This is actually the easiest way I can relate the story of the last 3 weeks of my trip to Southwest India, Amma's ashram in Amritapuri along the coast of the Arabian Sea, then to the southernmost tip of India, Kanyakamuri and from there with a day's stay in Trivandrum, over to Sri Lanka for 2 weeks in 4 cities.
Amma's ashram is a world unto itself and as photos aren't permitted there, as its a "holy" place, I only took 2 onsite - 1 of our elephant, Lakshmi, for whch I got a lot of grief from 2 friends - and one of a Masala Dosa for dinner a couple of nights before leaving.
In my set of pictures posted on Facebook, I got a couple of shots of the river/backwater which separates Amritapuri from the adjacent town, but nothing of the cool shots of the ashram, and particularly the Kali Temple. You can see stock photos of this on the Amritapuri Facebook Page.
From there to Kanyakumari, the second stop of 8 Amma made on her South Indian tour which started January 25, I spent 2 days there. This is the southern most point of India, and from its shoreline you can see the congregation of the Arabian Sea from the west, the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal from the East. Amma commemorated the opening of a temple at the site of Vivikenanda's ashram and then held a public event attended by 25,000 people. Yes, she's really big in India! Of note is the fact that in the late 50's, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi delivered his first public lectures in Kanyakamuri as well. It's a magical place where my friend Ward and I celebrated his birthday, January 30, with a puja at 4:30 a.m. in the Temple of Devi Kanyakamuri. This was as down home Indian spiritual as you can get!
From there to Sri Lanka, where I visited 4 towns over 2 weeks: Colombo, the capital, a beautifully busy city; Nuwara Eliya, in the Tea Plantation zone; Kandy, also in the Tea zone, but lower elevation, where 2 of the biggest highlights are the Elephant Orphanage at Pinewella and the Temple of Buddah's Tooth just next door to the Queen's hotel where I was staying. My trip in Sri Lanka ended with 4 days at the Cape Weligama Resort on a beautiful cliff overlooking the horseshoe Weligama bay..
The photo album for this can be found here: Greg's Sri Lanka and before photos.
Very cool trip. One I'll remember forever.
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