Day 39, Shravanabelagola [Friday 11th January 2008]
Previous day: Day 38, Belur, Halebid [Thursday 10th January 2008]
Next day: Day 40, Madikeri [Saturday 12th January 2008]
We get the bus to Shravanabelagola, a town with as many different spellings as it has letters, and almost impossible to pronounce. Most Indian bus drivers are unintelligible anyway, drawling out a slur of noises as they announce the destination of the bus. But luckily there's as many private buses as government ones, and they want your business, so usually they'll guess where you're probably headed anyway and fight to get you aboard.
At Shravanabelagola there's a 60ft high statue of Gomateshwara, a Jain saint. It was built in the 11th century. This Jain saint withdrew from the material world to meditate and achieve enlightenment, and the stone statue depicts this withdrawal and stillness by a blankly serene pose, and vines growing up and around it.
Every year they build scaffolding around it and ceremonially bathe it in milk, butter, turmeric and flowers. There is a temple at the statue's base, although it feels a little cramped. An interesting point to note is that although it's 600 steps up to the top of the hill, the statue isn't visible from the bottom. I can't work out if it's by design, or if they just couldn't carve a high enough statue.
It's a simple representation, but with great attention to detail, notably the elegant fingernails. It also has a particularly pert bottom.
After the steep climb down we get a bus to Madikeri. We ride past haystack filled fields, bullocks pulling ploughs through the earth, tiny villages one after the other, all so similar - a sweet shop, a telephone booth, women sitting together in the shade while naked children run around.
It's very agricultural around here. Farmland as far as the eye can see. Brightly coloured houses dot the landscape.
We arrive in Madikeri around 7pm, in the dark, and find a hotel full of holidaying kids whose music and nattering echoes around the tiled hallways and keeps us awake most of the night.
Next day: Day 40, Madikeri [Saturday 12th January 2008]
Previous day: Day 38, Belur, Halebid [Thursday 10th January 2008]