Yarrow's Adventure

Ahoy from afar! Laura and I have arrived safe and sound in India. We were driven to the airport, and waited an hour to board our plane. Once we got on, my recent excitement vanished. After the luxuries of Air Singapore, British Air is well, let me be frank...lame! Most of the flight attendants were men, extremely unlike the beautiful women that were oh so kind on Singapore Air! After that ordeal of the first plane (experiencing some rather odd food, like the "feel good cookie") we arrived in the Heathrow Airport. It's amazing even looking out of the airport at London. All the houses are duplicates of each other, the same house row after row of them! Me and Laura were exhausted, so after reaching our terminal, lay on the marble airport floor letting the heat sink in. I ate half a bar of chocolate, which once i got on I quickly regretted. The next few hours I will leave unmentioned, other that the fact that Laura continued to ask the flight attendant for more barf-bags for the poor child sitting next to her. I survived, however, and we reached the Bangalore airport ready for grand excitement. None came, however, for, although the airport has changed a great deal (no more bamboo poles seeming to hold up the roof up at places) the people still aren't all exactly what you would call...kind. We discovered this fact when I realized I had left my treasured book Breaking Dawn on the plane. The first person we asked was a man sitting behind a desk, looking professional enough. We approached and asked if it was possible to get misplaced luggage from the plane. He gave us a confused look, then, (I don't think he understood what we said) said in unpracticed English, "No." Disappointed, but also not satisfied, we went to the next man and repeated the question. He gave us direction of where to go, then his cell phone rang. Laura and I took the escalator down a few flights, got our luggage, and went to the lost luggage desk. A more kindly woman called someone who soon arrived with my book, which for a moment I feared I might never see again.
Ready to leave, we set off to find our taxi driver, and soon spotted a sign with the names Yarrow and Laura printed on the front. The man took our luggage and led us out to the street. The moment I stepped out of the airport doors i felt as if I had stepped into a bath, for the air was perfectly skin temperature, and you could not feel any difference in heat, which felt very strange after coming from Olympia, Washington, then going on to London, England.
The three hour taxi drive was full of giggles, squeals, and, "Whoa"s, which came from the backseat where Laura and I sat admiring the country side. Seeing the familiar Mysore was a relief, and getting dropped off at the house I knew oh so well from last trip was even more exciting! As we hauled our luggage out of the trunk my parents leaped down the stairs to meet us. Hurray! Greetings and hugs all around. Then we tromped up the stairs to our little house. The first picture of me and Laura was taken the day we arrived, jet lag finally kicking in.
My mom suggested we go to Tina's, a breakfast restaurant, if you could call it that. It's outside with tables inches of the ground where you sit on on a mattress. I had Rotis. The next few days went in a blur of memories, smells, and just getting settled in. Then was our trip to Sravana Belagola, a place where we were to go see a bunch of Jain temples of naked statues. Ick!
We met our travel companions at the coconut stand, who were a guy named Philip, and Laura. That made five of us. We got on a rickshaw (Indian taxi) and were driven to the local out-of-town bus place. All the adults had me worried to bits about getting on the wrong bus by accident because nobody spoke English. We finally settled in on what we hoped was the right bus, and prepared for a hour long ride. Unfortunately, the ride was three hours long.
Well, we arrived Sravana Belagola and felt the urgency to use the toilet. We went to where we hoped to find one, not along walk from where the bus had stopped, and found two outside ones, like two large outhouses. Aeryk went to the men's outhouse, while me, Laura, mom, and two other western women we'd met who were coming from Mysore (Philip's friends) stood impatiently outside the women's one trying to stare down an Indian man telling us we had to pay. "We just saw men going in and out of the men's room!" was our excuse. The man scowled and went the bathroom door. He pulled shut the gate attached to the door and walked off. We stepped up and pulled open the gate to see a terribly rundown stinky, restroom. We stepped inside and saw a two stalls which led to holes in the ground, no toilet paper whatsoever. I thought this was really, gross, but it was better than none.
We met up with Philip and were hungry. Philip told us he'd seen a restaurant while exploring during the time we'd been at the restroom. He brought us to the place, which was small, but nice considering. I ordered my favorite Indian breakfast meal, Idli and that spicy sauce. Me, mom, Aeryk, and Laura planned to go to the hill where the biggest naked statue in all of South India stood. All these temples were on hills. Philip and the two women all went to different places. We went to the base of the hill and removed our shoes, as all the hill was sacred. Barefoot, we began the journey up the hill. Schools were on field trip there, and lots of kids looked at me and wanted to shake my hand. We reached the top, despite the smoldering heat, and found ourselves within a maze of ancient statues and temples. We saw the big man statue last. Wow, he was huge!!!
Down the hill was much easier than climbing it!! We reached the bottom and happily set out for the second hill, which was smaller and easier to climb. There were dozens of tiny temples on top, where a statue sat in each. That is where the other picture comes from. It's me climbing down the treacherously steep steps that led to where another section of statues stood.
We returned home safely, though incredibly tired, and I conked out. The next days have been great. Over the holiday we will take a sleeper train to Chennai, and from there a taxi to Mammallapuram where we will spend Christmas and the rest in a hotel with a pool and other cool fancy stuff. Then we go on a couple day trips, and it will all be great! It's really exciting to be here! I'm loving the food, and everything else about Mysore. I'm also excited to blog. Everything Is super duper!!!!

Yarrow