Our next stop was Hubli Airport, which was the end of our India trip. Along the way, we passed through many villages. Many appeared to be a step backward in time, with very few motorized vehicles and no tourists. People are living much like they did hundreds of years earlier.

The architecture of the buildings we passed along the way were purely functional, with the block apartment forms being rather depressing, after seeing the creative forms of Hindu temple architecture elsewhere in the country.

Ox carts were even more common here than in other parts of India, with the ox horns often dyed blue or decorated (center).

In fact, all forms of transportation were decorated.  Be it tuk-tuks (upper row) or tractors, (center, and lower), or horses (bottom-center), people festooned their vehicles with flowers and other decorations to add color to their life.

As always, we love photographing the people wherever we go. Here are a few parting shots of the people at the Badami market enroute to Hubli. India is now behind us.  Next stop, Dubai, UAE.

We then traveled to Karnataka, a state located to the north of Kerala, to see the major archaeological sites at Aihole, Pattadakal and Badami, where the ancient cave temples are located.

The first stop was Aihole, built between 4th – 12th century, a historic site of ancient Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist monuments. It has great cultural significance as the cradle of Hindu temple architecture, with more than 125 temples.

The second stop was Pattadakal, which was designated as a UNESCO world heritage site in 1987.The village lies on the banks of the Malaprabha River in Bagalkot district of North Karnataka region. The town displays both Dravidian (Southern) and the Nagara (Northern, Indo-Aryan) styles of temple architecture.  What struck us most was how well preserved the sculptures were, even with the thousands of visitors and nothing preventing people from touching the stone with their greasy hands. The stories that were carved into the stone of the many Hindu gods were at times hilarious, and some appeared to be ancient soap operas.

The final stop was Badami, the home of the famous cave temples of India, which consisted of four caves, which were each carved from a single piece of granite.  The sculptures became more ornate and elaborate as we progressed from cave to cave, each created a couple centuries after the earlier one.  The above images are all roughly life-size or larger, and depict various Hindu gods in various mythical stories.

The amazing part was just looking at the caves in their entirety. They are carved out of granite stone.  The artists had to look at this mountain side, envision a complete three-dimensional scene, and then start carving from front-to-back, and from top-to-bottom.  The technology to dig the cave was impressive enough, with no power tools, but adding the artistic element made it truly mind-boggling.

Among the larger life-size images were also hundreds of smaller bas-relief carvings of gods, dwarves, animals in still more mythical stories. These were seen at every turn.

Of course, we always value the interactions with the people whenever we travel.  There was a small group of school children who quickly latched onto us as foreigners, and requested to have their photo taken in one cave (lower-right).  There were very few monkeys in this area, though one consented to have his portrait take (upper left).  Our guide offered to take a photo of the three of us (Pauline, me, Evelyn left-to-right in center image).

After exploring the caves and temples, we drove to the local village for Pauline to purchase more sarees, and where we observed how everyday life continues. Our driver informed us that this saree shop was the best.

It was also fascinating to see the various forms of transportation in town. From tractors (upper-left) to motorcycles (upper-right) to families sharing a single bike (center-left) to tuk-tuks overflowing with an extended family (center) to ox carts (lower left) to simply walking (lower-right), people were always on the move. Gasoline is quite expensive relative to wages, so cars were rare.

We took several little side trips during our three weeks of traveling through Southern India.  One was a visit to Munroe island, located in the Kollam district in rural Kerala, India, and well off the beaten path. We had expected to drive to the island and then walk around.  Instead, we were deposited on the side of the road, where a small wooden boat with stand up paddler was waiting for us.  We then proceeded to tour the small canals of the island.

Perhaps the most memorable part of the visit was the very low bridges under which we passed.  There were a few that we could simply duck to pass under, and one bridge even had bats clung to the bottom.  Many others, though, required us to lie down flat in the bottom of the boat, with the bridge still brushing our backs when passing under.

As we passed one small home, we saw a group of women spinning fiber with what looked like bicycle wheels on a handle, rolling back and forth on a wheeled platform. The sisal making machine looked like a hand-made twisting mechanism.  The boat driver let us off the boat, and told us that the Indian people are very resourceful. Every part of the coconut is used, including the short fibers from the husks of the coconuts (called coir). We discovered that this family was spinning the fibers to make natural sisal rope.

We realized that we have used rope made from natural fibers for years, but never given much thought to how it was made.  They took packages of strands of natural fibers, wound it into long strings approximately 1/4″ thick, then twisted the strings together to create a rope. The final product (bottom-right) can then be used for rope, rugs, and other products.

During our ride, we came across a man who was diving for clams (top-left). He swam over and gave us three of his clams as a gift, then swam away, smiling but never uttering a word. At another stop, a man sold us a coconut milk drink, a common thirst quenching drink of the region (lower-left).  As always, we also found a local temple, complete with colorful sculptures (lower row). This is another sample of village life in India.