Day 16: Wednesday, June 12th
Today marks the start of our SECOND excursion to… Mahabalipuram! While the floor slab is curing, this is the perfect time to mark the beginning of our next adventure. We’ve been hearing about the beauty of this place from Ken throughout the entire year, so I was hyped up.
As per usual, the nine of us played human tetris trying to find a way to squeeze everyone and their luggage into the car. These types of car rides maybe last 10 minutes heading over to the village, but to save money we decided to suffer through the claustrophobia and motion sickness with the hour-long drive to Mahabalipuram. Oyyy, good thing I’m a deep sleeper.
First destination: Krishna’s Butterball. Don’t worry I laughed when I heard the name too (try saying that three times fast). Pulling up to the Butterball, it was exactly like the pictures on Google - a giant granite rock that legit looked like a ball of butter. Our first stop showed a glimpse of a recurring theme throughout Mahabalipuram: CUTE ANIMALS (and so many rebellious selfies). A family of dogs were just chilling underneath the shade - ahhh so cute.
The entire area around Krishna’s Butterball was essentially a trail that led to different ancient temples. The group accidentally split up into two sections because Erica, Jane, and I spent too much time sniffing the flowers and taking hecka pictures. That turned out to be a good thing though! We explored every nook and cranny, attempting to do “parkour” to get to elusive locations for the best picture moments. Do it for the ‘gram amirite?
Every temple we visited was crafted with excellent craftsmanship and detail, and this artisan culture carried until modern day with a design trade school opening up within the area. Throughout this entire trip, merchants tried selling us their beautiful carved stones and painted scrolls. If only Michael had money (regretfully another recurring theme).
We ventured to a restaurant near our hotel called Babu’s cafe. Since our group was so big, they brought in reinforcements to help cook everything. As always, the food was delicious, and even better, we became friends with the owner Babu! He came over, chatted with us for a bit, and invited our group to take cooking classes from him. Jane and Zia learned how to make lemon basmati rice that was literally to die for. I’m getting the hungers just thinking about it!!
After lunch, the Adventure Kiddos (AKA Ayah, Jane, and I) make a rerun as we traveled to the beach. Thank God for Ken who saved our sorry booties that tried to sneak over through a small alleyway during high tide. Legit almost died… again, but it’s okay. It’s fine, I’m fine. Besides that, the beach looked like something out of a movie. No one was there accept us, millions of scattered boats, and our new friend ~ a loyal stray dog that followed us everywhere!
Heading back to the hotel, we stumbled upon a couple artisan stores alongside the streets. Since Ayah and I are heading back to the states early (I know… SAD), we decided to go souvenir shopping for our friends! The first location we went to had an entire collection of beautifully carved stones. I can’t even fathom how long some of their intricate patterns took to create. Here, a team of brothers both in the local design school opened up a business for tourists to learn more about their culture. The next stop on our souvenir hunt took us to a tapestry store next door. Literally, the nicest man alive, he unraveled at least a hundred tapestries as we were amazed by their beauty at least a hundred times. After buying some, he gifted us with rings and phone holders, and even offered us tea as we chatted and listened to his life story.
Coming back to the hotel, got us coming back to the beach as a couple more people wanted to be Adventure Kiddos too. On the sequel, we lost Victor (Ahh!! But what else is new LOL), made friends with yet another doggo ~ this time a photogenic one, played keepaway from the waves, and lost/found my already broken pair of glasses. Oy. Shout outs to Ayah for coming in clutch with that last one :D
We ended the day off with a pow-wow at a local restaurant. Mahabalipuram is known for their seafood, so we indulged with their amazing prawns and calamari as we relaxed and laughed the night away. Thinking back, this was definitely an unforgettable day :)
Michael Ramirez
PUC India 2019