Day 14 – Sunrise at the Southern Tip of India where three seas meet and Madurai with the Meenakshi Amman Temple
It started with a 4 AM Wake-up in our train car, now parked in Kerala, then loading up for a trip down to the beach. But this wasn’t just any beach, this was at the Kanyakumari, the meeting place of three seas: The Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean, and the Arabian Sea. I thought I might be the only one there at 5 AM, but boy, was I wrong! See more on the video! 🙂
And another amazing set of temples at Madurai, one of the oldest cities in the world. These temples at Meenakshi Amman are INSANE. I was not allowed to bring my regular cameras or Osmo (see Osmo Review), so I only had my Android Nexus 6P for photos and videos, which is mega-fine. I loved these temples so much… I’ve never seen anything quite like them. There are 14 colorful goporums (gateway towers), all brightly colored with Dravidian-style Hindu gods.
Then you can join me on a little train tour before ending up at a confusing night-show at Tamil Nadu. I was sitting by a woman who is an oral surgeon in Detroit. Halfway through the show, I asked her if she had any nitrous oxide.
The Sea Smashing Before the Game of Thornes scene.
A Pilgramage of Red.
An Eerie Light Show that still confuses me.
Our Train Pulls into the Station.
Assembling at the Temple.
Painted Ladies Walking.
Second Class.
This train had all kinds of people on it from all walks of life. Here’s me with the Greek Ambassador Tassos Kriekoukis exploring a Hundu temple..
Daily Photo – Sunrise on the southern tip of India where the three seas meet
Sunrise on the southern tip of India where the three seas meet
The day started at Auroville, the experimental City of Dawn, deep off-track in South India. This place reminds me of a sci-fi combo of Burning Man and a cult! Well cult is probably the wrong word… but I’m really into meditation and stuff, so a lot of it appeals to me. This city was started in 1968 by “The Mother” (cult-signals ringing in head) and it’s open to the whole world, but only by appointment and if you give up all other religions. There are actually people from over 50 countries living here… they plan to grow it to 50,000 people. There’s a huge golden sphere inside of which you can “concentrate” in front of a crystal ball which has golden sunlight mechanically reflected into it, unless it is cloudy or there is unconcetrated rain. I’m joking, but I actually would like to go inside of there and meditate. Anyway, I found the whole place fascinating… it’s kind of when you are sitting around with your friends saying, “You know what, if I built my own city, it would look like THIS.”
We spent some time in Puducherry as well, shopping, eating and exploring. There’s a huge beach there that fronts on the Bay of Bengal and the kids had fun running around there.
We also went to visit Brihadeshwarea Temple in Thanjavur, another UNESCO World Heritage site. What an amazing temple! I took a ton of photos but have not had time to process any of them yet. Stay tuned on the site for some of those!
Then in Trichy, we visited Sri Rangam Temple, which is India’s largest temple complex dedicated to Lord Vishnu. I got in a sweet quad flight there and took a ton more photos. Once again, the girls were mobbed by Indians who had never seen white people before… this place was so remote, we didn’t even see any white people except for ourselves. Many people that come here travel from remote villages in India for a pilgrimage to this incredible temple, so they’ve only seen white people in movies and such. The girls had about 1,000 photos taken of them!
The Center of Consciousness.
Sisters grooming.
Isabella has been in about 1000 photos now — many of these people have never seen white people before in person.
Scarlett gets the third eye blessing from Shiva and says shell never rub it off.
The day started with us getting off the train at 10 AM to begin our adventure in Channai, which used to be called Madras. I know Madras well from all my days playing Civilization! Anyway, we began at the Cathedral of St. Thomas were we saw his remains then drove on to a place called Mahabalipuram. Who has ever heard of Mahabalipuram? Who can even say it? Well apparently everyone here can and they had great trouble whenever I tried to say this out loud. I’d just get a lot of confused looks.
Tomorrow, we head on to Puducherry to visit more sights…
Making a pilgrimage to Shore Shiva Temple in Mahabalipuram.
Indian ladies love taking photos with Isabella and Scarlett because they look so different.
We started out our “Train Boarding Day” with an insane breakfast where we all made some “bad” food decisions and ate too much! Then we were off to the local markets to get our girls some traditional Indian dresses which they absolutely loved. They were quite inexpensive too, under $15! Then we saw a rather unusual set of cultural dances that freaked out Ethan and me. Finally, we made it to the train station in Bangalore for a rather dramatic train boarding! Now we’re off for 8 days across the southern part of India… we’re all really excited and having a great time. Hope you enjoy the video! 🙂
Isabella and Scarlett bought some new Indian dresses and love them!
Bangalore has been a real treat! We’re only here for one day before getting on the train, and we’re mostly resting and recharging. We did get a chance to go visit the palace and then Ethan got into a piano duel with a guy from Congo! I did a little bit of rooftop photography as well… The people here in Bangalore have been very warm and inviting. And the weather has been perfect! It’s been about 72 degrees all day long!
A Family in the park.
Heading to dinner at Lantern in the Ritz-Carlton in Bangalore — an amazing 3-story restaurant!
It was another incredible day in Thailand. There is so much to see an do here. I got started with a meditation before going into a Thai Boxing class with the family. It got a bit violent sometimes ha! Then we had some good pool time and other relaxing things happening before being treated to an amazing sunset and a fun quad flight!
Daily Photo – The last sunset of 2015 from Thailand…
I hope everyone has a GREAT 2016… I think it’s gonna be an amazing one! I don’t really make New Year Resolutions, although I know it’s kind of a popular thing. I’m usually pretty good about making Completely Arbitrary Resolutions, and I do them randomly and just put them into motion immediately. This method has varied success.
Traveling Ratcliff Photo Circus Around The World!
I know I’ve done 3 days in a row here… I can’t commit to it because all this takes a lot of time and work, actually! But we did do some amazing things today that were worth capturing. It started out with all of us in a party van with a mirrored ceiling for a short ride to get on a boat. We took the boat for about an hour to visit four small islands around Phi Phi. They were amazing and we had a great time snorkeling and swimming. Where are they exactly? See This Google Map. We ended with a lunch on Bamboo Island before coming back… and pretty much after we got back, it was time to visit CoCo the baby elephant on the beach! CoCo is 3 years old and it was on the way to being a circus elephant, but the group here rescued him and now he does nothing but rest and relax and eat! Sounds nice… they say that chain is on him when in public because sometimes boats scare him and he runs wild!
Right before Coco walked home for the evening, the owner stopped for a moment for Scarlett to give a final snack for the night as the sun was setting.
Daily Photo – Right before Coco walked home for the evening
The owner stopped for a moment for Scarlett to give a final snack for the night as the sun was setting.
The Traveling Ratcliff Photo Circus Around The World!
Day 1 was a combination of 4 flights, 5 airports, and 3 tired children! But it was great after we finally arrived at our destination near Krabi, Thailand at Phulay Bay, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve. Everyone was pretty much out of it by the time we took the 12-hour flight from Auckland to Hong Kong. I’m not even sure how we found our plane… I was sort of in zombie-international-airport mode and we finally found our way. Anyway, after we finally got to Krabi, we had a nice drive to the hotel. We 20% unpacked then headed to the bar by the beach for sunset cocktails and photos. And then we had one of the most amazing dinners of our lives: a private BBQ buffet on the beach. We even got Ethan back there to cook a little bit with the chefs… so much fun!
Happy New Year’s Eve Everyone!
I hope you have a GREAT one! 🙂
My favorite talk from this year
Here’s a TEDx talk I did here in my hometown… I hope you enjoy and it inspires you for 2016! 🙂
A Few Favorite Snaps from 2015
Thanks again for joining me for another year of adventures and discoveries and art! I can hardly wait till 2016!
Here’s some of my favorite snaps from this year… 🙂
Hey! Guess what? I’m taking my whole family of 5 on a harrowing 30-day trip around the world, visiting 5 different countries. We’re hitting Thailand, India, Oman, Qatar, and Italy! I’m really excited. I’ll make a bunch of these little videos along the way if that’s okay… here’s day “Zero” where I’m getting a little packed up!
Osmo Review
I got this cool new camera from DJI called the Osmo. I gotta make a review of this thing… it’s mega awesome. I’ve been using it a lot to make selfie-videos or travelog kinda things. It’s a really fun (and productive!) toy!
Daily Photo – People of Papua New Guinea Part 18
This whole tribe had a serious manner about them the entire time, and never broke character. It was BAKING HOT under the noon sun, but they didn’t seem to mind. If you think she was sweating, you should have seen me! These are some tough gals for sure.
