Standing in Holy Places

Tuesday (the 17th) we wandered around Kakinada. We rode on a boat on the Godavari for a little bit. I don't know why Ally is making this face. It didn't stink, although it didn't look like water I would want to swim in. (Ally's the one on the far left. Maybe sometime I should put up everyone's pictures with their names so you can see who all of us are on this trip.)


Kakinada was a French colony for a really long time, so there are more Catholic sites there than is usual. From the river we could see a gigantic statue of Jesus, which I didn't take a picture of because it was rather hideous. Underneath the statue was a large grotto, which we visited for some reason. We had to take off our shoes there like we do at Hindu temples. It was a lot like a Hindu temple, actually.


There was this unusual statue on each side of the entrance, which I assume is a representation of the scripture in Isaiah about the saints being borne on eagle wings.


We went to a Catholic church, too.


We went to the same restaurant for almost all our meals for the two or three days we were in Kakinata. One day as I was sitting in the waiting room Aishwarya Rai came up to talk to me. She gave me some sweets, and I gave her a peppermint. Here's her picture. It's not a great one, obviously.


That afternoon and evening we just wandered around seeing lots of boring Hindu temples. We did find some interesting trash cans in one of them, though.


They have these sorts of trash cans several places in India, but I think this is the only place I've seen "Cleanliness is next to godliness" written on one, in India or anywhere.