Charmenar, India

Made it out to Charmenar to see the palace, the mosque, and the Hindu temple.....palace is below



View from the roof of the palace - yes, there really are that many people on a given street here



I strolled down on of these back streets to see what was going on and I got mobbed by a swarm of people asking me for everything from money to getting a picture taken with me........crazy shit.



The local hospital just behind the open market



The buses here drive like they're competing at Le Mans or something



And I damn sure ain't getting on one of these tuk-tuks; these things are powered by lawn mower engines....sometimes I see like 15 people crowded into one of these!



Also hit up the largest mosque in India; over ten thousand people gather here for prayer on Friday afternoons



Ventured inside of the mosque - I had to take my shoes off (what a risk taker huh?)



The locals actually let me inside of the temple to take a pic (that's not me on the left though). I got blessed too, which was pretty cool. Glad I did that.



The size of this place was really impressive.



Then made it out to a Hindu temple. This place was so beautiful - made entirely out of Italian and German marble.



Unfortunately they wouldn't let any cameras or cell phones inside, so I only got a few shots from the outside. This temple was so peaceful, I could have stayed there for hours.



Shot of the temple at night.



And of course, I've been hitting up the buffets at the Marriott, the Sheraton, the Taj Krishna; this is the entrance to the Sheraton.



Nice little view of the pool while eating out on the patio.



I didn't even bother with getting the regular food - had to cut straight to the good stuff.



The calm before the storm, things are seconds away from getting serious

Singapore (back at it again)

As most know, I'm out on my next adventure....first off, there's no other way to fly than Singapore Airlines - talk about service. These guys know how to treat passengers right, and the airbuses are really spacious.



Singapore International Airport is friggin huge! There's a mall, food courts, a hotel, a movie theater, bars, a massage parlor, and armed military men walking around with big ass machine guns (I opted not to take a picture of them).



There's a lot of foliage in Singapore, which makes this place really easy on the eyes.



I was told that the government looks at Singapore as a country within a garden. It looked like this everywhere I went.



Singapore has an "Eye of Singapore," which they clearly ripped from my homies in London - c'mon guys - strive to be original.



The skyline here is phenomenal though; I understand this whole "four tigers of the east" deal now.



This place is so clean it's crazy - I started feeling guilty just walking around and leaving footprints behind me.



It's highly impressive how developed this country is. I didn't realize there was such economic momentum here.



Took a stroll through the city, a really safe place. And of course, more trees.



The downtown is particularly impressive. There are literally towers in all directions.......and there's a statue of some random Brit on the right......brilliant!



Jumped on a little boat and started out on a cruise down the river.



Singapore is ultra humid. For a hot minute I thought I was gonna jump in the water, but as you can see by the color, I decided against that.



There's a really cool little "on the river" culture here (kind of reminded me of Amsterdam). All those tents in the distance are little bar/chill areas.



A shot of downtown from the river.



More shots of the river front life - nice place to have a cold brew.



I was drenched from the humidity at this point. Had to step out and have a Foster's, which is clearly the beer of choice in the east.



Shot from across the way of the Government Assembly building.



There was development happening all over the place here; I haven't seen this many cranes since I was in Dublin!



A picture of the MerLion, which is the "mascot" of Singapore. Top half is a lion, bottom half is a mermaid.........I didn't ask.



All in all, Singapore is pretty tight.

Newgrange Tombs

I took a bus out to Newgrange to go see the "Newgrange Tombs"



Got to see more of the Ireland countryside, which is truly beautiful to look at



This tomb was built in 3200 BC.......seeing this monument (even older than the pyramids!) was quite a humbling experience



The entrance of the tomb, which was designed to flood with sunlight each morning for about twenty minutes during the winter and the summer solstices



The entrance stone with spiral engravings - crazy to think that these were carved out 5000 years ago



Coming through the entrance - coming down this long, very small passage way is not for the claustrophobic. Notice the sunbox just below the quartz - this lets the sunlight in during the solstice



Inside of the tomb, similar carvings on the wall



These stone basins are where the ashes of the dead would sit: when the sunlight came through during the solstice a theory suggests a belief that the sunlight would take the souls of the dead away......if this is true it's the first recorded instance of human belief in the after life



The spiral, stone-stacked ceiling of the tomb.......rain has not come through this ceiling in over 5000 years: the exhibition of trigonometry, astronomy, and engineering in this tomb is amazing. I wonder if they looked, felt and thought just like us?



The original foundation of another, long sinced destroyed tomb



More shots of the beautiful countryside - damn that's a lot of sheep



The Boine River, which sits just about 1000 yards from the tomb



I also stopped by the ruins of a monastery from the 8th century AD



An incredible celtic cross: monks had carved out scenes from both the old & new testament on these crosses in order to educate the pagan population



This will be my last post for a while - this whole thing has been an amazing experience, one I will not soon forget