Touring Vijayawada

I like changes.  Even if it is just rearranging furniture.  For me, change is refreshing.  Of course some changes are much easier to adapt to and deal with than others. 

Even though we had only spent a few days working in the village, the day of rest was a pleasant and unexpected change.  Not that we didn’t want to go work in the village and see the children.  Not at all.  We would have.  But when it was decided that we would instead take a day off and go sight seeing, none of us took much convincing. 

The morning of our touring day, we drove to Vijayawada to rearrange vehicles and get some snacks at Paul and Uma’s home.  Paul was our very gracious tour guide for the day while Ravi did some work at ARV’s main offices.  

Our little group with the nice lady who cooked for us.

"Follow me or you will suffer!" -Ravi regarding this spicy sauce.

Karl feeding Ravi.

Driving through the city and then the Indian countryside was fascinating.  So much to see and take in. 

Workers harvesting marigolds for making garlands.

Doing laundry in the river.

Road side lemon shopping.

 The first place we stopped at was a giant Buddha, in the process of being built.  The year before the Dahli Llama had visited the site and given a blessing. 

Three ladies who wanted their photo to be taken.

 The second stop was an ancient Hindu temple that had been craved right into the side of a mountain.  It was fascinating.  

Meditating Karl.

As we walked along a path to see another area connected to the temple, we found ourselves being accompanied by far too many monkeys for comfort.  Two things I learned in my first encounter with monkeys: 1) Monkeys are extremely territorial.  2) Monkeys chase and hiss at you.  

After the monkeys chased us down from the side of the hill, they surrounded the restroom...unfortunately Karl was inside at the time.  He made it out ok.

There was  fair amount of rock throwing, yelling, and thrashing of sticks until we were safely away from the monkeys and back in the car.  

We ended the day by doing some shopping before heading back to our hotel in Gudivada.  The following day would be the last working day in Chevuru.