Because there is always a part II that everyone neglects to mention

As my philosophy teacher says, "There must be some vey, there must be some vey!! What is zat vey?"
His questions are always met with silence. He is asking us questions about the meaning of life, and in particular, about consciousness. It is his favorite topic.
"Vhat is consciousness? Vhere is it? Is it in this table? Can you feel it? How do you know it exists?"
But what he doesn't understand that as little as we understand our own individual mentalities, he is asking us to tell him what consciousness is and where it lies in Indian Philosophical terms, a mindset that we have just recently started studying, and will soon leave behind, by choice or not.

Tonight it is going to rain. I am looking for to it.

Today Riane found 3 puppies. I called Blue Cross, which is an animal rescue site in Hyderabad to help animals, house animals, etc. They must have their hands full here in India.
I don't ever want to hear Charleston Animal Shelter to talk about how many homeless animals they have up for adoption.
Today I petted a puppy so small, it fit in my palm, and it could barely open its eyes. We found it lolling around in a pile of trash. I probably have some disease, because it was missing fur, but I know that puppy was happier by my presence after just pat. He followed me, and licked water from my hand.
I had to leave him behind, because there isn't anything I can do. Everyone keeps telling me that.
It just can't be true. Who ever tells someone else that there isn't anything that you can do?

I wish I could save everything that suffers.

Hampi Part II

So.
I left off at bedtime, Saturday night.

Sunday morning, we wake up drenched in sweat like normal. The power, therefore the fan, always goes off for a certain amount in the middle of the night.
We had a weird night, all of us. We heard a few explosions and some other strange things.
We had planned this much anticipated trip at 4:30 in the morning up the 675 stairs of the monkey temple mountain to watch the sunrise.
Needless to say, 7:30 turned out to be a better time for all of us.

We went for breakfast at the ever popular Mango Tree Restaurant, where a huge mango tree grows in the middle of this restaurant. Strange, because it is the first mango tree we have seen in all of India.

 

  

Be jealous. Banana pancake with honey and fresh squeezed pineapple juice.

I'm jealous of my Hampi weekend self. It was such an amazing trip.

Turned out to be rickshaw day.

We went for all of the places that only exist in fairy tales, the stuff that your dreams of ancient civilizations and great empires consist of. 

It even turns out to made of magic - walking around in a banana tree field, Jessica and I found these ferns that close up when you touch them. It was by accident. She made a video. 

It was one of those sped up biology videos that explain the evolution process in high speed, where things change and develop - these plants are big and beautiful and open. And then by accident, you brush them, and they close up so tight, so quickly. It was amazing.

It was Avatar-ish.

On that note, I have to continuously remind myself, as strange as this seems, that this is not my world. 

Does that mean that sometimes it feels like I belong? Maybe, yes.

But  in reality, this is not my life and my culture, and I must treat it with respect and honor since I have the opportunity to explore and discover, like I do in my actual home, life, culture.

I watch other people throw trash on the ground, Indians even tell us to, but I can't. Even when I know that is where it will ultimately end up, I can't do it. 

This big world is mine, and yours. I have to listen to it, and treat it with the kindness it treats me. 

(It isn't all about trash. I know there is a lot of trash talk here, but I am silently referring to a great many things that I must leave the way it is.)

So, mindblowing botanical mysteries behind us, we left for actual temples and sites.

Here are some pictures (of the ones that exist):

So, what we were looking at is to the right of Benny, the Sister Stones, but they weren't as interesting as the actual terrain. Whole mountains were made of rocks just like those.

Isn't that bizarre?

We are standing in an underground temple. 

We probably have some sort of parasites. Totally worth it. 

So the building goes up and down, and we stepped over all kinds of things in the pitch black. 

Riane hit her head quite a few times. 

There were fish.

There was smooth stone that has been walked on for thousands and thousands of years, danced on, worshiped on, knelt on. 

This was a house for the holy, for the hopeful, for the needy. 

Like everything else in India, this is it. It doesn't apologize, it only intrigues.

We saw the Lotus Mahal:

 

and a big cow

baby tomatoes

rocks standing on their ends.

If my father had been there, he would have had a hey day placing rocks on their end to say, "I was here. Don't forget that I was here."

 

we found the Queen's pool, where she went swimming and got massages. Sounds like the life.

We also found Riane's raccoon eyes from getting tan with sunglasses on. Found those babies from across the pool.

See 'em?

Then I got Jessica to take a frumpy tourist picture of me in front of a temple we couldn't go in because of restoration efforts. I'm trying to get more pictures of me in these places.

I realize that these places don't mean anything to anybody else. The thing that mostly interests all of you is the fact that I am India, I think. Not all of these sites. I'm also tired of taking pictures of places. 

It has gotten to the point that we are all looking at our pictures and trying to remember exactly what it is a picture of. We take so many photos of buildings that they all blur together. We review them, thinking hey, that is a nice picture. What is it?

Thus begins my modeling career in India.

Keep in mind that I have been trekking across mountains and fields for 2 days now in the sweltering heat. I am tired. This isn't my best shot.

At a lot of the places we went, they had these free standing trees, just like in Lord of the Rings in the city of Gondor. 

So many cultures have nature, especially trees, in a representational position. 

This symbolizes something. I wish someone had told me what it was.

 

This tree, like all of the others, had white blooms at the top. I bet it is beautiful if the blossoms ever fall.

Jessica found a cow friend. I found a dog friend.

Then I found a naked child.

 

Then I found adorable Riane.

These men asked if we wanted some fish. I said I would take a picture of them.

The eyeballs were staring wide open up at us. Grosses me out.

I see, smell, feel so many things here, I'm glad it was so easy for me to revert to vegetarianism again.

Then we were on the road towards dinner in Hospet where afterwards, we would catch another agonizing bus ride home. The pictures truly did stop after this. 

My parting vision of Hampi before my beloved camera was lovingly settled in my Amazing Race bag.