Saturday, August 23, 2008

Alampur





In what became a whirl-wind tour, went to India for 2 weeks. Found time one of the days to visit Alampur. For those who don't know where it is, its a 30km away from my home in Kurnool.. and it took me this long to visit. I guess most of us are guilty of not exploring enough of our own places, while spending tons visiting exotic places.




The temples themselves were amazing and I was completely overwhelmed by their beauty. Built in the 6th/7th century, by the Badami Chalukyas, they were reeking with history.






The priest at one of the temples, a hereditary job that has been handed over to him by his father, and generations before him, took us around the place, explaining each work of art and its historical, religious and artistic significance.





Most of the sculptures were defaced by the Islamic rulers of the later age. The Nava-Bramha temples were in a decaying state, not unlike most of Indian archeological sites, for want of proper restoration.




The archeological museum at the site, with an entrance fee of Rs3! - yes really- 3 rupees, had some more beautiful sculptures from the same period.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Time for Goodbyes

I am almost at the end of my 6 months term in the Emergency Department at the Royal Darwin. Was an amazing roller-coaster experience. Have met some very nice and interesting people and some not very nice ones. Embarrassed myself before my colleagues with my drunken antics. And the work was great. Learnt lots of stuff, or at least as James said, got more comfortable with my level of stupidity.

There are very few emergency departments in the world which can offer the kind of diversity of cases and weirdness that Darwin does and as Dr.Palmer said,there was never a boring day at work.