Mangalore

Mysore was a nice town, although I was hassled a lot, people were trying to sell me everything, from cocunuts and incense to pineapples and opium. I made sight seeing for two days. I went to the Devaraj market, full of colors and scents. I also visited an art gallery where there are some beatiful works of a Russian painter, Nicholas Roerich, who spent some time in India. At evening I wandered on the streets and got inside a gambling place. Apparently, people were trying to guess a 2-digit number to get 100 Rs. There was a lot of excitement in the air.

After Mysore I moved to Hassan, pretty noisy town, surrounded by villages with some nice sights. First, there is Shravalabelagola (don't know who's responsible for the name). There are two hills in the village, people are supposed to climb them barefoot. On the first, there's a complex of 14 Jain temples, and on the second, a huge monolith statue of some Jain deity, I didn't even try to remember the name. It was going through renovation, but still, looked very impressive.

Next day I visited Halebid and Belur, two villages close by. They have Hindu temples with amazing stone carvings, so much details, great amount of precise work.

Then, I returned to Hassan and took a bus to Kushalnagar. It surprised me to find out there are Tibetan settlements in Karnataka. The Tibetans are very kind and peaceful people. The monasteries are quite big, there are thousands of monks around.
















There are few temples in the monasteries, the biggest is the Golden temple, which has a huge hall with giant statues of Buddha and 2 other guys, I'm not so good with names :) When I got there, there was a morning ceremony, hundreds of monks were sitting and chanting, some hit the gongs, some played flutes, all very synchronized, so the noise had its charm.

I got to speak to a friendly monk, named Ngaway, he showed me around and was very nice. The settlements are a refreshing change from the rubbish of nearby Indian villages. The secular Tibetans work hard, some of them make beatiful art stuff, carpets and thanka paintings.
























The next day I got on a bus to Mangalore, a big modern town on the west coast. It's a mix of religions here: I've seen catholic nuns and women covered with burka on the streets. I finally found a relatively cheap air tickets from Calcutta, so October 24 challo Bangkok! :) Tomorrow heading south, to Kerala state.

Damn't, I can't believe I gotta edit HTML!!!