Day 6: Heranjalu

Jona and Griffin here, writing the wonderful blog for our 7th day, which was our third full day in Haranjal.
 
Yesterday was jam-packed. We had an early start and we went to the dairy cooperative, where the villagers can go and measure the fat in the milk that their cows produce and then are paid based on the amount of fat that their milk has. We met the two women who run the cooperative and asked them questions about the process. Waking up that early was a little hard, but it was a great start to the very busy day that we had. After that we walked back to out homestays and had breakfast; we then met at Krishna’s house and then practiced more of our Yakshagana dance.
 
We then went on a bus to Krishna’s aunt’s house and we were able to meet her family. The entire bus ride, Krishna played Indian techno music and made people dance in the aisle with him. After going to his aunt’s we drove about an hour in the direction of some undisclosed surprise, to a restaurant where we were treated to dosas and ice cream. Then we went back on the bus for another wild ride involving Krishna partying on the aisle again.
 
We drove all the way to what we though was the beach, but as we reached our destination we could not see what was directly in front of us. Krishna took us off the bus and told us to close our eyes and walked us a good distance. When he told us to open them, we saw a massive 120ft Shiva statue looming above us. Next to it was an equally tall building with ornate decorations that we went to the top of. The temple was extremely gorgeous and it was heart-warming to see a lot of people excited to be there and worship many gods.
 
Back to the bus again where we were given more ice cream and we all filled up on water and such. We continued to party in our bus as we flew down Indian highways on our way to the actual beach. When we got to the beach we all changed and went to the water. The guys were allowed to wear shorts/bathing suits but the girls had to stay in pants and shirts to swim. The beach was gorgeous and the water was super warm. We all played around in the waves and swam until Krishna pulled us out of the water to play a Indian game Kabaddi, which involves one group trying to touch a line and once they touched it another group had to keep them from getting back to their side, by tackling. It was a fun game. After that we sat down and did our anchor where we reflected on many things during the day including the fact that not many Americans go to the Shiva temple we visited.  Then we watched the sun set over the Arabian Sea and we went back to our homestays for dinner and a wonderful night’s rest. 

(Editor's note: photos to follow in a separate post)