Hello from Mysore, Karnataka

Graham and I are now in the state just north of Kerala, named Karnataka. The terrain has changed slightly to be less tropical, although the weather continues to be delightfully cool.
Leaving Rajakkad was a trick. The day before we were to leave Mohanan's mother died. He was ever the host and invited us to his home for the funeral cremation, but I insisted that he just be with his family. We learned that when someone dies they anoint the body with oils and spices and then create a funeral pyre, in which it is tradition for the son to light the mother's pyre. Mohanan is the youngest of seven children, but the only son so this was his job. He later explained to us that for the whole next year his family will not be celebrating any festivals, but will instead wear black on those days. For the 16 days following her death, they will not smoke, drink or eat any fish or meat. On the eighth day they build a thatched enclosure in their yard and the whole extended family, plus the local holy person, gathers for a ritual and service of some sort and then they eat together. It was neat to learn about, but we are sad for Mohanan's loss.

Back to Karnataka, we are in a town three hours southwest of Bangalore, called Mysore. It's a fabulous, small, spread out city that has a young feel to it and is full of universities. More exciting, though, is the large temple on the top of a hill over-looking the town, which we climbed up to yesterday. We were even allowed all the way into the temple, which was interesting. I confess, though, that I could not tell you why I saw any of what I saw-I'll have to look into it. We also visited the 3 square block fruit and vegetable market and were delightfully overwhelmed by all of the colors. It was a fabulous market experience and made us both want to cook. I have many great pictures which I will consider posting when I'm back in the States, but I have no way of doing that now since I relinquished my computer to HPWDS before leaving (they were excited to say the least). Today we are intending to see the main Maharaja Palace in the center of town. If you can picture the Sultan's Palace in Disney's Alladin then you have a pretty good idea of what it looks like. Totally fairytale-esque and entirely exciting!

That's all for now. Tonight we travel back to Bangalore to pick up my sister Freda at Midnight. Then we plan to continue journeying north. Our next stop will be Hampi, which has been described to us as "the Flinstones meet India". It's a town/archeological site of ancient temple ruins set amidst a boulder-strewn landscape. We are looking forward to exploring it.

Send me some email, I would love to hear from you all. Summer is wrapping up, the bridge fell, etc. Update us!
love,
Anna