After China invaded Tibet in the early 60s, a group of monks found refuge in a small town not too far from us in Southern India. Here, they built a monastery and a few temples with extensive grounds where they have been able to preserve their agricultural way of life. They also make some extra money selling souvenirs to tourists, mostly Indian, but sometimes a group of 8 or so Americans pass by.
Before some of us went on shopping sprees we stood in awe of the colorful temples and monks dressed in their robes. We were assailed by Indians who wanted pictures with us yet again and thought at times, we had become the tourist attraction instead of the temple. I apologize for detracting from the beauty if this temple. Check it out:
We could only hold peoples attention outside because inside there we 3 gold plated buddhas that were 60 feet tall. Being ten times smaller and not gold plated, I gave humbled myself after realizing I was no longer what people wanted pictures of (Im still counting on my 5 minutes of Bollywood fame)
After a while my eyes couldn’t take the sight of all that gold and ears had enough of the monks chanting that I stepped outside to gawk at the colorful pictures. I gawked and stared to my little heart’s content. Too bad elephants aren’t this colorful in real life, well, except when Banksy paints them for art installations…I guess he took a page from the Buddhists on that one.
This was a nice Sunday, especially the 5 hour car ride back jamming to the backstreet boys and weird Eurotrash club music that our driver mysteriously had on his USB drive that hooked up to the custom radio. Way to go pimped out rides!
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