Day 2: last stop.

The auto rickshaw dragged our semi comatose bodies (after the full lunch at the Mango Tree) to a masterpiece of Vijayanagara architecture. The actual construction date and the identity of the patron on the Vitthala temple  remains unknown. 

The gopura entrance to the temple . The light tower has been demolished and lies in situ. The gopura has gone extensive reconstruction (the red colored parts being newer)

The famous chariot in front of the main shrine with the garuda shrine

The chariot originally had horses – the sculpted remains of the horses tail still visible in the photo. The elephants replaced the horses about the time the original brick tower was removed.

The musical pillars with each pillar showing an index – a musical instrument it represents. The three pillars show dhol, damaru and zhanj repectively

  The “cupid” on the northern free standing mathapa in the Vitthala temple in Hampi.

The horse trainers.

Hanuman, the monkey god, shown handing over the ring given by Sita to Rama

The beautifully carved engrossed musician

The lover couple with the puckered faces.Almost mistook it for Hanuman

Various gameboard found on the steps on the mandapa extension to the main shrine as well as the conference room in the southern free standing mandapa

The Chinese influence on the Vitthala temple architecture. The pagoda style horns on the left and the dragon on the right.

US, Canada, Peru, Egypt, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Singapore.

Obviously this does not include all the countries I "touched down" …

King Tutankhamen, the 18th dynasty boy king, probably gave the world much more in death than he did in his 19 year life, 11 of those as the king of unified Egypt. His mortuary monument of death does not parallel Khufu’s gigantic pyramid at Giza, or Hathshepsut’s amazingly modern looking temple at Dier-el-Bahri or Ramses colossi at Abu Simbel. 

But it is the most intact of them all.

It had the sarcophagus – 7 boxed, and the jewelry and the chariots, the golden mask, the four Canopy jars, every single item mentioned by the Book of the dead, give or take a few.

Compiling King Tut’s three faces as we know them

His golden mask, giving us a glimpse of the face structure. Gold as a precious metal has no effect on me, though I remember standing awe struck in front of this exhibit in the museum in Cairo.

In 2005, National geographic used 3D CT scans to create a forensic reconstruction.

And then the just released photographs of the face from the past. The asymmetrical head, the wonderful buck teeth, the high cheeks bones

29th Dec 2006, the day we were on the west bank of Nile, we casually skirted the tomb, pausing merely to take a picture. Do I regret not going in – sure – I regret not seeing so many places in Egypt that the list is itself worthy of a blog …

End August 2003

Shinde’s,  Aski’s, Dhawan’s and Tawade’s

A flight to boise. Adrive across the desert.

A crazy three days …

I walked down the wooden walkway of Santa Monica pier , I realized that this is my third trip …. And then the memory came flooding back …

Here Goes…

24th May 2002 … Trip to LA with Ajay, Rekha, Manish, Shraddha (with lil Khushi in the tummy), Sachin and Priya

29 April 2004 with Baba, Aai, and Anagha… The last day before my digital camera conked off

Cindrella was written in the 26th egyptian dynasty (about 3000 years before Walt Disney)

The Red slippers

In September 1872, Waynman Dixon discovered a shaft in the north wall of the Queen’s chamber of the Great Pyramid of Khufu.

Unlike the 1993 Wepwawet experiment, Dixon used a crude metal rod to probe the shaft and found three objects tumbling down the shaft: A small bronze hook, a granite ball and a piece of cedar-like wood.

The objects were taken to England and recorded by the  Astronomer Royal of Scotland and handed back to Dixon. After which they disappeared only to reappear in the British museum (This is not the first time I have heard artifacts disappearing all over the world only to reappear mysteriously in the British museum, anyway)

Here is a theory which hypothesizes that the objects, known as the Dixon relics, are part of an ancient Egyptian geometrical spherical measuring instrument of surveying and astronomy which may have been used while building the Great Pyramid.

"This working example of a cross type of instrument with a measuring rod set at 45 degrees to the upright , cross bars for sighting and a plumb line shows clearly how linear angles can be found.

An exponential scale of 90 centimeters gives this particular instrument  an accuracy of 3 arc minutes, which is a coincidence with the reported inaccuracy of the pyramid alignment."

I guess, while the "What are these objects" question remains unanswered, the second question is, "What were they doing in the shaft?"

Other good reads

Zahi Hawass’s utterly readable article

Where the artifacts disappeared?

An intriguing story

Continuing with our preparations for the Inca Trail in Peru in about 6 weeks,  we took on the beautiful Mt. Si just off the town of North Bend. The trail climbs 3100 feet over 4 miles to the summit through alders and firs.

The ascent is continuously steep and entirely through forest, which my 5 year old, handled with panache and a bottle of lemonade.

The mountain is names after Josiah "Uncle Si" Merritt, an early local settler. It is pronounced "Mount Sigh", just like the middle syllable of "Josiah".

The tiring climb does not end with the best of the views, you see some ramparts cascades and an eastbound I-90, but then if you have the right company and the food (and I had both), the summit is a bliss.

The Haystack at the top is optional. While the climb has been made easy by the flocks (75,000 to 100,000 each year) that climb each year, many have died in this relatively short fall. The last mile on both sides is a killer. Remember climbing down is more challenging and taxing than the onward journey. Especially if cannot run down for e.g. you are with a kid…

Notice the typo on the signage.

The day on July 28th 2007 looked foggy. As a fact, it was supposed to rain in the morning. We were determined to go. You see , we were doing trial runs for the 2 day Inca trail in Peru.

Mt. Pilchuck ("Red Water" in native American) stands 5324 ft above sea level, with the trail starting at 3100 ft. The 3 mile trail (one way) is the rockiest trail I have seen in the northwest climbing 2000 vertical feet. An average climber like us would take about 3 hours to climb, 2.5 hours to get down.

Make sure you have good climbing shoes before you take on this trail. I used tennis shoes and struggled.

Especially, the last 400 feet is a four limbed climb to the historical fire watch tower built in 1918.

While Rhea (aged 5) was able to do the entire trip on her own, she is not the best of bench mark for kids her age (or twice her age). She can make the Energizer bunny look slothful.

The view of the Cascades, Olympics and Sound from the watch tower is (supposed to be) awesome.

And while we missed the million dollar view, we got enough for us to gasp every now and then …

Getting there: I-5 Exit 194/ east on High way 2 (6miles) /North on HIghway 9/East on Mountain loop highway 11 miles to Verlot.

GPS Address: Surprisingly, I always find it difficult to find an address to plug into my GPS. It takes a while before one can find it. . Here is address for Mt. Pilchuck.

1405 Emens Street
Darrington, WA 98241

After you reach this ranger station (and buy the USFS pass), you drive one mile east on Mountain loop highway and then take right onto forest service road 42 (first right after the bridge) and continue 6.9 miles to the trail head.

The timeless desire to leave ones stamp on another artisan’s work …

Here is a 150 year old engraving left on the beautiful rocks at Karnak

And at Abu Simbel (Bottom right corner of the image.. on Ramses forearm)

600 AD Roman grafitti in the temple of Philae

1799 graffiti left by the French army

And Coptic graffiti 2000 year old in the temple of Karnak

And probably the most famous (and deplorable) of them all .. by Belzoni in Khafre’s pyramid

I found a web-site Graffito Graffiti  dedicated entirely to graffiti’s on the Egyptian and Sudanese monuments.