A little over a month ago, I set off on a two week trip to visit family in India and do sightseeing. In this post, I’ll talk about the things I did during the first week, while I was still in South India (where my parents are from). The next post will be about our time in North India during the second week.

Here is the view from my window on our way to our connection in Frankfurt. It was a great start to the trip. ^^

Every newsstand I saw was full of news about Michael Jackson. I think it was literally a day after he died. This particular newspaper is obviously from Frankfurt. It was a decent airport as always, but $8 for a McMuffin and cereal? Really?

The first international airport that I’ve seen charging people to go to the bathroom, albeit it’s only a couple cents.

A beautiful dragonfly at my great-grandmother’s house. It stood still just long enough for me to snap this picture.

Indian drivers always have to look out for animals on the roads. That usually means a stray dog or water buffalo standing in the middle of the road, but every once in a while a whole herd stops traffic. This was a herd of around 400 almost identical goats.

I was lucky to get a shot of rays of light peeking through clouds. I get reminded of The Lord of the Rings whenever I see a sight like this.

This is the entrance to Brihadishwara Temple, built in the 11th century AD by Rajaraja Chola 1. It is one of the most beautiful examples of dravidian architecture in all of India.

Here is the main building in the temple complex. It is made completely of granite.

The temple is covered in ancient writing describing the kings actions and the building of the temple. The language is an ancient form of Tamil, whose modern form is the predominant language used in Tamil Nadu.

The main reason I was in South India for the first week is my cousin’s wedding. Here are his and his wife’s hands in a scene from one of the many wedding ceremonies. Indian weddings are long and complicated. The whole wedding takes almost a week and hundreds of people attend it. Since so many people attend it, future weddings end up getting arranged and planned.

The next few photos are from Mahabalipuram, a 7th century port city of the Pallava Dynasty. The first three are from the temple complex known as the Five Rathas. They were all carved from one single rock.

This is a temple complex known as the Shore Temple. It was built in the 8th century

There was also this huge boulder balancing on the side of a hill.

In this picture you see the two types of carving that Mahabalipuram is famous for. On the left is one of the many cave temples and on the right is a massive bas relief carving.

If you ever get a chance to visit India, make sure to spend some time in Mahabalipuram. It may not be as famous as the Taj Mahal, but it is older and its influence on modern India is arguably much deeper.

Finally, here is a slideshow of all the photos from the trip. Make sure to look out for the next posts about my trip and subscribe to my feed if you haven’t already.