South India

Things got really busy on this last trip but I wanted to at least throw up a few photos to check out...

India was fantastic! Beautiful country, Beautiful people, Beautiful food.  One of the best places I've ever seen.  Spirituality and Religion mixed with overpopulation and crowding in a 3rd world country..doesn't get any better for me!

I spent 2 weeks in Bangalore and Chennai, which included sidetrips to Pondicherry and Mysore; a nice little tour of Southern India.   India is the 7th largest country by geographical area, the 2nd most populous country after China and the largest democracy in the world.  It is made up of 28 states, all of them being totally unique and different in their own way.  India holds an estimated 1.15 billion people, making up for 17% of the world's population.

Bangalore is the capital of Karnataka, a much developed city with an infrastructure based on IT and outsourcing.  Many tech companies are set up here and there is a huge business center. With this comes restaurants, hotels, bars, tourism, etc.  There are tons of expats living here and a lot of beautiful housing exists in the city and neighboring suburbs.

About a 2 hour train ride outside of the city is the town of Mysore.  Mysore is best known for it's palace which is luminescent with 100s of thousands of lights every Sunday.  

Entrance to Mysore Palace

Mysore Palace

Chennai is the 4th largest city in India and the capital of the state of Tamil Nadu.  This area of India is much more traditional than other parts of the country that have steadfastly developed.  Alcohol is almost non-existent and traditional values are noticeably more important here.  Chennai lies on the south-eastern corner of India.  I travelled down the coast to many of the smaller towns and the effects of the tsunami that ravaged these areas of southern Asia is still quite visual and apparent.  Many of the villages and beachside areas are still destroyed or in the process of being cleaned up.

Bangalore Bus Station

Further down the coast from Chennai is the former French colony, Puducherry, a beautiful seaside community with major French influence.  Many of the signs remain "Rue de..." and most of the people speak both languages.  The town is constructed with the same French influence and grouped into neat sectors and perpendicular streets.  Not far from Puducherry is the unique community of Auroville , which is definitely worth reading into.

 Chennai church