UDUPI, Karnataka

This morning I have gone to the computer lab at IC to use internet, in MIT and in the afternoon to work till 5:00 pm.

From MIT we have taken ricksaws to SP Police office (Superintendent sth) in Udupi , in my ricksaw we were Inés, Yajur and me :) nice group! After showing all of our passports the policeman has said that no one needs to be registered, except for Inés because in her passport is hand-written : "Registration required". My visa is excatly the same, from the same consulate but is not written that sentence so they said is not needed...

Rishi, Lorenzo, Fabrizo, Inés, Tessa, Yajur, Stefan,Rafael and KV despite is not in the pictures.

After the burocratic part we made a tour around Udupi, that is famous for its hindu temples. We were impressed with the normal people walking around and of course with the cows walking among them and eating in the street, still a little afraid of them.

In the first temple was not allowed to take pictures; we made all the rituals (Puja):
Remove the shoes before entering any temple
Then the Pujari (man that performs the Puja) puts with his finger a bit of colourful clay - usually red, orange or yellow - in your front and then offers you a coffee spoon of holy water, that pours in your right hand, you have to drink it and then pass your wet hand with the last drops over your head; after it also gives you a small piece of holy rose and green leaf that you have to eat... Some of us only drink mineral water so of course didn't want to drink that water that who knows where comes from...but I wanted to experiment everything - as always - and thanks to God usually don't have any stomach problem so I drunk and ate all that he gave me...with the hope that nothing holy could be dangerous for my health...:) There is a tray where you can leave your donation for the temple.

Just in the next corner is the most famous of Udupi temples : a Khrisna temple, commonly known as the Elephant temple.
The temple is not just the temple, is like a community, very big; inside there are several altars of the different gods/goddess, an artificial lake where people take baths to get purified, bookstore, stands that sell books and all the things needed for the pujas, gods imagens...and you have to walk around always in the clockway.

The elephant belongs to the temple and of course is also holy; you can feed him with bananas that can be bought 3 meters away from the elephant (1 banana 1 rupee) and if you put a coin in his tube, he blesses you touching your head. You can take pictures but without flash because it can disturb the elephant...we don't know the reason but when was Lorenzo's turn...the elephant started to be angry and to move towards us in an aggressive way...so we left...

After all these holy experiences we turned back to more earthly stuff, like going to a chinese restaurant for a snack and still had time in the way to "hacer el indio" :)

KV, Fabrizo, Inés and me went to the most fancy shopping in Udupi : the Big Bazaar . Before entering we had to leave our bags in a counter, but we had the laptops with us so we din't want; after explaining it during 5 minutes to the counterman, he decided to give us big plastic bags to put the laptops inside and then close them with these plastic brackets and take with us...but we also had bought already some house stuff so we left them in the counter...We bought a sandwich maker and a coffee machine for VF 203...such a luxury!! After a while we just took a sandwich maker without box because they couldn't find a packed one...when arrived to the counter...no idea about the price so...we can't buy it...we changed the model and finally, after waiting for a long time, we were able to leave the big bazaar!!We took a ricksaw to come back to Manipal and in the way back I remembered that we hadn't taken our house stuff from the counter so KV and me came back and took them, and then he went down in TC and I continued till VF 203 alone, it was dark and didn't remember the way but I trusted the driver and what KV had told him ...there were no problems at all.

Italian night at VF 203:
Fabrizo and Lorenzo cooked italian pasta in the italian way...oh my God, i ate 3 plates of pasta!! We made coffee in our new coffee machine and had a paparazzi session with Lorenzo’s camera. Diablitos...