the city with a long name, mamallapuram

following a delightful stay in pondicherry we hit up another bus to a small village 2 hours north called mamallapuram where we intended to see lots more temples for just a day before we had to get up to chennai (madras) to catch our 24 hour train to raipur, 2 hours from sara's place. when we arrived we realized this was a place we should have scheduled more time to stay in. the small town was very laid back and had a fantastic beach and we were eager to get in some beach time, especially since there were other travellers at the beach and so we weren't hassled too much. mamallapuram is known for it's stone carvings and artisans line the street and chisle away crafting sculptures and figurines which are exported all over the world. seeing as we only had less than 24 hours of time there we didn't get to spend enough time seeing the sights, but weren't too dissapointed to miss out on more temples because we have seen many now. i was able to read the book "holy cow" by an austrailian woman sarah mcdonald over the past couple days. this is an autobiographical book about her experiences in india and it was so interesting to read while being here, for anyone who has been to india i would definitely recommend this book. i also started to re-read "life of pi" because the first section is set in the town of pondicherry and i was able to understand so much more about the character after having been in the town. sara and i are now in chennai killing some time before our train leaves and we just found a cinema and are going to go see the third pirates movie, hope it's good!