enough for him to come back down. Today, the beach is planted with a thick bank of cashew trees all the way from Mahaballi to Chennai. The trees serve a dual purpose - they will lessen the force of future tsunamis, and provide a cash crop when the sea is behaving.
A little farther down the road, we stopped by the crocodile bank and snake farm where a program is in place to breed crocodiles to replenish stocks in India and around the world (the croc bank), and to extract venom for anti venom serum (the snake farm). Both were delicious creepy fun. Cz kept commenting how 'cute' the crocs looked. Not quite the adjective I would use. "Fangsome" seems more in keeping with their character. This guy is known as Jaws III. He's an Australian saltwater croc, and at 16+ feet he's actually not that large for that species! In case you were wondering, all the small children at the park were VERY well behaved. Maybe their parents told them about the source of Jaw's double (triple?) chins. [sidenote from Cz as I am typing this. "He might be big, but he's still cute." ]We arrived at the airport five hours ahead of our flight. Luckily Chennai Airport is the nicest of India's big three international ports. (Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai) We had smoothies from the juice bar, played cards, munched munchies and read until we could check in. Check-in was uneventful, the plane left on time, and we were off to Malaysia.
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