Our first stop put us at the Edakkal Cave. We climbed about halfway up the mountain to see this "cave." The view was absolutely amazing. The forests and sprawling mountains was truly an amazing sight. The walk up was more like a hike. The cave was not much of a cave. About half of it was actually covered and that was because of large boulders that had fallen into position. So I don't think it could be classified as a cave, more like shelter. One the walls of the cave were many engravings of life and the rulers of the tribe. These engravings date back 3000 years ago. The mountains were filled with little monkeys. It was so cool to see them out in the wild and be around 1-6 feet away from them, running, jumping, and swinging around. They were not really shy of us, so I was able to get fairly close and watch them eat and play.
After we left the mountain we went to a local historical museum. Nothing impressive to see. Just old bowls, bows, spears, etc. from the 12th - 14th century from the surrounding tribes. I was not allowed to take a camera in there, but It took me about 5 minutes to make it all the way through the place.
After lunch we went on a tribal village walk. This was nothin like the walks through the village I had done up north. These people used to be classified as untouchables in society. While this classification no longer exists, there is still strong discrimination towards them. They are extremely poor and are basically left to survive on their own. The government is trying to help out by building small homes for them, giving them subsidies food, and allowing for some of them to enter into the normal school system. They do not interact with normal Indians. The only time they would leave their village would e to get food from food shelters designed specifically for people from this and other surrounding villages. As I learned more about them, it reminded me of the segregation of blacks and whites in the US. To be honest, I did not feel comfortable there. We would walk up to the enclave of huts and all the people would hide or close their doors. I felt as though we were disrespecting the locals. I am not sure why our guide took us there. No one was happy by our presence. If you just teleported me there, I would have though I was in Africa. Very hot, dry, dusty soil, and extreme poverty. However, the people survive; the men have manual labor jobs outside of the village, so no men were in the village when we were there, plant and farm their local land, living off animals am what Mother Nature has provided for them. The only thing they get from the food shelters is free rice. I was able to get some really good photos of the locals and the village, so I will make sure to post another picture thread if and when I get the device that allows me to upload my pictures onto my tablet.
That night we stayed up for our usually round of drinks and we watch Indian MTV. It was interesting to see how different the music videos are here. They do not star the actual artist who sings the song, instead they have Indian celebrates lip singing the songs. As we watched more and more we saw the same 4 men singing the majority of the songs; everything from high pitched male songs to deep male voices. It was pretty weird. The music videos were all based around Bollywood, the style of Indian dancing (I was incorrect in saying that the style of dancing was Bolly in my previous post in Jaipur). Large choreographed dances. Quite different from what MTV in the US plays, aside from the fact that US MTV doesn't really play music videos anymore, now filling the slots with Underaged and Engaged and I'm 16 and Pregnant (MTV stands for Music Television right?).
Also, while I travel I have started to do a few things that will document certain things aside from the normal photos that I take. Unfortunately, I started it a month in but better late than never I guess. I have been taking a picture of my face everyday. By the end of this journey I will be able to assemble all the pictures and have them play in a sped up slideshow. So it will quickly show my facial changes over the next 8 months or so. Should be interesting. Also, I am taking a picture of every beer that I drink from the country I am in. Of course I am not going to shoot duplicates, I may be embarrassed to actually know how much beer I drink at the end of this, and I am not going to take pictures of different types of the same beer, e.g., Bud Lite, Budweiser, Bud Lite Lime. So far, I have the beer in Turkey and India. Don't think there is any beer home to United Arab Emirates, and I should be able to edit a photo to get a shot of beer from Morocco, so I am just missing Jordan and Egypt. I hope to think of some other cool things that I could document on the side. Any suggestions?
I wonder how my face will change during my adventure around the world? I already got a haircut, hopefully no scars. What types of local beers will I encounter during my travels, will I find a permanent replacement for the American beer I drink home?
Only time will tell and anything is possible.
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