Try saying that three times fast! Mahabalipuram is a coastal resort town south of Chennai. David, Clara and I spent some time there having a look around.
Clara at the beach.
The Shore Temple. Mahabalipuram was a sea port for the Pallava Kingdom. There are lots of ancient temples and carvings here. They were built in the 8th century.
David and Clara at Pancha Rathas. A nice Father daughter picture :)
That elephant was carved from a single piece of stone.
This is called Krishna's Butterball. It stays perched in that position. Apparently more than a century ago, the governor of the city tried to have the boulder moved due to safety concerns. They used 7 elephants but couldn't get the boulder to budge.
Our driver told us that the Hindu belief is that Lord Krishna stole butter from his mother. It dropped from the sky and landed here. Our driver also clarified that this wasn't true :)
At the Shore Temple we saw multiple school groups visiting. Each group would enter the grounds and then all of the children would run for the fence (with their teachers trying to slow them down). They would all press themselves against the fence looking out to the sea and speak excitedly between themselves. We guessed that the schools may have been visiting from in-land and this might have been the first time many of the children had seen the ocean.
Comments