Finally, a Saturday off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We decide to take the day and finally tour India. My dad suggests Mamallapuram. Well even though Mamallapuram is a 95 kilometer (one way) trip, we decide to take a tiny TVS-50. Ah, 2 people, 90 lbs of bike, and a 50cc engine on a 200 kilometer (130 mile) round trip. Well we just get outside of Pondicherry and we start seeing birds. We pull over so I can take a look with my binoculars at the little egrets in the marshy areas around the road. Under the tree we pull up next to is an adorable puppy. I call to her (yes, I'm sure it was a her) and she starts wagging her tail furiously. She then crawls on her stomach under the tree root towards us. I come up to her and she immediately rolls on her back and tries to lick my hand. I then get up to leave but she gets to her feet and dashes in front of me. Then she starts rubbing against me. I can't resist petting her more. The she sits in between my legs, her tail hitting my calves, and looks happily up at me. I felt bad when I finally left.

We see some really cool birds too. The coolest ones by far were the pelicans. 20 wild grey pelicans. It was really cool. They were eating and you could see their beaks bulging as they swallowed. Sooo cool.

When we first get to Mamallapuram we first go to see the five pandyas. They were five ancient Indian heroes. The buildings are named after them. 3 of them are made of a single stone. Animal statues are also there, carved from a single stone. The 2 larger buildings are from 3 separate stones.

I would also like to mention the fact that people kept offering to be our tour guides, even to the point of trying to force themselves on to us.

We then went to a fruit stand for some watermelon. And we got mobbed. I decided to buy a souvenir from a guy on the street so while my dad gets the money out of my wallet, everyone starts sticking things in my face and telling me prices. To be honest, it scared me a little.

We tour around and see the temples and sculptures. One of the coolest things was the giant monkey troops. Each with 5 babies at least. They all played with each other.Also, after we saw the picture of Mahishasuramardini, or Mardini who slayed the demon, we saw the funniest thing. A big, huge monkey was walking around. He came straight up to a guy who was holding a sprite bottle. He swiped the bottle from his hand and drank from it. That's right, he put the bottle to his lips, lifted it up and drank. Then, because the bottle was still half full he took the bottle in his mouth and walked toward a discarded water bottle. He carefully put the bottle down and sucked the last few drops from the water bottle up. Then the monkey climbed on one of the rocks and chugged the last of the soda.

Then we went to the croc park. It was set up to save local mugger crocodiles,but got so big that now it is home to crocodiles and alligators from all over the world. We saw the currently biggest crocodile in India. And... I FED THEM!!!!!!!!! There is a promotional thing, you buy some raw meat, 60 rupees a kilo, and feed them. I bought 2 kilos, or 4.4 pounds, and climbed on the feeding block and threw the meat into the pit. The pit is double walled, so one of the bigger crocs (when I was done), jumped onto the inner wall. His front feet hung over the barrier and he opened his mouth really wide and held the position for minutes. I really wished I'd had more meat to throw to him.

Now for the NIGHTMARE, NIGHTMARE, NIGHTMARE RIDE!!!

Never, EVER, drive in India at night. You can't see the bicycles on the left or the cars on your right. They also have no traffic control. The cars on one side, in an attempt to pass each other, kept going outside each other again and again so that they formed a no-gap wall across both lanes. This nearly killed us multiple times. And Tata, you were worried about crocodiles. And then the people with things, namely sugarcane, sticking out from the sides of bikes nearly skewered us. It was, it was... ugh, so horrible I can't describe it. So as not to lessen its horribleness I'll stop trying. Wish me luck not getting killed.