Day Trip to Sun Temple

11.01.09

Wow, I can't believe it's November already! It's hard to believe especially since the weather is still warm and the holidays are different here! Yesterday evening our new friend, Bhavesh, invited us to this Indian pop rock concert of this singer, KK. It was a lot of fun! I was surprised it took the Indians so long into the concert to start dancing though!

Then today we, my roommates, Caryn, and I, decided to take a day trip to this sun temple at Modhera, a few hours away. They made potato sandwiches and vermicelli noodles to take with us, and we left around 7 in a taxi we hired for the day. It was a lot of fun! The sun temple was really beautiful! It was built in the 1000s. There was a big reservoir with steps going down into it which I guess people used to use for washing and such. There were lots of little niches with little shrines along the way down. Then next to it was the temple. It was all made of stone, sandstone I think, and the carvings were beautiful. This stylized form is really interesting; the women figures are especially curvy and feminine (to put it mildly), but the men figures also are a bit soft and curvy as well, in much contrast to Roman figures where the muscles were so emphasized, my roommate pointed out.

Then we went to Patan to see Rani ki Wav, a really great step well there. It is one of the best examples of step wells which were common in this area of the country. They provided a place for people to get water and also a cooler place for people to relax and rest. This particular one was buried for a long time and so the carvings are better preserved. And the carvings really were amazing! Really beautiful and spectacularly preserved. They made the sun temple look like nothing!