Vishnu

Saturday I went out and did touristy things and took touristy photos of it.
Click on to see them.

We headed out to Murugeshpalya to see the 65 ft tall of Shiva. The elephant god above is Ganesh. He was there too.

The whole affair was a bit like Disneyland combined with a church service. You pay 100 rupees to get in (25 extra if you want to bring your camera. You’re welcome), and shuffle through several lines, surrounded by faux cave walls. Monks bless you at five minute intervals. In one line you drop coins into a hundred or so buckets. In another you get to pour milk onto a rock.

Now if this were a different blog, somewhere around here would be a detailed explanation of all these symbols, but I was kinda rushing through it all to get to the statue so…

¯\(°_°)/¯

It was a pretty amazing statue, but in all seriousness I felt a bit awkward being there. People were praying and placing offerings before the statues and I kept thinking about how I would feel sitting in church during the Eucharist and hearing next to me:

This is so cool. 

What an amazing culture. 

Who’s the guy on the cross again? Check the pamphlet. 

So I just tried to keep my head down and not talk around people who were praying.
But before being respectful I posed for a picture in front of the statue. 

The base of the statue. Children for scale

As you leave you pass through a series of stalls selling small statues of various gods and jewelry of questionable authenticity. 

So that was my very cultured Saturday. I hope you enjoyed and hit me up if you find out what those milk rocks were all about.

Miss you all,

Daniel