Kerala, Karnataka and a few days in Mumbai

These are already the last three pages of my India travel journal (I think I already mentioned I got a bit lazy towards the end of my travels...).
More or less coincidentally, I ended up spending two weeks in Amma's ashram in Kerala (and joining her on her Kerala/Karnataka tour afterwards), mainly digging through trash ("recycling center work") and doing other kinds of Seva. And, of course, being hugged.


I wouldn't be a proper tourist if I hadn't been in Hampi. Definitely one of my (approximately fiftyeight) very favorite places (and surprisingly calm off-season). Also featuring: the first temple elephant I've seen which seems to have a reasonably happy life, at least every morning when she gets to enjoy a bath in the river, being scrubbed for hours all over her body, while everyone else in the village is washing their clothes and themselves just next to her (again: huge-sketching-audience alarm! ;D ).


Too busy with finding the best lonely beaches, sipping fresh sugarcane juice, and throwing myself into gigantic waves in Gokarna, the next and last sketch is already from Mumbai, where I also got to see my friend Vineet (I first met him via an IAESTE internship in Scotland four years ago). After all that travelling in the South, trying to stick to smaller places, Mumbai felt as if I had already left India (at least around Colaba/"downtown"). A huge metropolis, full of hip students and business men which made me feel tremendously underdressed in my stained Ali-Baba-pants* and washed-out T-shirt...

* Incredibly comfortable! So loose that it feels like running around naked but actually long and "safe" (elastic bands under the knees). I shudder to think about wearing tight jeans ever again (at least during the summer I can escape wearing dresses and skirts...).

DIY without tigers

In Tamil Nadu, there is a (famous) temple for every element - in Chidambaram for akasha (ether). So, the central enclosure holds.... nothing. Err. The invisible akasha lingam.


Since I was too lazy busy to draw in Kumbakonam and Rameshwaram (and again, Madurai...), the next sketch is already from Kumily where I took a room in a lovely homestay called Blue Mangoes (don't ask - the mangoes in front of my window at least were green). Lots of spices, lots of tea and lots of essential oils. I visited a plantation and got to see and taste and smell all sorts of spices. It was funny to see i.e. cloves grow on a tree. I'd just never really thought of them coming from anywhere but a little plastic bag in the supermarket.


Oh, another favorite, definitely: bamboo rafting (and hiking) trip in Periyar Tiger Reserve! I didn't spot any tigers unfortunately, but lots of elephants with their babies, boars, bisons, butterflies, monkeys (OK, they're everywhere), birds, snakes, and "jungle chicken"...


My DIY incense cone kit. It took me a while to figure out that there's a plastic cone mold buried in the powder. Messy fun (better turn off the fan while doing this!), a little bit like sand castle building.

Stone breasts, peacocks and crocodiles

A sketch from Trichy/Srirangam (most of the stone goddesses look as if the sculptors back then had been taught using hentai mangas as anatomy books...).


Now, to all the people who keep telling me I shouldn't be shy about sketching in public because "realistically speaking, nobody is interested what you're drawing anyway". Realistically speaking, whoever says that hasn't ever been in India (sketching, that is). I was drawing this Nandi statue peacefully sitting on the stairs of the temple and within minutes I was surrounded by a huge knot of curious people who didn't only block my view but eventually took my sketchbook, passing it around and asking for my email and complete biography... I was almost thrown out of the temple by a brahmin who thought I was giving autographs (after he understood what was happening, he just chaised away the crowd and told me to continue drawing immediately). However, only a few minutes after he had left, everything started over again... (I took flight and finished the sketch in the evening in my room).


Mamallapuram/Mahabalipuram - very touristy (actually, the first time I saw any tourists other than myself) but stunning (all the rock-cut temples, monolithic monuments and sculptures...) and comfortably small. And not to forget: the SEA!


Probably one of my favorites: a trip to the nearby crocodile bank in Vadanemmeli. They also have lots of turtles and snakes, and you can watch the venom extraction (which they do without harming the snake).

Puris and biscuits

Probably the most popular karma yoga assignment in the ashram: Rolling chapatis (or here: puris).


Alfie, our little sweetheart. He'd kill for a biscuit (or, well, just look at it very longingly until someone shows mercy).


My journey across Tamil Nadu:


First stop: Madurai (where I got myself a sari for undercover missions).

Saris, chapatis and Norwegian singers

There we go, another four.
This shows the awesome woman we met on a walk. It's fascinating what a nice time you can have together without speaking the same language (I must admit my Tamil is... substandard).


In the ashram I met a Norwegian girl who wrote her own songs (the lyrics in the next sketch are totally Christin Larsen's and not mine!). She had the most angelic voice on earth, seriously.


Everytime I look at this one, I feel the urge to apologize. Sorry Shannon and Polina. I didn't mean to...


This lady isn't only a great yoga teacher but also a fantastic ayurvedic cook. I loved the food but I know my(lazy)self too well, so I didn't even try to remember any of the recipes except this one: Chapatis - one of my favorites and simple enough to make it at home (Yes! I swear! I actually already did!).

Mantras, toothpaste and a hammock victim

And there's the next four sketches, also done at the Tureya ashram near Kodai, Tamil Nadu, where I spent my first fabulous three weeks.
The first two sketches are actually cheat sheets for the mantras we were singing for puja every morning and evening...



Once a week we took a taxi to Kodai to buy stuff and indulge in diabetes provoking coffee shakes:


Taking sketching advantage of innocent sleeping people:

CoE - comeback and culture shock

Still struggling a bit with reverse culture shock and devastated gut flora, but hey! For all the people who've been wondering what the hell I've been doing since I got back last week: Here's the comeback of Chronicles of E*phi (aka "the uneventful diary doodles of some girl you probably haven't even met").

Bye-bye India

Hello my beloved readers! After such a long time, you might be as surprised as my granny to hear that I haven't been killed by a tiger (or - statistically more likely - by that nasty plague I caught at the end of my travels). Indeed, I've been looking for tigers (not for mean stomach bacteria though). Although, unfortunatly but not surprisingly, I couldn't find any (although the bacteria found me).
Anyways, I'm back and, even though I didn't meet my ambitious goal of filling my whole book, I've got some sketches for you as souvenirs. All of them (but two, which have an acrylics background done with leftover paint before my departure) are ink sketches done with a brush pen with a splash of watercolor. Perfect travel equipment in terms of minimum weight and volume, but as much as I love watercolor, by now I can't wait to get my hands dirty with acrylics or doodle around with coloured pencils again. I get bored rather soon if I have to limit myself to only one medium for too long.
Alright, enough blah, here are the first four (as usual, bigger version after the jump):

Tata for now...

Or should I say அப்புறம் பார்க்கலாமே?
I'm leaving for India tomorrow morning and I won't take my laptop and scanner with me. Therefore, this blog will probably be on a hiatus for about three months (I say "probably" because... you never know. Maybe I'll find a way to post some photos every now and then or something...).
However, I bought a nice little book which I'll use as my travel journal (absolutely non-megalomaniac that I am, I got the one called "Leonardo da Vinci", heh). I challenged myself to completely fill it until I'm back - so, even though during the next few weeks it might be rather quiet here, you'll definitely get something to look at once I'm back. Here's the first page already: