Please do not wash the hands in the plates, Bylakuppe, August 16, 2008

Please do not wash the hands in the plates
Originally uploaded by kim.smith61

View pics here.

Today we (Julian, Christian, Eva, Ida and myself) went to Bylakuppe, the Tibetan refugee camp about 2 hours outside of Mysore. I should have gone with my first instinct and left very early in the morning to beat the tourists and to see if I could catch the monks chanting. I've heard different reports: they chant at 5AM, they chant at noon, they chant all day long at the university. Whenever they chant I didn't hear them. It was okay, but really no more than a tourist destination. I would have much preferred to be there by myself or with 1 or 2 others listening to the chanting.

We did see two cricket games though; monk against monk...well the first was really monklettes (junior monks). Christian even bowled for a bit.

The highlight for me was going to the university (in search of chanting). We only heard one but it was kind of cool though because it was off the beaten path. The stunning thing about all of Bylakuppe was the lack of litter. It was very clean. Refreshing.

Got some cool pictures from the moving vehicle again, but the funniest one was in the restaurant we ate at: "Please do not wash the hands in the plates." I'm still struggling to figure out what that means!