It may help to navigate this long single post version of the blog to know that it deals with the following place order, dates (a little suspect) as they are from first photos
Chennai 05-01-2010
Mahabalipuram 08-01
Puducherry (Pondicherry) 12-01
Thanjavur 17-01
Madurai and Gandhi Museum 21-01
Tiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum) 24-01
Wild Palms on Sea 28-01
Amma Ashram 31-01
Alappuzha (Aleppy) 02-02
Cochi 07-02
Munnar 11-02
Otty 15-02
Kozhikode (Calicut) 18-02
Kannur 21-02
Mysore 24-02
Malibalipuram 28-02
Blog started just prior to departure on Wednesday, 30 December 2009
CHENNAI 6 Jan 2010
Hello, just a first short posting to prove we are OK. I intend to extend this posting to record our stay in Chennai and travel onward to Mahabalipuram and will follow the same sort of blogging for the rest of the trip.
It was a big success to stay overnight at the Arora Hotel at Heathrow for that meant we could we could leave Swansea at the civilised hour of 12.30pm, get off at The Central Bus Station and then catch a free local bus the U3, which dropped us outside the Arora on its second or third stop (Compass Centre). The next stop is named on the LED message screen as on the underground trains. Walk across the dual carriageway, on a traffic light protected crossing. It was an incredibly friendly hotel which next morning we discovered was used by the BA crews. Up at 5am across the road and to the 423 bus which took us free to Terminal 5. Both buses run about every 15/20 minutes throughout the flying check-in daytime.Unlike Tony and Esther we took off only one hour late after de-icing. It was a painless enough flight, except that the head rest on the specially designed seats was most uncomfortable at first, improved somewhat by adjustment. It did not help that I had got on with a cricked neck which gave me some stick.
5 January CHENNAI
At Chennai our baggage was amongst the last to come off the plane probably reflecting the fact that we were amongst the first to check in via the computer terminals now installed at T5. Whilst waiting I changed a travellers cheque at Thomas Cook to give me Indian Currency, which cannot be obtained until arrival in India. (Got 60 rupies to pound instead of 70, ATMs have good exchange rates). Past the two prepaid taxi desks, the first asked 400Rp but I signalled to the next who held up three fingers, so 300Rps it was. Outside into the scrum with would be helpers seizing the ticket in hope of a tip, but we ended up in the first government taxi (yellow and black) in the huge queue, waiting for business at 2am, and he took us the 15km to our hotel Savera without incident.
The Savera claimed to have upgraded our room (booked via Expedia for £51/night after recommendations from trip-advisor.com) which is well equipped and comfortable and includes a splendid buffet breakfast, about 15 Indian dishes plus fruit, croissantes, cereals, toast, omelettes or Dosas made to order, toast and coffee, all very tasty.
A nice surprise in the morning was to discover that a complimentary copy of Indian Times and also Chennai Times was pushed under the door.From which I learned that free schooling for all in classes less than 30 was added to the constitution in 2002, but nothing actually happened, so a law was passed in July2009 defining further including a maximum cost, but still nothing happened and they are now waiting for a final piece of legislation to find at what date it becomes mandatory, but that can hardly be this year as until then the cost will be in no authority budgets. A fine ideal with so far no practical effect.
The other item hiding on the coloured page of advertisements in the Chennai under 'Did You Know?' Times explained that whistles used to be part of the ceramic tankards of the day, when blown that was to order another drink, hence the term 'whetting ones whistle'. News to me, but interesting.
A long conversation with the friendly doorman elicited three bus numbers, so we turned left from the entrance, crossed the road and took a 5C for 30 mins for 3rp each about 4p to a bus terminus near George Town. Though the old British military fort with bomb proof church, Clive's House and a museum was still a military base and we were frisked before being allowed in and our bags searched. It would have been time wasted had we not met Jonn Pathap who explained that he was in charge of swimming tuition in Chennai, that they taught school children twice a day at our hotel pool and started to fill out our knowledge of Chennai. Sure enough we returned home to find an echelon of children practising leg action.
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| CHENNAI, SAVERA HOTELPOOL |
Next day we tried his second bus 27D, or 27C as well as it turned out, the difference being that 27D is a special bus and costs 7 (10p) not 3 rupees. Photograph taken near the bus stop on a main street to the city centre.
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| VERY FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF CHENNAI |
We went to the vaunted museum in Egmore and were little impressed, the National Gallery section, ornate Victorian was closed as it was considered unsafe, elsewhere there was a fine collection of carvings from all over India but no theme or modern readable informative inscriptions. Disappointing for 400p each and even more so by comparison with the fine examples we saw recently in Lima - Peru, China and Bali. To date we have modern museums give an excellent context to the history and present day realities.
A notable feature of the hotel was the standard of security, everyone entering has to pass through an airport type security, gate which inevitable bleeps each time that we pass through given our artificial joints, but they calmly ignore the bleeps, from us and several others and even though they are carrying the hand held probes they never bother to use them. Likewise each car that pulls into the grounds has a mirror pushed underneath to establish there is no strange bomb underneath.
The weather for the first two days was ideal, like a good British summer day, with close to zero humidity, but the day we were to leave for Mahabalipuram it was overcast and by the time we left it was raining, but pleasant warm rain you understand.
On the bus back from Egmore, because of arguing over the 7rp fare with the conductor, thinking it was a rip off, we got into conversation with other passengers who explained the situation that the 3rp buses were making big losses and the special buses were attempting to put this right. He told what we already knew that we were in the area during the month long dance and music festival and suggested we should go to The Music Academy of Madras which we had seen as we left the hotel that morning. Music he said would be classical and free, in fact this week 2-9 January was dance and we have tickets for tonight's second performance which the ticket desk explained as superb, compared with the 6pm performance which was only very good.
So now to shower relax and get ready for the 7.45.performance, 600rp for the best seats in the house.
That night we went to the Music Academy to see the Kalakshetra company perform the classical Indian theatrical dance drama 'Panchali Sapatham". It was performed in their auditorium which was a very wide stage indeed, more than twice the width of a typical British theatre, probably because its main function was to hold classical orchestras. The opposing parties of the dispute were located at opposite ends and on the far left was a small Indian orchestra and singer, who sang non stop for the next 90 mins. Everyone (about 20 of them) was in magnificent Indian costume. The best way I can think of to describe the form of performance was as a conjunction of mime and dance, with only a few words of explanation at key points in the production, both mime and dance were to a fantastically high standard.
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| CHENNAI CONCERT |
She was one of many outstanding artists, another being the smallest of the men who threw the dice in a wonderful dance routine, but also the tall men on opposing sides who excelled with their high jumps. The emotion displayed was so well portrayed as to make the story entrancing. I now have a completely different impression of Indian classical dance which places it on the highest artistic plane. On buying the tickets we were told it was one of the top Indian Dance companies and I can well believe it. We sat at the front of the stalls and depressingly the auditorium though virtually full was seated mostly with the older age group, whether this was also true of the much cheaper balcony we could not see, but they too must have had a fine view since the location in a British theatre would be called the Dress Circle.
MAHABALIPURAM Friday, 8 January 2010
Decision point in the morning was determined once we had asked the price of a taxi to take us to the major bus station, the quote 400Rp was more than the 300rp we had paid to get to the hotel from the airport. The cashier suggested we take a motor rickshaw (tuktuk), and the driver said he would take us all the way via a couple of emporium, a bad mistake for Joan was determined to see every ring in the shop and according to the charming salesman had fallen in love with an sapphire solitaire with small diamonds embedded in the gold for 44,000rp (over £500). But luckily I had my head screwed on and decided it was not the right time to buy and a little more learning about price has yet to be done. See later at Mysore - the lesson had not been learned! The trip itself was quite painless and much better than heading through the dense traffic in the opposite direction to our destination.We checked in at The Mamalla Heritage which was recommended by our guidebook (Footprints) for both rooms and vegetarian food. It was however very popular and so like our two present neighbours we had to transfer after a single night there, all of us choose the brand new Pallava Dynasty (2025rp incl tax) just across the street, in which the rooms were absolutely first class and 20% cheaper as well. All of us however retained quite independently a love of the Indian vegetarian food of the first place and eat there each day.
The first pair we met were South African Indians from Durban and they had been travelling around the south with a car and driver arranged by their church minister in Durban at a cost of just under $10 a day plus petrol, the driver slept separately they think in the car, we enquired about the car but on reflection we thought what suited a couple on a 15day trip was not quite right for us who would take it rather more slowly and cover less country. Still we have the car owners number and may decide to make contact later.
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| MAHABALIPURAM HINDU FESTIVAL CROWD |
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| TEMPLES of FIVE RATHAS near MALIBALIPURAM |
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We obviously escaped Britain in time if The Indian Times is to be believed, the day we left Manchester airport was closed and later was -17 C, and the day after Gatwick was closed - we still get complimentary English language papers every day. The weather here has got hotter and more humid so I rapidly end up with wet shirts and have to watch in the evening for mosquitoes.This place is a far more relaxing stop than Chennai, the feature here are lots of temples both free standing like the Shore Temple and the Five Rathas (a World Heritage Site), entrance 250rp, and the free cave temples and the old lighthouse on the east side of the town which form a very attractive rocky, grassed parkland which is entered just behind the bus station.
Every night from the 15 Dec to 15 January there is a dance show usually two one hour shows, last night was classical dance and a company of two principals including the impressive young man who was the only male on view, his co founder and half a dozen young pupils, plus an orchestra of around six. The second performance was a solo act by a transsexual, who had been reviled according to the introducer, but was now winning acclaim and awards for her interpretations. Whilst expectedly well short of the magnificent show in Chennai, it was expertly done, on an open air stage to the lit backdrop of the wonderful carving on a 30 long almost vertical wall (Bhagiratha's Penance) which is the signature by which this town is remembered.
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| MAHABALIPURAM DANCE DISPLAY in front of BHAGIRTHA PENANCE |
Then there was the good coffee in the little restaurant opposite Shiva Guest House (Silver Moon?) and the friendly informative interaction with two backpackers Christian from Norway and ? from Oxford plus friend John met briefly, they explained the technique of bus travel in India get on early to get a seat, pay on the bus, and you will be guided to the bus via a series of men in brown whose task it is to see that passengers get quickly to the correct bus. Bus travel from here however is difficult since it involves getting a rickshaw to the main road and getting on one of the buses which we are told pass every 15 minutes, but having recently left Chennai may well already be full. The thought of standing for two hours on a crowded Indian bus didn't seem the right way for a first try at the system, neither did it to the Austrians or our friends at the small cafe (even for themselves who suggested they would double-up just as we are doing, hence tomorrows taxi. Though the advice locally is to go by bus and wait for the more expensive buses which may have seats, since we are not going to try we will never know. So next stop Pondicherry.
PONDICHERRY (Puducherry) Wednesday 13 January 2010
HAPPY PONGAL from Puducherry
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| CHIMADOR VILLAGE for PONGAL ceremony from PONDICHERRY |
For us there was the luxury of a four room site with ceilings 15 feet high, a total of at least 30 wall light switches most of which operated a small wall light, and a multitude of table lights operated from the power points. Anyone who stayed at the GWR Hotel at Paddington decades ago, or more recently Le Grand Hotel du Terminus at Carcassonne the will have the feel of the bedroom and room sized bathroom, so imagine these plus a large elegant sitting room with a very comfortable suite, then an entrance room with tables and a four poster bed with large wooden ends each of which served to disguise a tilting mirror the use of which one can only postulate.
For our part we slowly drank two whole pots of tea, whilst the other two were on their long walk of discovery, on the large portico/veranda with powerful fans to ensure that it was pleasantly cool in the heat of the day. The tea which would rival the tea exported by our nieces husband Matt from Kenya went under the name of Tetley tea bags, but was far superior to any of that marque sold in the UK. For breakfast we have delicious mango juice, fresh croissante and tea.
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| PONDICHERRY, VILLA ORPHELIA |
The only drawback of the location as I was painfully to discover was a few virulent mosquitoes, just a handful bit me each night and the intense irritation lasted for over an hour, even though I know not to rub the bites which only serves to augment the agony. For two nights running this restricted me to a maximum of two hours sleep, that plus the intense heat of the day served to sap my strength. Luckily last night I braved an hour or two of agony before falling asleep and today I feel like my old self, not to say very old!
Pongal is the Indian equivalent of Harvest festival which is celebrated across India but only authentically in agricultural towns and villages. It lasts for three days on the first of which they ceremonially burn all the things not needed for the coming year, the second day they let a pan of milk and rice boil in the hope that prosperity will overflow in a similar manner, the third day (today 15 January) is the worshipping of cows which are painted and decorated We accordingly have a minibus planned into the countryside for 3.30pm operated by Mayile Tours, just moved to 21 Sri Aurobindo.
Having booked that we tried to book a train to Madurai but found the trains were all fully booked for the day, because of the holiday. In respect it seems like a blessing in disguise for once again we have learned that the beauty of the way we travel is to take plenty of time to relax, in any case we may have found it difficult top get accommodation for the same reason. By then we had already booked a taxi for a day trip to Tiruvannamalai but could not find Vivica with whom we had agreed to share a taxi for the trip, so we ended up paying 1800rp for 8am-5pm. Whilst we were there they had come round and left a message that they had booked a taxi for the following day, so we have yet to find time to talk to them.
Our first trip by rickshaw was to Auroville, which has its fortieth anniversary this year. It was founded by Sri Audobindo as a new experiment into living for people from numerous countries (currently 2000 from 40 countries), believing in divine existence ( defined in Sanskrit as existence, consciousness and bliss - three of the aims of Auroville which include power and wealth, but without religion and conflict. At the centre of which the Matrimandir is a large gold leaf covered globe inside which to concentrate/meditate. We left a little concerned by the amalgamation of what seemed to us like elite intellectualism with such a concept.
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| AUROVILLE SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM from PUDICHERRY |
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| TIRUVANNMALAI from PONDICHERRY |
Tiruvannamalai was well worth the trip, it is the most impressive group of four huge sculptured entrance towers at the cardinal points of a high boundary wall, inside which are two further squares with smaller walls and another five small towers. Scattered within them are various temples including one which you pay 20rp to pass through various stages of blessing and could emerge with the forehead spots to confirm it. The whole complex was full of activity from the occasional procession of the god Siva and one of his two brides Parvati. an elephant decorated like one we saw at the temple in Pondicherry who was trained to reach his trunk out to small babies and thus bless them, to services in some temples, teaching and singing in others and the queues for a free rice meal.
En route we went through a large agricultural town in full flow of market day, or maybe there is always such a throng, teeming with life and noise and colour. All road vehicles make their presence known by continually beeping their horns as they attempt to manoeuvre the s chaotic traffic without causing injury, our driver was for ever beep- beep, or beep beep beep - beep beep, but seldom were things so lacking in danger to merit a single beep, or the urgent warning of beep - beep - beep. Next we went through Gingee whose dramatic environment apparently means it is often used as a film set, the feature being that it is surrounded by hills made up of piles of loose rocks and bolders, geologically they seem like giant terminal morains, but that would not appear consistent with a flat featureless plain.
We have been eating well as befits a home of French culture, most of the foreigners here are French. We have a picture of L'Ecole Francaise d'extreme Orient where Anne- Marie almost went instead of L'Ecole Francaise de Bristol when she met Jim. Pondicherry is obviously being given an uplift as its tourism possibilities are understood, the French quarter being a European haven, rare in this part of the world. Some buildings are being restored in keeping with the original design, a new paved promenade is replacing the sandy stretch along the long seashore at the centre of which is a fine statue of Gandhi surrounded by totem poles of stone. The streets are being paved with modern equivalent of cobble stones
We ate in first at Le Club directly opposite our Villa, well cooked food but we made a mess of ordering from the blackboard of day's specials, getting red peppers stuffed with fish rather then the whole fish we had expected. Thereafter we transferred to Le Rendezvous which was even more pleasant and have mow eaten there three times, we share a deliciously freshly cooked broccoli and tomato quiche as starter and have now eaten sea food sizzler 300rp, whole large Pomphrey (John Dory type flatfish) 400rp, and yesterday half a duck a Orange pronounced the British, not French, way as main course and Loan is unable to resist the chocolate mousse.
In the afternoon of 15 Jan there was an eclipse of the sun, by chance we were handed a proper looking shade to view it at 1.30pm, which in hindsight was the point of highest cover for Pondichery, it was like a thin sliver of a crescent moon, probably about 90% covered, though further south on this coast there was 11 mins of total eclipse or a ring of fire as the papers describe it. Apparently it is not likely to be as good again in this region until early 3000.
Last nights tour of a village celebrating Pongal was a big success. there were three full minibuses, two of francofiles the third of a mixture of European nationalities. There was just one other English couple brother Mark and sister, fiftyish who were obviously enjoying their trip to the full, paying about 500 - 800 for their guest houses, with great sense of humour and a clear interest in finding out as much as they could about the local customs.
The young mother with a boy about 4, Austrian I think since she was clearly German speaker but wouldn't accept that nationality, she was working on research at the local university as a psychiatrist trying to establish the best ways of helping the traumatised young, with special reference here to the victims of the tsunami with had badly effected the more southerly peninsular of Ramesvarum - very close to Sri Lanka. She also talked of two Esos NGO schools (one here in Pondicherry) which provide home for traumatised mothers and children.
On arrival at the village of Chimador we went on walks around the tiny farming village to see their rudely thatched houses an their cows with painted horns and apart from the totally different environment found little of interest, but come nightfall things changed rapidly. Firstly a little band at a small temple, them a serving of near chai, the first cardamon flavoured tea we have encountered this trip, then back to the cross roads to find all the villagers had gathered to witness the passing of large specially decorated lorries with the backs full of waving very happy children, a few motor joined but we saw only a single buffalo drawn cart of farmyard dimensions.
Mark and sister went back into the seemingly never ending queue of transport and emerged triumphant on the back of a pick up truck going where they did not know.
On the return journey we discovered the procession had gone to the next village where they were blessed by driving over a fire-well set up for a year of good fortune which started well since after the ordeal by fire the convoy went their separate ways but luckily theirs brought them back to our village and our tour leaders could breath again.
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| THE GREASY POLE |
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| CHIMADOR VILLAGE for PONGAL |
Eventually with the procession nearing its end this a successful attempt. This was no celebration organised for the tourists as we had feared before nightfall, admittedly there were us 40 voyeurs but there were untold numbers of villages and truckload after load of waving kids, which dwarfed our presence.
We have a very pleasant young British couple now staying at our villa, Will and Lisa, who are travelling for 10 months starting in China over which we were to exchange information because they had visited totally different regions to us, starting in Beijing before heading south to Shanghai, Hong Kong and then in the wonderful southern province of Yunning, from there they worked south through Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand and now India.
This morning we again tried to buy train tickets for the journey south but now having slowed down we are intent only going half way to Madurai to Trichy (it has a much longer name that I cannot spell) and particularly Thanjayur with its World Heritage temple. But there was still no a/c accommodation available, though there was a possibility of Second Class which I stupidly did not investigate.
We went instead by rickshaw to the main bus station to where we investigated bus travel for the first time on this holiday, just 58rp by state bus for 200km with through-buses at 4.40, 6am and 10.05am, with strong advise to go for the 6am bus. We also located buses to Villupuram which would take us to the main road and also the main railway. The main tourist sites do not correspond to the main routes in Tamil Nadu. In retrospect I would have gone for second class train, because it is fast with a lot more space and in the past has led to very interesting informative conversation whilst those less fluent in English listen, though at this time it will be difficult to move about for all the people without seats sitting on the floor, we remember the time we tried to change train in Punjab at 3am and found we could not open the carriage door for reasons we did not understand until a porter came to our aid and pushed and shouted until those sleeping on the floor got up and let us in.
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| RIVI DICHI with airline pilots at PONDICHERRY Park |
The number of people who wish to photograph us as part of their party or for us to photograph them continues to amaze, non more than in that park. A young girl came back to offer us grapes, the two she offered in her hand were insufficient and she wished me to take more, but I was fumbling so slowly that she left her tiny package wrapped in chiffon which matched her new dress. Another girl ran off to by two packets of rice crispies, one for us in return we were photographed by her father and whilst Joan took us me with the family with her family and for photographs with her and parents. Everyone was in their finery for this last day of Pongal, it was a real Passagiata with all the flair of Italy.
THANJAVUR Monday, 18 January 2010
It is pleasing to note that, like small Bali, one of the most populous countries in the world nominally drives on the left, but they are not averse to changing sides if that will aid traffic flow, nor to turn at a roundabout as though it were simply another crossroad. In this middle area cycles, rickshaws, auto rickshaws, motorcycles, taxis, overloaded buses, and lorries thread there way through with continual beeping of horns to indicate there presence and undertake, overtake temporarily blanking the oncoming traffic, all with utmost good humour.
In this country two weeks now we have yet to witness anyone lose his temper, or to see an accident. This is the ultimate test of the theory that left to themselves drivers work out the most efficient way to proceed to the benefit of all, introduce a traffic policeman or even traffic lights and you are well below optimum.
We asked the driver to take us to Lion City Hotel recommended by the guidebook and booked in without checking the options. Although described as a well appointed room it was clearly well under what we had been used to but we moved in and then having discovered there were no top sheets so went in search of somewhere else for the next night and so we are in the Gnanam Hotel almost on the same street and far better standard but it is twice the price 1400rp as opposed to 750, both before the 12.5% tax. They kicked us out for the third night to make way for a party including the President of The Bank of India! So we ended up for a night in Hotel Tamil Nadu for 1000rp.
The reason for being here is the World Heritage Temple and so on arrival we set out by foot a 15 minute walk and were delighted by what we found. A beautifully scaled temple which won it the accolade and in a beautiful colour not unlike Cotswold stone. Lots of space for in the past it was used for displays of dancing which passed into hundreds associated with the temple. Being Sunday and being the last day of the Pongal holiday it was filled by a vibrant crowd of Indians from all over the country, there were a few Westerners but not many since unlike say Madurai it is not on the 'must see before you die" list, which holds little attraction for me. At 4pm the inner sanctum (the largest temple) was opened so everyone headed headed for the narrow entrance doorway, not known to us then there was a narrow passage delineated by iron barriers. Soon a high proportion of the insiders were trying to escape the crush and trying to force their way throw the narrow entrance doorway having decided to abort. The effect was like the crowd trying to get out of a football ground when temporary turnstiles have been left in position, a frightening experience I had getting out of St Helens after the West Wales via All Blacks match soon after I started at SCOW Port Talbot. I now give large crowds a wide berth. All still with amazingly good humour.
There are three entrance gates in series which leads to the immense often grassed courtyard, the main features being a covered decorated housing for a giant Nandi the bull associated as a re-incarnation of Shiva. On this occasion he had been slaughtered by a huge sword. Around the courtyard are the cloisters with many carry in still obvious portrayals presumably telling some of the stories related to Shiva. Joan is doing her best to learn some of the myths. To the back of the courtyard is the main temple. Every evening at 4pm in the cool of the day Joan went back to wonder in the peace and tranquillity which reigned after the crowds of the first night. Writing now from Kerala we look back on our experience of that temple as quite superb, far better than the much more famed, much more intricate Madurai and better than Thiruvanapuram and stands as a highlight of our time in Tamil Nadu.
Joan being blessed by an Elephant for 10rp, locals put 2rp in elephants trunk
We have found another fine cheap Indian Restaurant Sathars aimed at tourists Indian and Westerners but with Indian food both Veg and Non Veg. The Tandoori Tikka chicken is very tasty and we had it both nights so far first with Palak Paneer and then with Mutton Akbari which was delicious, the first meal cost almost 400 with breads, mineral water and coffee, the second with rice and mineral water was only 300rp. For breakfast in Gnanam we have had Curd Vadai and tea, rather like a bowl of yoghurt with a spicy cake. Surprisingly I recommend the establishment for the high quality of the cooking and reckon that 32 Westerners ate there last night just outnumbering the Indians who headed for the a/c section - Joan thought they were avoiding us westerners.
I say good surprisingly because I have been passing curry coloured water at hourly intervals during the night, and which has continued in spite of my avoidance of anything except water and black tea. Joan has just come back having located a chemist with WHO formula powder to mix with a litre of water to help replace electrolytes. We now learn that there is no space in the hotel tomorrow so decision time will be to search for alternate accommodation or brave the 4 hour journey to Madurai. In all my travelling I have never experienced such pressure on accommodation, perhaps in part a sign of the growth in prosperity of the middle classes here.
At Thanjavur temple we met Toni and Monica from Seattle, young students who were now studying at Auroville. Very interesting to talk to but we needed longer to sort out exactly what studying at Auroville meant, it seemed there was a very wide range of topics including contrasting the ideals of Auroville with the way of life in Tamil Nadu, protecting the environment etc etc.
At breakfast today we had a discussion with four Australian women who were travelling around having already been to Kerala and Madurai they were heading in a reverse direction and so able to give us many tips which we will probably not remember when the time comes around. They were obviously taken by The Residency in Madurai particularly the breakfasts, but not by Ramesvaram, 'a difficult unrewarding trip', but loved a run down to once magnificent palace at Chettinad. Women are the romantic sex!
Also in Thanjavur are the ruined palace, Bell Tower, and temple - except that the temple was built as an arsenal. 50rp to gain entrance. another 7rp to get into the art gallery, mainly the bronzes for which this area is famous.
But the most interesting of all was the library which houses the biggest collection (40,000 documents) of Sanskrit Literature in India, and four thousand in various Tamil scripts. The area we were allowed into housed the collection of books from all over the world 4000 European amassed for a hundred years starting in 1677, including an early two volume Dictionary by Samuel Johnson. There were European novels and paintings of the great cities like London East India Docks, views of the Tower (before Tower Bridge?) and The Palace of Westminster and a street map map of London.There were also fourteen sketches by a French artist illustrating the way the variety of nose shapes in the human population mimics animal from Camels through Cats, boars and a hooked nose bird of prey.It also showed examples of the various types of manuscript together with the styli used from palm leaves to paper.
At our final meal in Thanjavur, ever faithful to Sathars we found it full except for a table with two spare seats just started by our friends Vivica and Andy. In fact Joan had eaten by there by herself (on my insistence- saying it was in preparation for the future - I don't really think this illness is terminal!) whilst I was on a 24 hour fast in an attempt to rid myself of diarrhoea. Prematurely I eat for the first time in 48 hour, I announced by way of boasting, but my cum-uppance was to come. Vivi and Andy, also staying in the Hotel Tamil Nadu, were off to Trichy the following day whereas we intended to go straight to Madurai by bus if I felt strong, but we agreed to meet again over breakfast.
At breakfast they announced they had been phoning around 50 hotels in Trichy and Madurai and they were all full so they had booked for at great expense $150 for a night at Chettinad, and I said I did not feel well enough to travel by bus, with a taxi one could avail oneself of the Indian notion that the world (most is field) is one big toilet. For a while we intended to shared a taxi and splurge together at Chettinad. Alerted I went to the desk who got me the last reservation at the central Hotel Tamil Nadu1 (1000rp with a/c) in Madurai, they also told Vivi that although they were full the Hotel Tamil Nadu in Trichy would help to find accommodation. It turns out that the Hotel Tamil Nadu chain is run by the Tourist Board of Tamil Nadu, and they can thus be particularly useful, though they operate at the cheapest a hotel range a typical room is large and clean if a little dark.
MADURAI 21 January 2010
Accordingly Viv and Andy went off to try their luck by bus to Tricky whereas we hired a taxi 2400rp to go to Madurai with a a two hour stop in Chettinad.To return to the taxi ride, this was again on secondary country roads and very peaceful. As we neared Madurai we felt the prosperity of what is one of India's poor states was improving, instead of houses built entirely from wood the main structure being straight branches of trees and the roofs inevitably thatched with coarse reed/wood we were beginning to see some masonry buildings even some tall apartment blocks, the first sign of modernity in Tamil Nadu usually of brick. Before that the only new buildings were educational facilities usually way outside towns built with accommodation for students, the vast majority were for Engineering, one for Women Engineers, several for Technology, some for Nursing and Medicine and a few for Teacher education, otherwise buildings were tiny rustic homesteads for farming communities in very flat but not overly fertile farming land though with occasional paddy fields but usually parched.
The comparison with China is stark - remember all those motorways in thousands of miles of desert with no traffic built for mining industries yet to come, all those high modern apartment blocks without residents built in anticipation of transmigration from the east yet to come in bulk. But one can also begin to sense (even in Tamil Nadu) how India is also growing strongly on the international trade scale at just under 10% in spite of the melt down in the west. Perhaps they are content to educate just half the population at this moment and to prepare them for the productive industries of which engineering is key - perhaps they are out-gunning China in technology, certainly in computer software technology. Someone, perhaps Ravi, told us that in Tamil Nadu they wanted to make English the second language to the exclusion of Hindu.
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| CHETTINAD PALACE at KANUDUKATHAN |
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| STATELY HOME at KANADUKATHAN |
We arrived at the grand looking palace in Chettinad but were greeted with the news that the family were coming for the weekend and that it was closed to visitors. Photographing from the outside was all we could do, it seemed far less run down than I had imagined from our guidebook and the fact that it was still owned and still used as a retreat was encouraging. We walked off via the drinking water tank (that means no sewage I guess) hoping to find the railway station of the Raj but instead found a street of stately homes and we were allowed into the first and most magnificent which had a crest of arms not that different to our royal crest, this was originally owned by the British as an outpost from Calcutta but was of the same style of construction as the rest of Chettinad with their typical extensive use of Burma teak and carved Satin wood. The pillars were of the distinctive very smooth highly polished taper in teak of the palaces in Tamil Nadu (which strangely we see also used as features in the interior design of our current hotel in Thiruvananthapuram). The carving of teak doors and the satin wood panels above is also outstanding. So although the main objective of visiting the palace had been missed we had a nice break in Chettinad, quite a contrast as you will gather from the agricultural towns and villages around here.
In the second part of the taxi ride the main interest was to see the road lined for mile after mile with huge three dimensional rectangles of quarried stone, if the earlier temple was like Cotswold this was similar to York or perhaps Portland, in other words beautiful building stone but of a lighter though still mellow colour. Each block would have weighed several tonnes, and one could see them used as the source material for fine buildings including temples, in fact they were nearly the size and precision of the vast Inca walls built without spaces in Peru - though these had been shaped by blasting with many drill holes to each block. Later we saw a quarry face like I have never seen before an absolutely vertical face on the end of of 300 metre high rock face created by drilling and blasting.
We found the Hotel Tamil Nadu in the centre of Madurai not far from the Railway station and that evening set out to find the temple on foot. We have often remarked that the main risk of accident in the way we travel, exploring for preference on foot are the traffic and holes in the pavements revealing the sewers beneath. The traffic here is the worst we have ever seen it really is almost impossible to cross the road and in doing so you are trusting to the observation and manoeuvring of the traffic, everyone except pedestrians beeps (taxi and motorbikes) or blares (buses and expensive car owners) and even the auto rickshaw drivers have horns operated by hand depressed rubber bulbs going puff, puff - puff. The lesson was learned from now on we picked up a auto rickshaw outside the hotel only to cross the street!!
On this occasion we made it to the temple to almost fall for the old trick, very good English speakers telling you the main entrance was in the main street, you could leave your shoes for free at the green building indeed you could also climb the building and get a birds eye view of the temple complex, but of course the green building was their shop and they were trying to put you in a moral position of debt, when Joan always the most visually aware of we pair sited a free temple store for shoes across the road. In fact their are four gates and four shoe repositories, free as the one had been at Thanjavur.
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| MEENAKSHI TEMPLE MADURAI |
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| GHANHIJI MUSEUM IN MADURAI |
We quickly escaped and went into the Meenakshi Temple where we found we had to walk outside to the South Gate we had been headed for in order to find a ticket desk, 50rp each plus 50rp for use of a camera. Unlike the major temples in the places we had visited earlier not only where the dual gates at each side tall and intricately carved but these were also coloured, Joan has read that they are painted anew each year. However these are best viewed individually, for inside apart from the cloistered area around a tank there is a view of the exterior, just a couple of other towers. Undoubtedly there is much to see inside and some fine carving, also sales areas to avoid but a very large part of the interior is banned to non Hindus.
The next day with my diarrhoea worsening again we went to the Gandhi museum, which we thoroughly enjoyed. In the main it was a series of say 25 posters each depicting an era in the struggle against first the army of the East India Company and then the less harsh reign of Britain followed by the fight back to independence, the famine of 1943 and finally in 1948 Independence followed by the assassination of Gandhi by revolver with no one ever told who did it s though someone was tried and executed. Most Indians apparently believe it was the British, but at the exit door the Indian attendant who was a teacher was at pains to point out to us that he firmly believed it was an Indian.
I seem to remember reading an autobiography of Nehru who believed it was caused by Gandhi's hostility to his government policy of the day which was divided by crude religious line into Muslim West and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh - incidentally they beat India in a recent Test Series) and India. He said the assassin could have been a Muslim or that it could have been a Hindu angry at his apparent sympathy for the Muslims though really Gandhi was in favour of one nation, not two, and tolerance including an a end to the Untouchables people below the lowest Hindu caste.
At the risk of being told by my wife I really should tell you of my final faux pas with squat toilets. Now reduced again to hurrying to toilets I escaped from my first having sprayed the hole in the floor lime brown. On exiting this museum I was determined to take better aim, so I sighted carefully but forgot to take down my pants with the result that they operated as a sieve in which little solid remained thank god, but how them to remove shoes, socks, trousers and dirty pants within the narrow confines of a hole in the floor toilet. It is one of my finest achievements as I displayed the new-found dexterity of a teenager. All the time holding my breath against danger, for if I unbalanced I saw a leg disappearing into the hole with the obvious risk being a broken leg, then I would literally be in the shit.
On the previous occasion there had been a tap, as usual, inside the cubicle providing water to clean the room, but this was a narrow cubicle without room for a tap. On safely emerging Joan pointed to the large tank and buckets outside to service the whole block.
Previous to that the chief cause to laugh at myself was when I shampooed with Coconut oil. Joan had been careful to look at each of the four identical packets expecting to find two shampoo and two conditioners, in fact the other two were oil and I didn't even bother to look. As Joan remarked endlessly until my next shower I looked just like my Dad who always Bryl-creamed his hair down, Denis Compton style.
One more comment about Viv and Andy, they had brought their mobile phone and purchased an Indian SIM card and had the phone reconfigured so they could now call Indian numbers for a couple of rupees and even Austria for around 10 rupees/minute.
23 Jan. Just an email note to say we are still OK. I have at last recovered from a nasty bout of diarrhoea. In fact we are leaving by express train early tomorrow morning for Thiruvananthapuram (Thiru vana ntha puram, Trivandrum to you, the package airport in the far south) from where after sometime at a beach resort we intend to make our way north into Kerala and inland to higher ground as well. I have much catching up to do with this blog in fact Joan is well ahead with her hand written record. Tamil Nadu is the most difficult of places to travel, difficult to find accommodation at this time of year (weddings we think), difficult to find ATMs which will dispense 100 pounds worth of rupees for me and very difficult to find computer cafes.
That morning we had gone to the train station and booked a so called express train to Thiruvananthapuram on the west coast with a/c sleeper/seat 530rp for two for a journey of 8 hours. We were tenth on the waiting list but told we were certain to get a seat and to go back the evening of the journey to be given our coach and seat numbers, carriage B2 and seats 2 and 23 not far apart, one bottom - use seat as a bunk, the other middle - back of seat is bunk, as usual they are three high in total, the highest being permanently in position.
The last evening before heading for bed in preparation of an early rise to catch the 4pm train we again headed for the temple and there in the queue who should we see but Viv and Andy. We exchanged news and shared our journey plans, they were heading west to Kerala whereas we were going to south Kerala, they intended to go south but first would visit the highlands and then Cochin, we would be on the opposite tack. We concluded we were unlikely to meet again and exchanged email addresses.
At just after one am we were awoken by the desk, having set our alarm for 2.15am and so had less sleep than expected. In addition the train was 30 minutes late. I saw the carriage make up of the UP trains to Chennai and concluded we would be close to the engine, and so correctly identifying by compass the likely direction of the train we took up our position at the back of the expected train. In fact a very helpful station platform official told us to go and stand at the opposite end of the platform. The reason being that this train runs from terminus at Chennai back to terminus at Thiruvananthapuram without changing the carriage positioning, so except that the engine had change ends all else was in inverse order, so we saw S9 (second class), S8, S8 ...S1 then B2 as the train drew into the platform. Thus the explanation of why no-one bothered to define the carriage order for the DOWN train - it was obvious when you understand the system!
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM 24 January 2010
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| TRAIN MADURAI to west coast TIRUVANTHAPURUM |
I am finally feeling completely myself again, with one week of a nasty cricked neck, one week of fear of mosquitoes, one week of diarrhoea and , 48 hours of fasting all behind me. I have learned to tolerate 10 bites per 24 hours mostly in gardens during day, and best of all I now dare to fart!
The train journey was painless enough for me but Joan never got used to the idea of starting out at 3am least of all when I gave her the bottom bunk but noticed it had only one not both chair back had been pulled into position to make a flat bunk, thus she did not sleep whereas I got a couple of additional hours before people started to get up. luckily there was an excellent supply of good coffee to be had from sellers working their way up and down the carriages.
We made especially good friends with a very attractive small Indian girl, but try as I would I could never get her lovely smile on photo. She especially liked to play copy my movements with me, until I almost defeated her by crossing and uncrossing my legs, they of course sit on the floor knees out in a pose I can no longer achieve, but crossing legs was something they never do. Joan baffled her with fly away Peter - fly away Paul.
As the train went almost to the southernmost tip in Tamil Nadu (Nageroti Junction?) we gradually noticed an increase in prosperity and also the scenery change from poor scrub land to being totally covered in palm trees including bananas. Thiruvananthapuram station (just in Kerala) even had a tourist kiosk where he phoned to confirm availability of a room in our chosen home-stay and issued us with tourist maps full of information about the city and about the destinations in the whole of Kerala, not a mention was made of how to get to Ooty just across the border into Tamil Nadu.
Wild Palms Guest House was an inspired choice just five rooms and thus full every night but such an inspiring place. Yesterday 26 Jan Republic Day to celebrate 60 years of Independence from the British we met the owner Justin Pereira an Indian who returned here after working 40 years as an accountant in London firstly in Bayswater and then in Forest Hill? I remarked that I went to university on the other side of the park and he responded by remarking that his daughter was also a graduate of Imperial College, but a Civil rather than an Electrical Engineer, that she left to live in Canada, Brampton Ontario, a few miles from Hamilton, where I was based for nearly five years in my first job as a qualified engineer.
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| THIRUVANTHAPURAM WILD PALMS GUEST HOUSE |
The story does not end with the building of a beautiful home for him and his wife, but shortly after (2000) it was used as the base for a full length film 'Play House', the story of a young architect and his love life, with a number of actors who were then unknown but are now established film stars. One of them Shalani had been a child star in earlier life and is now famous, they had all signed the visitors book of the home-stay to which the dwelling was assigned thereafter.
They have now opened a Wild Palms on Sea, 20km north where on repeated advice from fellow guests we will be going next, they have a website if anyone is interested. It is a quiet resort with nothing else there except a fishing village, but gives the choice of quiet bathing in the sea or their pool.
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| The OLD INDIAN MAN with BENNI and daughter VIJI |
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| KOVALAM |
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| KOVALAM |
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| KOVALAM |
But it was with Krishna that we had a particular report, say forty, he lives in Santa Fe which he regards as an ideal climate (I couldn't help noting I was there in 1957 on my car trip across the US. He taught literature at The Book University which has two campus, the other being on the West Coast, where they teach Greek literature and English literature especially Chaucer and Shakespeare, Beowulf and the Bible. He accepted this was a very unusual specialisation in the US. However he had also taught English and English literature in China and was very impressed by the effort that the Chinese were putting into the teaching of English, contrast the India who thought they knew it already - but in his opinion India are losing the one big starting advantage they had in global commerce.
Since he was clearly very spiritually involved himself, he is here to spend a year in Amma's Ashram, where a population of 300 work for the betterment of Indian society - he would be helping to setup educational courses in his area of expertise (language). He expressed the view that the Chinese were becoming re-interested in the value systems, like Confuscious, behind their own way of life, which we both felt in spite of all the upheaval of The Cultural Revolution etc was still intact, in the sense of honesty and respect of elders. He suggested we spend a couple of nights at his Ashram which we may well do.
Krishna was born Malay of Indian parents but is currently trying to prove his grandfather's roots in India with a view to making it easier to get into the country. His Parents now live in Stoke on Trent which he also knew well and we spent quite a lot of time discussing the New Victoria Theatre, founded by Peter Cheeseman, Stephen Joseph and Alan Ayckborn in the time we lived there before moving to South Wales. He said Alan Ayckborn still premiered plays there before transferring to the West End, in our days he was an actor and a fledgling play-write.
Joan spent a lot of time talking to a Lady who had lived in Swansea for 14 years, Sketty and Clydach, although originally a Londoner.
We asked directions of an old Indian man on our first walk into town, he immediately picked up on our English accent and said he had been taught English by an Englishman, before qualifying in Zoolology. He said that he would visit us at the Homestay and take us to a fine restaurant in town and invite us to his home, which he has done and tonight 27th we are going back to share Payasam which will be prepared for us by his daughter Viji as a special treat. She and his son Benny are both graduates in English literature and both teach, Viji 9/10 year olds and Benny school leavers, and they were at the house when we visited.
He took us to a modern hotel called Maury (2500rupees plus 15%tax including breakfast, buffet lunch 240rp, dinner 340rp), not far from the Statue Corner. He had been extolling their principle of being able to choose whatever ingredients you wanted. In fact he was referring to the buffet system which they used every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It was a lovely hotel with a rooftop restaurant open at the sides, overlooking the city which simply looked like a palm tree forest from above. A case of an old man being pleasantly amazed by modern methods. He nevertheless introduced us to various new foods, from Rose Milk (milk, rose essence, cardoman), Thoran which was a mixture of grated dry vegetable by a variety of names under their principal ingredient, eg cabbage, carrot, coconut, bean.
Avial, also dry vegetables but more moist, cucumber, ochra,snake gourd, pumpkin,beans,coconut and chilli. Baigan Achari a curried aubergine marsala. Vanilla Soufle turned out to be slices of English thick traditional custard.
Returning home Vijaypappa invited us home a second time to eat Payasam (a nicer version than served at that hotel) which his daughter would prepare under his precise instructions from tapioca, vermicelli, sago, coconut, sultanas and cashew nuts boiled finally in milk. We said we intended to take a tour around Kovalam Beach resorts during the day so we met once again at 6pm, he insisted on collecting us and walking us home. He was still obviously grieving the death of his wife who he missed badly as companion and for her wonderful cooking, though his daughter and perhaps son also shared his house. His other major concern was the way basic foodstuffs like rice have been increasing in price daily since Christmas. It mattered to everyone except those holding a BPL card (below poverty line) who could buy a kg of rice (each per week?) for 1rp. Inflation of basic foodstuffs is clearly a national politics matter at the moment with the government releasing their stockpiles of such food onto the market to counter what they see as a 15% price inflation.
Another big issue at the moment, we still get free copies of Hindu Times or Times of India on a daily basis is China. It is feared that China are seeking to establish a permanent base in Pakistan, the Chinese are deploying warships in the seas around India, and there is particular concern over the motives for China modernising a harbour in Sri Lanka.
Next day we got an auto rickshaw to drop us at the end of Lighthouse beach 150rp, but we immediately picked up another to take us to the new harbour and then agreed to his trip 350rp around the beaches south of Kovalam, particularly Coconut Beach and slightly further south say 6km Somatheeream Beach, both enormous beaches of lovely sand backed buy coconut palms hiding modern accommodation, with very hard sand which offered an easy way out of the sea as opposed to the undertow of the final surf pulling the sand from under your feet, something that until recently we have handled without thought. He finally dropped us at Eve's Beach where we enjoyed a light lunch of vegetable spring rolls and above all ice cold mineral water, in the Sea Rock hotel, next to Sea Face which is in our guidebook.
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| THIRUVANTHAPURAM concert in park |
A final mention of the latest visitors to Wild Palms, Brigit and Peter from Dusseldorf, a couple of the same age as our children with whom we spent two long lingering breakfasts discussing a great deal. Both were self employed, Brigit as PE trained teacher with private classes in things like Yoga, Peter had for years worked by organising German Markets for Christmas all over the UK including big centers like Manchester and Bristol, I told him they could come to compete with the French in Swansea, but he has now moved on. Interestingly he said that much of the seasonal labour to man these Christmas Markets came from the Ashram at Auroville (Puducherry), probably from Europeans who wanted to get home for Christmas. We probably had a better rapport with them than any others we have met so far.
WILD PALMS ON SEA 28 January
We got a 500rp taxi included in the bill to take us to Wild Palms on Sea, so enthusiastically was it recommended by everyone who had been there. The taxi turned out to be the luxury of the owner Justin's four wheel drive, with his driver driving rapidly over the rather bumpy roads, past the lovely new air terminal they are building and a big Space Centre with high rise apartment buildings for their employees. A Swedish Couple greeted us at the desk with 'you will enjoy it here', and told us that Vanja (Terry's first wife) was in fact a Finish name (she was originally from Finland).
It certainly is pleasant, the rooms though with little of the individuality of Wild Palms are comfortable and with the best showers so far, any temperature and power spray too. There are several two story purpose built buildings around a pool, and the sea is but metres away. Beautiful Sand stretching as far as the eye can see in either direction, thinly lined with small traditional fishing boats with fishing villages every km or so. Small crabs emerge from their holes in the sand and scamper into the sea as soon as I get almost close enough to photograph them. Pleasant company to talk to around the pool but not as interesting as our stay at headquarters, but that is the luck of the draw. The soft sand, steep slope and undertow of the gently breaking sea is enough to dissuade us from entering into the sea. I am just going for my first dip in the pool.
On our second night, just before sunset, here Joan pronounced that she was going to the sun roof hoping to find a good photograph point, but before to doing so took a cursory glance at the beach to see that around twenty men were launching one of the traditional boats and almost ran along the sand to her photo opportunity. In fact it is a long a very arduous task, the technique being to swivel the boat from being parallel to the sea to being at right angles restraining the front with pole and rope so hopefully making one boat length every two swivels. She was in good time to get a good record, the boat reaching the water half an hour later accompanied by the red setting sunlight. Not exactly a quinquereeme, six men rowed the boat out to sea with another with a conventional spade handle being used as a rudder, probably a crew of a dozen.
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| BEACH at WILD PALMS ON SEA GH |
This morning we had a long inspection of the activities on the beach, which were mainly involved in flaking the big,now clean, trawl net on board where it all but filled the boat, an operation taking four men an hour. Seeing a boat on its side we had a good view of its construction, it is sort of clinker built, but without overlap, with a 20mm rope inside acting as the water tight seal, each plank and the rope seal being held in place by thin nylon stitching about 25mm apart. They were caulking the stitching holes to improve the water seal before rolling the boat back to the vertical and onto rollers.Tomorrow, Sunday 31 Jan we proceed north by taxi 1650rp past Kollam for two nights in Amma's Amritapur Ashram where we will have sleep on mattresses on the floor for 450rp, including basic meals. The booking was made by Internet and we would probably have saved ourselves a couple of hundred rp by taking up their offer of taxi transport. It should be an interesting experience, even if Joan with her artificial knees will have problems getting out of bed!
Up to date at last!!
31 January 2010 AMMA'S ASHRAM north of KOLLAM
HUGS FROM AMMA (Mata Amritanandamayi Math, Kollam)
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| AMMA |
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| AMMA'S HUGE ASHRAM |
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Sorry no photographs allowed inside Amma's Ashram |
Largely encouraged by Krishna and because he had at least aroused our interest we decided to take a taxi (1650rp) to Mata Amritanandamayi and check in at the Amma's Ashram just 20km or so north of Kollam. We were a little bemused on arrival (skyscrapers for 3000 inhabitants) but whenever appearing lost someone approached to see if we wanted help. Since it was 1pm and lunch was being served it was suggested we check in after eating. There are four options for eating, free Indian vegetarian food (after enrolling), A western restaurant selling vegetarian food, a cafe with an unchanging menu including vegetable pizzas and burgers and delicious cakes, lastly an restaurant selling higher quality vegetarian food. We were directed to the western restaurant area and were so impressed by the quality and taste of the food that we never ate elsewhere except once when we went for a pizza because the other queue was so long. That first day I remember clearly the pumpkin pie and a a chick pea and vegetable dish with tomato and soya which tasted just like the dish Joan makes with chorizo - I would swear there was meat in it. I have always thought of spicy Indian vegetarian food as tasty and western style as dull, if nothing else this ashram changed my view entirely - it's all in the skill of the cook.
We got talking to the American girl from San Fransisco who was sitting next to us and asked her what was in it for her, she replied simply "sanity". It turned out that she worked for health charities in the States including Amma which now had an international presence and Joy will be pleased to hear that an ex boyfriend was the major fund raiser worldwide for Smile Train. Sorry Joy but we don't recall the name. Like Krishna she seemed as normal as us - not true as we were to discover of many of the others. There were lots of lovely people but also a large proportion one suggests had problems in coming to terms with the outside world.At the end of the meal everyone washed their own dishes and cleaned the by dipping your fingers into fine ash, a good natural abrasive, before drying with the tea towels provided.
We checked in at the International Office which greets tourists for as little as one night, in fact we had originally booked for two nights but stayed for three. At the check-in our passports were kept in exchange for a Residents Card with the room number we had been allocated and the four digit code to the lock. We found that as a married couple we had been allocated a bed and unlike the others did not just have a mattress on the floor, the mattress was only about 2/3 the width of the bed, we could and should have changed it for two single mattresses but other than the fact there was no mirror it was little different to the other rooms we had had. I went unshaven for three days - the last time such a problem was encountered , on holiday in France on finding that my electric razor would plug in, I ended up with a large unruly beard for 13 years until my 50th birthday.
From there we went to the International store to pick up four sheets two pillows and cases. At 5pm all the day's newcomers about 50 were taken on an orientation course preceded by a video explaining the aims, abolition of poverty and violence, teaching the ability for all peoples to live in peace and spreading happiness around the world. Though the beginnings had been small, it was a well funded charity organisation spending for instance 46 million dollars on fighting the tsunami which devastated south Indian coast, though the worst effects were in Tamil Nadu not Kerala, less well known than Phi Phi and Sri Lanka because of the lack of tourists, the same fate as Bande Aceh in Sumatra, the hardest hit of all.
On this site for around 3000 there are three universities teaching Bio Technology, Engineering and the third I forget. The organisation has created a magnificent new hospital in Cochin, pensions and free for the poor farming communities. (I wrote earlier of some of the current political concerns in India to that should be added the suicide of 16,000 farmers last year because they could not make a living).
Whether Crisis relief, or support for the poor, medicine, or the funding of escape routes from poverty from via educational opportunities which would otherwise not exist it is hard to fault this organisation. Whatever I may say later I would not doubt the integrity or good intentions that lie behind this organisation.
The introductory talk was given by Priun like so much of the information in English, because Amma herself never spoke in English though gave the impression she understood the translations and called for correction on occasions. The final session was on the beach, the Ashram is sited in the narrow stretch of land between the back-waters and the sea, which was introduced as an ideal place for meditation on the rocks which I guess had been added as flood precautions since the tsunami. Tomorrow at 5pm Amma would lead a meeting and open up for comments, but from 5pm today she would be giving Darshan, her blessing demonstrated by hugging each one with a ticket for that time slot.
Joan and I waited until gone 11pm for our Darshan, in the main auditorium several times wider than the Brangwyn Hall and with seating for around a thousand people. She hugged each one in turn but the international gang had to wait to the very end of the queue, for this she is known as 'the hugging mother' (over 30 million so far), the whole ceremony was recorded by cine and displayed live on the large screen. So Amma was the central image throughout, it is said that Darshan sometimes extends throughout the night. One approaches Amma on ones knees to be hugged and just before arrival are asked what language you speak, I am sure she whispered to me 'you are amazing, you are amazing' (though it may have been an Indian language she was speaking) many times before releasing me to the cortege around who made sure I got up and away as soon as possible. Joan who can no longer kneel on her artificial knees went through the final stage on a stool. We both felt nothing.
At the end of my first day I had become worried by the icon of Amma that was everywhere, even on the walls of our room, to me this was a cult, the 'Mother of the World' come to relieve the world of all poverty, of all sadness and all violence as predicted in the Vedas (the Indian pre-Hindu scriptures) so read 5000 years ago. Joan at the time could not but think of all the good charitable works that had been done.
This is a self help organisation, so as in a 50's Youth Hostel, each resident is expected to sign on for SELVA and do two hours a day. Joan was assigned to help in the western kitchen at 6am each morning and she found that experience uplifting because of the very calm but proficient organisation. The recipes were for long standing people to do such as Apoova who was Joan's supervisor, her tasks were more mundane, to serve out the mixture, or add decoration of almond or cashew nuts to the small cakes. This was mass catering on a canteen scale and the serving at high speed, but the quality of cooking and baking was of the very highest order, I doubt we have ever eaten tastier almond cakes, or meals.
My task was sorting the rubbish, thin plastic (mostly mineral water bottles) for burning - though the University is now trying to develop means of filling them with sand and using them as building blocks, hard plastic which included the tops of mineral water bottles when they were for burning, glass, shoes, metal, polystyrene, wood and paper for burning, batteries and 'sharps'
Joan enjoyed passing the meditation hoards before 6am as she went to work, being impressed with the peacefulness and devotion, for them the day had commenced at 4am, men in the auditorium, women in the temple building. The no-no were drugs (including alcohol), smoking, and sex. In a brief glance at one of the booklets I discovered that the objective of those unmarried should be celibacy to preserve that energy as a life force, separation of the sexes for meditation, very enveloping clothing with almost all the long stay in white Indian style robes.
I was surprised at the extent of the international following there, most people had first met Amma in their own country, with a particularly strong following in the States, and Europe - she normally appears at Alexandras Palace in London, and is often on tour. She is off on a two month tour of India this week and it is amazing how many of the long stays here are going as part of her entourage, 'her disciples'
The second day we went to take part in her meeting at the the beach. People, including including Joan got there 45 mins early to ensure a good seat, and save one for me on return from my waste sorting occupation. It was preceded by group meditation, using techniques which seemed to me very akin to the relaxation techniques I had been taught so well 45 years ago in a Mental Hospital (with an undiagnosed brain tumour). I would not knock it, it was literally a life saver for me the only way I could conceive of dealing with the extreme pulsating pain to which I was subjected at intervals but by relaxing I was able to make the oscillations subside and return to sleep. But I did not see that as a 'spiritual experience' then or now but as a very good technique, any more than I see the exhortion to 'live in the present' as a way of dealing with stress. She spoke for half an hour, then the translators took over and apparently showing a knowledge of English, which she deliberately kept hidden at other times, asked them in Indian to modify their interpretation. But little was deep enough of the message was good enough to convince me of something special in the message.
One story was of a man who had to change a tyre but on removing the wheel lost the bolts and an inmate of the mental hospital told him the answer was to remove one from each of the three remaining wheels and use these to refix, whereupon the man above shouted down 'I may be mad but I am not stupid'.
Second story was of a man who could not sleep because he feared there was a wild animal under the bed, he was advised to sleep on the floor. To me this was a case of lateral thinking, or thinking outside the box as it seems to be called today.
Third story a little more difficult was of the man threatened by a tiger who was warned by an on-looker to run for himself. He thought that God was in all creatures including the tiger so decided to stay thinking he would be safe, and he was eaten. The moral was that he should think for himself, God was in the man warning him and by thinking for himself he would have opted to run away.
Amma then asked a question of the audience, Is Spirituality compatible with Practicality? with microphone handed round, Bob's U3A Style. Lots of affirmations of how being a disciple of Amma had helped them overcome their particular problems 'I would not be here without your help' summed most of the answers, just one American s dissented, he accepted it had helped but had learned the impossibility of a life without sorrow and had found that happiness eventually came from sorrow so he wasn't going to confirm that this was the route to eternal happiness.
That evening in the hall Amma again held the stage, this time by singing with a good backing of Indian tabla rhythms and the changing melodies on harmonium, small simple accordions. Much of it was singing of traditional stories about two main Gods Shiva and Krishnu but always the last songs were to Amma the all loving mother predicted in the Vedas who would end all poverty and violence. Priun had introduced her as an unusual girl, noticeably different to others from the age of two who by the age of twenty was taking on the role of The Divine Mother of the World, dismissive of religions which are so often the cause of conflict. During this finale her image appeared on the screen, even her feet with bindis which could so easily have been likened to Christ's suffering on the cross.
Here to me was a self created equivalent to Christ, the one whose arrival had been predicted in the scriptures - I am sorry but it left me feeling it was simply a personality cult which had been created, how be-it one in which i could see no harm. I am sure many life extremely good lives within the protection of such a good oriented community - but I doubt it gives few the tools to live happily in the outside world. I have always noted my atheism, my scepticism, my lack of certainty about things beyond any ones understanding, religious persons may have left with a different impression.
ALLAPPUZHA 3 February 2010
At 1.15pm we caught the ferry boat which traverses the back-waters between Kollam and Alappuzha. A small family and two couples joined the boat with us. We got talking to Michelle, originally a Catholic from Dublin and her husband Matt a biologist from Tamworth, early 30's. They now lived in Sydney where she worked in a restaurant as she had done in Ireland, I mentioned Sue Griffiths but unfortunately could not give the name of her restaurant in Sydney. We exchanged views and both had similar misgivings about the portrayal of Amma. They had initially been in Nepal and were very impressed with the two week long medication course they had been on in Kathmandu which essential involved trying to break down your initial automatic responses to your senses so that you became aware of and countered your automatic responses. Like me Matt was particularly disturbed by the way the singing sessions each evening ended with the adulation of Amma. He had expected to be able to contrasted what he regarded as a masculine intellectual response to meditation he had learned about in Kathmandu (a wholly positive experience) with a feminine emotional response here - but like me left feeling disappointed and I think Joan and Michelle were of the same view.
I forgot to comment on the fact that Peter and Brigit came for our last night and spotted us reading in the auditorium eating area as they came passed on their orientation tour. they broke off to speak with us and the following morning just before leaving we had a chance to exchange news. They were planning only to spend two nights before going north in Kerala for a further course in Yoga (Brigit is a Yoga teacher in Germany). They had had a fine relaxing time on the beach just south of Kovalam but one with cliffs. Michelle and Matt and the Italian speaking family from Switzerland are staying here in Alappuzha at at guest house Bella something or other. We have a fine room in Gowri Residence for 750rp and last night tried their good Indian vegetable food for dinner. This morning we went first to check out the bus station for onward buses to Cochin and then to the embankment full of houseboats. We quickly settled for one with a single bedroom for 4000rp about 25-50% below the going rate. So now for two days cruising and lazing and sight seeing on the back-waters.
We had a nice room in the body of the old house for 750rp, the lowest so far outside the ashram, and one of the best rooms yet. Outside under their verandah extension almost all the guests were taking dinner and so we joined in. For the first time this holiday I had to bring out my Spanish, and boy was it rusty - really must put some time in to improve fluency on elementary topics, I guess what throws me is the lack of subject pronouns which help you remember the verb endings in French.
The next day we went first to check out the bus station and identified the bus going to Cochin, though in fact they go first to Fort Cochi then by bridge to another island and then the mainland of Cochin or Ernakulam.
Then on talking to a friendly young stall holder took a taxi to the Finishing Point of the houseboats, the Starting Point represents the most inland point with the other as the one nearest the backwaters - irrelevant really as the boats appear to start and finish from the same point, ie they have their own mooring point. The first boat we saw there was Gowri, the residence run four or five boats but we started walking back along the key and were soon talking to the owner and two crew members of a small one bedroom newly thatched, well equipped house called Kilas, Joan remarked that was the name of a holy mountain in the Himalaya and the owner agreed but said it was also his name. Having established who was cook and a quick look at the kitchen we settled on the price and agreed on 4000 rp a day, which seems like a good price compared with the going rate of 6000 to 15000rp. In order to get more time out on the backwaters they agreed to overnight at two small villages. They sent an auto rickshaw to pick us up at 9.30 the next day. By 11.00am as planned we were on our way.
THE BACKWATERS
We saw a local who was filthy from working in the fields bend down and pick a hand full of weed at the edge of the rice field and then proceed into the river where he washed himself and his clothes using the weed, Joan noted how similar it was to Saponaria which used to be used as a soap years ago in rural Britain.
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| EXPLORING THE BACKWATERS using soapwort |
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| KERALA BACKWATERS |
So far those two days plus Thanjavur have been the highlight of Joan's trip. For me they were simply idyllic, the difference is her delight in watching birds, and with the help of a Collins book on Indian birds she had been given she was able to identify most of them. Kingfishers were everywhere but in four distinct types including one with similar spectacular plumage to our own, there were the Paddy birds which could look like dull Herons until they took to flight and revealed their white wings, there was the Black Drongo which she watched catching moths under a 'street' light above the footbridge next to where we had moored for the first night, every time someone crossed the bird flew off, but squeals of delight on its return to a perching point on the electricity wires to renew its hunting.
Comorants galore, Shag, Terns, Herons, Egrets of different sizes and a Snake bird (Darter) in the reeds, trees full of nests made from dead leaves by a Weaver bird, Bulbul with crested head and red cheeks, and at an isolated church reachable only by boat a Coucal (Cuckoo) bird.
Early on the first day we stopped to buy a kg of Tiger prawns form a passing fisherman in a canoe for 9000rp, the sole extra and luxury BBQ to accompany both dinners. Otherwise we ate vegetarian Kerala food with one marsala and three different small bowls of mixed dry vegetables featuring chili or beetroot or coconut according to type. Joan remembers a small cucumber which grew like beans and was red inside. A big bowl of fruit including wonderful pineapple (in high season), grapes orange, apples and of course small bananas which were also brought fried in tempura (as was pineapple) as a snack.
Every lunch and every evening we were taken by the skipper Pradeep on an invariable interesting walk, with in depth study of for instance the growing and harvesting of the wonderful Kerala red rice (cooks as big, separated bright white grains) - better any day than Basmati rice which comes from the state (Andhra) north east of here, and its small scale milling into brown (presumably with outer skin of grain) for chappattis and polished white rice for Idly the bland brilliant white basis of Keral breakfasts dipped in Sambar to add a spicy flavouring.
The first village at our furthest point, turned out to be the home of our cook, who introduced us to his children and the boat owner who did not come on the trip, no doubt drumming up further custom.
The second was on the edge of the big lake Vembanad at Alappuzha and was the second home (a room hired in the home of a friend but conveniently close to his place of work). On both occasions making progress involved crossing dodgy log or pipe bridges.- we never did get really confident, yet we were gaily going on and off long gangplank carrying heavy rucksacks in Borneo 15 years ago. The one big plus factor of this trip has been the improvement of my knees, large amounts of high steps to be negotiated (exercise) and the hot weather have been sufficient to heal my right completely and the old rugby injury in the left is better than for some time.
FORT COCHI 7 February 2010
We left the houseboat at 9.00am the last morning by auto rickshaw headed for the bus to Cochin. The taxi driver put our luggage on and we had at that time a choice of free seats, later on the journey was filled with extra stand up passengers. We had chosen the luxury of the three side but Joan was to learned the disadvantage when a lady of her own size decided to join us - next time we will squeeze into the two seat side. I recognised the time to get of just as we were about to cross a bridge to the centre island and we took a rickshaw to the north of the island for 100rp (further than I had anticipated) and stopped at Fort House as recommended by Mike Edmonds only to find it full even though now 4500rp over three times the price in the guidebook. Next we went to the highly recommended in the guidebook Delight (a fine room in David's beautiful large Dutch house) in the centre of the Cochi tourist zone where we managed to get the last room but only for two nights.
Have just had breakfast in Alappuzha with a young student doctor and his mum over for a holiday. He is just completing his assignment at the Amma Hospital in Cochin and seem quite impressed by the standard of the hospital and the doctors and said it had been open for 10 years. We weren't able to glean much info as they were awaiting a taxi to take them to Munnar, pity. He did say that some of the trainees, but not him, had stayed at the ashram and that some but by no means all the doctors had a high opinion of Amma. I learned from someone else that treatment is free for those who cannot afford to pay but that others are expected to make a contribution.
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| DELIGHT GH at FORT KOCHI (COCHIN) |
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| KOCHI |
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| Rossita Wood Castle |
We did little else except visit the Synagogue, like Swansea's now running out of Jews, ant the nearby Palace, and the Laundry with around ten washing cubicle run by men an array of outdoor drying lines, a coconut fueled iron and a very heavy electric iron (1kg plus). Their main trade is the hospitals and hotels. The driver then made fools of us by taking us to another of the shops where we realised later we had paid too much but had no bill nor even a record of the shop's name or whereabouts or even a certainty we went away without certainty that we had what we thought we had bought! Experienced travellers!, falling for the oldest tricks in the book. Joan says she has now learned the lesson - but it was my fault really for coughing up the cash. The better the English spoken by the Auto Rickshaw driver and the more pleasant and informative his manner which won over our confidence the more you need to be careful. David back at Delight said that 99.9% of the Kasmiri trademen were rogues, but this wasn't Kashmiri.
We had a very pleasant walk around the fish market, some lovely fresh fish on display but other that didn't look so fresh. For our last day we decided to take the ferry to Ernakulam (Cochin) and had a 20 minute trip across the bay for just 2.5rp, a bargain like the Statan Island Ferry in New York. Then a rickshaw to the State bus station to check out the times and places to find the bus onward to Munnar. In fact the buses leave on each hour and from platform 7, though in practice it was parked slightly behind this station, though in full view, and marked Munnar. So back to Fort Cochi and a night of premiership football late into the night of Saturday - it a topsy turvey season though Villa need to be winning not just drawing with the best clubs in the land. We will see the next installment late this evening.
There is scarcely ever any news in English on the TV in spite of 100 channels, but it is fabulous on several channels as you might expect in this Cricket crazy land, so tomorrow it's the second test live between India (still sweating from their drubbing in the opening match of the series) and South Africa. Thirteen Years ago when we last here I was playing street cricket every night with the young boys, a poor reflection on a state of physique which has left me even unable to run, though I guess I could still crack a few if I had the confidence to try.
We have seen a BBC program like their 24 hour news channel at its worst, and one of CNN at its usual boring state. That India was once involved with UK is hard to see, lorries by Ashok-Leyland, Vodafone adverts everywhere including sponsoring a cricket channel, Hercules cycles and (Joan and I each had one in our youth) but the brand has disappeared from the UK, the occasional JCB, even TI is Indian TI. Tata is everywhere see next posting.
Main preoccupations now seem to be General Fonseco's imprisonment, for reasons that are not clear, after losing the recent elections in Sri Lanka; the commencement on 25 Feb of substantive talks with Pakistan over Kashmir Jammu; The spread of the Maoist threat which has been as far south as Andhra Pradesh as well as in the northern states close to say Nepal, the banning of Monsanto genetically modified Bt Ochra following popular protest by the growing states - until further trials have shown that like Genetically modified Cotton the advantages are clear and accepted. India is clearly worried at the potential loss of its stock of unique seed. We may not have TV in English but there are always complimentary copies of Major newspapers like the Times of India or more recently the Hindu Times here in Kerala.
The last night we went for the first time to the Kathkali Dance Centre, a small theatre with U shaped balcony, capacity of around 500, where they danced a scene from the Ramyanya every night at 6pm. Having seen Kathkali at the Taliesin we were not too interested but every evening at 8pm they held a series of different Indian music concerts, and that night it was a classical combination of Sitar and Tabla which attracted us and an audience of more than fifty tourists, Western and Indian.
They started by explaining that the concert would be of classical Indian music where the players improvised around an Indian Scale of which if I remember correctly numbered over 30, The first scale chosen had only five notes and they started by playing the scale and a simple melody, the next had 8 notes like our own but the similarity ended there. They explained that there were several forms of Sitar and this one had 26 strings and was played on frets.
Sometimes the sitar played solo at other times the tabla was played on his its own but mostly they responded to the to each other in a form of musical conversation. Although there was no real similarity, except for the importance of rhythm, Joan remarked on the similar feel to much modern jazz. After the concert they invited members of the audience onto the stage to view the sitar, I am not sure why we didn't follow the crush.
TEA AT MUNNAR
11 Feb 2010Early the next morning we crossed to the mainland of Ernakulam (Cochin to you) and then took a 20rp rickshaw to the bus station where we caught the 10 am bus to Munnar, they left on the hour until say 4pm.
There was plenty of space to begin with but we should have stowed more of our luggage under the seat and select the centre rather than be over the wheels as we were going to the terminus. Still it was a reasonably pleasant ride through pretty country rising rapidly at the end for the Western Ghats to a height around 1800m, increasingly though a carpet of the well managed tea plantations for which Munnar is famous for its delicate tea.
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| BUS TO MUNNAR FROM FORT KOCHI (COCHIN) |
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| WE REMEMBER THESE TICKETS IN UK ONCE! |
Every night a bus load of Indians arrived so we were lucky to keep our room. We also eat dinners there every night because the food was invariably well cooked, though a little expensive by previous standards. The first night the French couple on the bus with us had dinner there, though they were not resident, also an Italian couple who beamed when I left with a Buena Sera another bit of 'Spanit' I think.
The next day I looked at the rooms next door but was offered 1500rp rather than the 1000rp suggested by the rickshaw driver though they rapidly reduced to 1200rp with tax but no breakfasts. They were also good rooms, but we really enjoyed our stay next door, and got on friendly terms with the manager of 14 years who had trained at the Ritz in London. He said the hotel was 22 years old but had recently been renovated.
I was very interested in the magazine section (normal newsprint on Guardian Berliner size pages) of The Hindu on Sunday for two reasons. The front page in the bottom right hand quarter carried a synopsis of Terry Pratchet's Dimbelby lecture given on 1 February promoting the idea of legalising Euthanasia following a decision in favour by a Tribunal of four. The rest of the front page and one other half page was devoted to the Indian take on the matter, including the fact that death has never assumed the same importance as in the West in view of the Hindu belief in re-incarnation, whether as a lower animal form or as a higher caste depending on your deeds in this life.
On inside third of page was devoted to a Cambridge Letter from Bill Kirkman entitled 'An Unnecessary War' concerning the U3A discussion group of which he was chair on the findings of the Chilcot Enquiry. It disagreed with almost all of Tony Blair's statements decisions and actions but succeeded in concluding that he had not lied - a conclusion I find incongruous.
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| MUNNAR tea plantation |
Our first morning the taxi picked us up, but the rickshaw driver explained his 'brother' would drive, thus depriving us of the English commentary we had looked forward to. However in other ways the driver was faultless, safe and taking us to all the pointed expected including Top Station which used to be linked to Old Munnar by a cable railway. Top Station is on the border with Tamil at around 2,200m with fine views over the surrounding country almost entirely used for tea cultivation, we also went to a garden nursery, a lake created for a hydroelectric scheme using Pelton Wheels, and a lake used for boating. We weren't alone for a 'million' Indian tourists were making just the same day out trip and very friendly they were - we will feature in a Million photograph albums, they are as keen to photograph us as we are to record their difference appearance. India changes from region to region, in Tamil Nadu dress was almost universally sari and the women rode the motorbikes side saddle in consequence. Here the young women and girls were largely in western dress including tight jeans and figure flaunting tops. Next move from Otty where I am writing today will I'm told be into a devout Muslim coastal area where the Burka will be in evidence.
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| MARKET AT MUNNAR |
Our last morning we went to see Old Munnar where there is plenty of modern development, indeed in a few years time it would not be surprising to see it regain pride of place.
We walked up to Poopada a newish hotel close to the old Officers Club, - still for members only, but these days they are Indian not British. The last British left around 1970. We had soup and lunch by way of a snack and another rest from the heat of the day and got talking and joking with the children of a couple of family groups who were staying there. I think the joviality of the conversation encouraged what we took at first to be one of the parents to start talking to us.
Jacob George explained he was the owner of the hotel, but that his major activity was with farming 25 acres at a lower level mainly for Cardoman and Coffee, but also trying pepper and ginger, cloves, tumeric and cinnamon. He showed us most of these crops in the hotel garden and started by describing how the cardoman seed is held, on much shorter low down shoots shaded from the heat of the sun by the leaves of the main shrub. The fruit is so heavy that in time they bend over to touch the ground. He explained that the quality depended on the greenness with the greener the better, he got 900rp per kg for the best quality, we had bought 100gm the previous day of the best quality for 1600rp/kg which he reckoned was a fair price. From plants the conversation we turned to wider aspects like education and politics and the tea industry in particular so as to fill in the gaps left by the previous day's DVD. So he invited us to his office where we were soon joined by his son George Jacob, (if he had a son he would take the name of the grandfather and be Jacob George), his daughter carried the name of her grandmother.
1886 99 year lease to Finlay in Scotland for a few pieces of silver
1963 Government nationalise to take a majority stake in all foreign firms. Thus Finlay retain a 49% share and Tata buy a 51% share from the government. Hence until recently the enterprise of the whole area was known as Tata/Finlay Tea
1977 India completely nationalised thus Finlay left and so did n most of the British Planters, from now on the managers were Indian. The company was now known as Tata Tea (TT). This meant for instance nationalisation of IBM and Coca Cola's Indian interests entirely.
1987 The lease being completed the ownership reverted to the government. The government were in dispute with Tata over their ownership, if any. To this day it is daily in the news under the name on Encroach meaning that Tata are acting as though they own government land (which could include central government ownership of all national parks) to which they have no right, or failure to recognise the end of the lease an issue being that they are still collecting annual lease payments in Munnar.
2005 The whole area became known as The Kenan Devan Hills Produce Company and the government gave each of the say 10,000 workers a 3000rp share. We are unclear what if any share Tata have in the present day state of agreement, I think the DVD said 8% or 18%, but Jacob was unable to confirm though he would have been able to establish the figure were it not Sunday. Tata tea are the second largest tea firm internationally (after Brooke Bond Group ?) mainly due to their ownership of the Tetley Group
When asked how India had like China been able to surge ahead to become a major world commercial power, He had no hesitation in saying education, and India's resources, though that does not include a great deal of oil. Jacob and George accepted that the country was leaving a large proportion of its population behind particularly in the northern states like Orissa.
Kerala is governed by the communist party and is more forward in terms of universal education and prosperity than most states. We talked later in Calicut to an impressive young Communist Party official who said that alone in India Kerala had 100% free education. He also explained that the Indian Marzist Communist party should not be confused with the Maoists and the Naxalists who are creating armed rebellion in the poorer states like Orissa and Bihar.
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| JACOB GEORGE'S HOME at MUNNAR |
He was surprised to learn that Tata now owned British Steel and much of the Dutch Steel Industry, and said the Iron and Aluminium interests were usually considered to be in the hands of the company Mittal.
Tata Chemicals, Tata Motors, (cars, lorries and buses even a mid range hatch back called Focuz), Tata Power, Tata Steel, Tata Tele, Tata Tea, all separately quoted on Mumbai Stock Exchange, are everywhere. They even sell mineral water under their brand name and advertise it as so pure as to redefine the word pure, only touched by sun wind and rain from its source high in the Himalaya. Tata appear not to have noticed that conglomerates have gone out of fashion in the west.
Wife Sheila comes in to say that lunch is ready back at their house and still we go a on talking until at last we take our leave and refuse the invitation to share their lunch.
On mentioning our meeting to Issacs manager we were surprised to hear his view of Jacob as an alcoholic, though he admitted he was very knowledgeable who can be a very unstable person. Maybe, but I will still take people as I find them, and Joan feels the same.
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| MUNNAR CHRISTIAN CHURCH for original tea plantation developer's Jacobs last gesture was to send us over to the small church where many of the early planters were buried, including the young bride who came out to join her husband only to die of Colera a couple of days later. Our self appointed guide, the watchman over the graveyard cleaned up the engraving so we added a photographic record.  |
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| MUNNAR |
Well into the conversation he offered to get us a taxi to Otty for less than the usual 3,300rp. We agreed to meet him in an hour's time and he would have the driver and the car to complete details for a pick up in the morning at 8.30am. We returned to the hotel and then met them both as agreed, the pleasant young driver asked for a deposit of 1000rp out a full fare of 3,000rp in return for a business card with from a car hire firm with his name on it. I agreed immediately and we shook hands on the deal (from experience in Bali I presumed he needed the deposit to pay off his friend and to pay for the hire of the car for tomorrow and to buy petrol.
Joan however was very concerned that I had just been tricked out of 1000rp by another confidence trickster, my reply was that it was a question of whom you trusted, though I must agree to some concern that night that I'd fucked up. Confidence in human nature and my trust in my judgment restored he turned up complete with car at 8.30am the next day, and we both heaved a sigh of relief.
15 February 2010 'SNOOTY' OOTY
We will be leaving early tomorrow morning by bus at 7.45am, just over 100rp, for Calicut on the coast or probably we will hire a taxi for the journey at the going rate of 2750rp. This much only I have time to tell you before I go back to the Hotel Tamil Nadu to join Joan who left me yonks ago. Back to the heat and the mosquitoes after 7 days in Munnar and Ooty, altitude over 2000 metres in these beautiful Western Ghats represents one's only escape from the heat, their high season is April/May during which the Hotel Tamil Nadu doubles its rates from the 660 or 880rp we were offered, we took the better room which was big and clean.
When it came to it we decided to go for the bus at 7.45am and if it was too full to go to the nearby taxi rank instead having in the meantime have waited with a French Travellor complete with classical guitar caught the previous afternoon's bus and observed that it had Calicut in English script also written on its destination board. In the event we took the morning bus to Calicut on 18 Feb. But I'm getting ahead of the story. |
| OOTY ENGLISH SCHOOL |
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| OOTY MARKET |
We asked the taxi driver from Ooty to drop us at Hotel Tamil Nadu literally just above central Charing Cross, the same chain we had used earlier, and were offered a large clean room with hot water at will from a geyser. The geyser exploded shorty after I switched it on, and the receptionist was surprised to find that a similar operation by him released a sparkler display. The electrician removed the heating element, which was quite evidently broken, but had no replacement so they moved us to a virtually identical room next door, but even after being left on overnight there was no hot water. Rather disgruntled by the lack of a hot shower we went to breakfast where they offered Pouri (blown up Dosa pancakes) or Appam, which we had grown to like, or Idly each with curry, plus coffee or tea for the princely sum of 60rp for two.
After enjoying breakfast we went over to talk to two young travellers and were fully cheered up by them. (The previous evening the hotel had bought and installed a new heating element). The young couple from Paris and we soon formed an easy rapport, with Joan talking non stop to Oliver and I similarly to Kumari. She told me she was born in India but on split up her mother had taken her first to Paris and then to Greece. She had the beautiful colouring that I associate with Anglo Indians (offspring of the earlier male settlers with Indian women, here was an Franco Indian with the same good looks. At the end of this trip they were to stay with her father in Mumbai.They had travelled a great deal, which was made possible by the fact that they both worked as contract labour, she via a nursing agency and Oliver in sales being commercially trained. As usual a lot of information was exchanged and we have a cheap hotel recommended by them in Mysore. Their trip of the previous year had been to Australia and New Zealand, the latter they liked a great deal. But although carrying 12 month work visas they could only get casual work for instance as fruit pickers, she said they were badly treated in this role (shades of the Chinese in Britain) and that she continually felt threatened something she attributed to the drink culture in Australia.
They had travelled with the backpackers by bus from Sydney to Cairns and flown back to Melbourne, which was an easy form of travel. However they did not empathise with the backpackers many of whom were UK gap year students waiting to start university. (We had often wondered where gap students went because travel as we do we have never met a gap year student and had concluded that what we did was too difficult for their hedonistic life style. Their lack of empathy was in part due to age gap for she is 27 (though think of the age gap between us) but above all with the drink culture in the British young, who she described as being like the Australians and drinking with the sole aim of getting drunk, along with drinking games which no doubt we too indulged in occasionally at university, but were saved from making it a habit by lack of money. I guess they went out with the idea of moving to Australia but in the event they are left without any enthusiasm for such a move.
An Indian couple, of our age, joined the conversation and insisted in the waiter photographing the group. It would be totally wrong impression to imagine our discussion was related to travel but flew all over the place, cultures, ecology, religions etc.
We broke up so as to get on with the day, they were unhappy with their room so we told them to move to Tamil Nadu Room 309 after we had left the next day where they could be sure of unlimited hot water, so necessary in the coldest part of Southern India, which is hot during the day, but needing a fleece after sunset 6.30pm. As by now it was late morning we gave up our idea of checking out and taking a taxi to Calicut and instead we spent the rest of the day at the Botanical Gardens.
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| OOTY PARK designed by KEW |
The British established Ooty as a R and R escape from the heat and swelter of India. Just outside our hotel was a school the built to educate the Anglo Indian children in about 1850 (the photo will confirm the exact date. The Biological park was created in 1840 as a place for growing vegetables, but by 1848 was converted to a fine park with a layout and green grass which would grace any English country hose.
Around the main sloping lawn, not unlike the sea end of Clyne Park, they had brought trees from all over the world and formed what is in effect a well laid out arboreatheum. The flower beds were being laid out as we went round but due to the heat of the day time sun were being being protected by small bowers constructed of freshly harvested green broom shoots which soon turned brown.
There were also an Italian Garden, green houses and a rose garden which we did not go to see. It was a beautiful experience with so many Indian families, largely themselves tourists enjoying such beauty and relaxing under the shade of big trees. We nearly didn't go after The French traveller had recommended it but showed Joan photos of a few flowers - those being Busy Lissy's at which Joan turned up her nose.
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| BUS OOTY TO CALICUT |
We did indeed take the option of going by bus which arrived as planned at 7.45am but started off only part full, so we had plenty of options to stow our luggage, the wheely bags going under the seats and the small rucksacs in the luggage racks above the seats. The bus was never over full during the whole journey except for 30 mins when we were joined by hoards of children of all ages going to school. The whole journey took about 7 hours.
KOZHICODE (Calicut), 18 February
Writing 23 Feb well behind time as usual, though computers are easy to find now as are ATMs which are prepared to provide me a service. Nice too to have the reassurance of Internet Banking to confirm that there are no illegitimate transactions. Joan is currently looking after the Yahoo email.On arrival we headed for the Malibar Palace, in the event there were Gideon Bibles in each bedroom not the Quran as promised by the guidebook, both irrelevant as far as I am concerned. If this was a Muslim run hotel it there is no sign of it. Even after bargaining it was a litle more than we have been paying but with a huge comfortable double bed, the majority have been two singles separately made up but pushed together. Also they have a good restaurant, though Joan suffered DV after her first meal, which we deemed did not represent a warning and ate there happily for the next three days, The suspect was the sweet Carrot Halva which had been slightly different in both taste and thickness, and warm rather than cold so Joan concluded it had been left out of the fridge. The second basically excellent restaurant to give a health scare, but one that in this case only lasted 24 hours, though Joan broke her fast just 24 hours later only with a bowl of Minestrone soup.
We got the feel that rather belatedly we are getting on a roll. Rather than waste the afternoon we went first to the railway station where we had to wait over an hour in a well ordered numbered token queue in the Advanced Booking Reservation office, to which we were kindly accompanied. The wait was well worth while as I emerged with two tickets the first for the Intercity Express to our next destination Kannur but also on 28 Feb a sleeper from Mysore to Chennai which will get us in touch with the return flight, though we intend to go to Mahabalipuram for our last night from where we will get a taxi transfer to the airport at midnight on 1 March.
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| KOZHICODE (CALICUT) foyer of mosque |
Rather than waste the remaining hour and a half of daylight we decided to take a rickshaw to the first of three very old wooden mosques in the Kuttichira district. There we met a man of our own age who offered to take us to all three mosques on foot. This was an occasion when a would be guide's approach was very welcome. The first and biggest was the Miskal Masjid where we had been dropped by the taxi, outside was a big tank following the Hindu temple style. It was simple in designed in the Yemen and built entirely of wood, 750 years old, the other two were also of wood of 850 and 1250 years old, the later being just 200 years after the beginnings of the Muslim religion in Saudi Arabia. Due to a repair needed to forestall collapse the wooden pillars supporting the first floor had been replaced with stone equivalents.
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| KOZHICODE (CALICUT) GROUP of FAMILY HOMES |
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| KOZHICODE (CALICUT) COMMUNIST PARTY HQ |
BEYPORE PORT a short bus ride from Kozhicode
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| BEYPORE PORT near KOZHICODE (CALICUT) |
But the main reason for coming to Kozhikode was the bit Joan had read saying the large wooden dhows were still being built in Bepore, just 20 km south. The reception said the bus for Bepore stopped just outside and a few minutes later we were on our way, again luckily in a part full bus. We headed for the port and for 1rp tickets each were allowed to enter. That started a chain of events which showed once again how much can be achieved by time and persistence in spite of major language difficulties. Looking around we saw how many of the vessels were still constructed of wood and our eye was particularly taken by a wooden boat laden with say 20 placid cattle and by being there so long several people started to come up and try to talk, with litle success.
Joan showed an onlooker her hastily drawn sketch of a wooden boat and tree and tried to ask where one was converted to the other. A youngish man got the idea and pointed to the far shore of the estuary where there appeared to be a high wooden shed, and indicated to move next to the port where there was a jetty from which a makeshift trimaran ferried people and vehicles to the far side on a regular basis. So we exited the port and went next door as it were to the jetty and boarded the next arrival with masses of schoolchildren being given a return trip across the bay as part of their day out.
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| BEYPORE near KOZHICODE (CALICUT), FERRY ACROSS TO ISLAND |
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| THIS PILE OF WOODEN LOGS |
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| BEYPORE near KOZHICODE (CALICUT) LAST LEG TO BOATYARD But still no sign of boat building. He headed through the jungle and a few scattered homes and we were suddenly confronted by the the boat yard with three large wooden dhows under construction, No Camera he indicated but he was too late for I had at least one record. |
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| BEYPORE near KOZHICODE (CALICUT), BOAT BUILDING YARD for ARABS |
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| BEYPORE near KOZHICODE (CALICUT), MANAGER OF BOAT BUILDING YARD for ARABS |
The first and most complete of the three boats on the stocks just over the water from Bepore Port was being built for the Crown Prince of Quatar, the second was the first of five for a French restauranteur which he planned to open in Casablanca, Morocco. He had ordered four more, two on the southern Mediterranean coast at Nice and Monte Carlo, the destination of the third on the stocks I don't remember but given email contact we will soon find out this and other details. I can feel a urge to visit Casablanca for the opening might coming on.
I estimate that the dimensions of these boats to be 30m length by 8m beam by 6m high, (in fact their website gives the dimensions as 44m by 10m by 3m high). They were truly massive for wooden boats made by traditional methods of bending and nailing with impressive bows and decorative carving of railings.
He said that Quatar was now the only supporter of this ancient tradition which had applied to the all the Gulf States. For his part he emphasised that it was a hard way to make a living, for himself and his 45 workmen. As he said there is more to life than making money and he was enthusiastic, as were we, on his determination to ensure survival of a building tradition which had been employed by three generations of his family. Five years ago it had virtually folded when he had received the order from the Crown Prince and after a family meeting they had decided to move to their current location (on another shore) and regroup. (His colouring told that he was not of Indian stock but we didn't bother to establish his nationality.
Traditionally delivery had been by a couple of months towing the vessels to their new home in the Gulf, but this next one they were intending to deliver as an over large container at a cost of $200,000. He invited us to walk around and photograph whatever we wanted a difficult task given the proximity to such huge vessels and the poor light as they were shaded by the thatched canopy we had seen from miles away a few hours ago. By this time our boat man had decided not to risk paddling us back with so little free-board and summoned a small powered dinghy to the jetty, where we observed for the first time the warning message, 'No Entry Without Authority' . We gave him a generous tip and parted on reaching the shore, and two very happy bunnies started their homeward trip.
KANNUR 22 February
Our train ticket took us painlessly to Kannur where we enquired in vain for a rickshaw driver who knew the where-abouts of Michael Edmonds strong recommendation of Kannur Beach House, for reasons which were to become clearer. In fact without a reservation it might have ben a journey in vain anyway. Unfortunately we arrived on a Sunday when the extremely helpful Tourist Office at the station was closed. We closed our options by heading for the nearby Royal Omars, the first of an intended chain of Omar Hotels in Kerala. From what we saw they will be extremely successful. There was no discount on the basis that they were already by far the best value around - which we would not dispute 1500rp +12.5% tax (accommodation tax is 10% in the cheapest, then 12.5% and 15% in the most expensive we used) including breakfast buffet for two.
Once again opting for our usual preference of town centre hotels. Though at this stage of the holiday a few days by the beach would have made for a pleasant winding down. As I write today, Tuesday the 23 February, we have just seven nights after tonight in India, one of which will be on a sleeper train to Chennai. We are off on a private day bus to Mysore at 8am tomorrow, it goes to Bangalore and we will be sacrificing much of the fare - still at 680rp for two that's not too significant. So TTFN, catch up later.On the afternoon of our arrival we went to Fort St.Angelo, originally Portuguese in 1505, then Dutch, finally British from 1790 their most important military base in the south, but not much beyond the boundary walls remain. This is made up for by the spotless gardens, not often you can say this in India (under charge of the Archaeological Survey of India), Sunday family visitors out to enjoy the sunshine. It is increasingly hot here around 37 degrees, but Joan and I are now well acclimatised to the temperature, and looking back we cannot remember having any drop of rain. Queue Swansea!
Nor can I say we are ready to get back, the end of April sounds more tempting, by then you should have banished winter for another year.
That evening I luxuriated in an evening of Premiership football, and Villa won 5-2, maybe they will put in a late run on the fence - next for the Man U and the Carling cup, though I doubt this will be shown here, but nothing rivals the three or four channels devoted to cricket.
Excellent Hotel and restaurant, with really cool a/c to ensure excellent nights of sleep. The manager was very helpful in discussing what should be done, ideas which were to fill the next two days as well.
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| KANNUR, KOODALI and KANHIRODE WEAVING MILL |
We chose a 30km trip by taxi 500rp to Koodali and the Kanhirode Weaving Mill hand looms weaving high quality cotton cloth. It is one of 35 such weaving co-operatives in Kerala which is totally owned by the workforce and is given a grant of 20% of turnover by the government (State or national?) to ensure they remain in business, and in so doing preserve traditional cottage industry with the productive employment in this case of 450 workers on 200 looms, highly intricate and totally made of wood in a Heath Robinson type of structure and powered entirely by the operator. In effect it is otherwise a fully automated wood process and it is interesting to think that a modernised process would require perhaps 100 limit switches and a PLC (Program Logic Controller) a specialised computer designed to replace relay logic and relay timers etc.
We were told that such wooden looms were still made in Madurai.
This factory started by spinning the cotton powered by turning by hand a bicycle wheel in the old fashioned Gandhi manner, then included dying skeins, mainly with artificial colour in 40 vats, but around twenty shades, each with its own stirring stick (literally a stick) to prevent cross contamination of colours. The drying of the raw cotton was then washed and dried like washing in the sun, but with backup of coconut husk fired boilers for the rainy season.
I think we were expected, for which thanks should go to the hotel manager, anyway we were taken around by the Secretary who works with a Manager and a Treasurer in the expected structure and the board of workers also elected by the workforce.
Some people work with their own looms at home.
We were first into the shop that day and bought another hand made table cloth 2.5m by 1.5 meters (five foot, also 6 foot or 1.8metres available), to add to that from Bali last spring. But soon bus loads of Indian women stormed in and bought large quantities for sale in their shops. We too got a 10% discount making our tablecloth 440rp ($10). Next day we headed to the Tourist Office at the Railway Station, to get further details of where to find a Beedi Cigarette factory and to get more details of where to see Theyyam, and where to find Beach House. In each case except the home stay, he produced details of where to go, how to get to and from by bus in both English for us and Malayem for the driver/conductors who could speak little beyond the cost of tickets.
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| KANNUR, 'BEEDI' TOBACCO FACTORY |
First to the Beedi factory, and another cottage industry this one rolling local cheroot like cigarettes by hand. From the central bus station by bus to Kuthuparamba, getting off just short of the destination in Mambaram. Looking lost an oldish man asked us if he could help, he then took us literally a few yards to a shed where a handful of men and about 60 women, smartly dressed in saris were working. He told us to watch and indicated that we could walk around and photograph as much as we liked.
The men were largely cutting leaves, which we later learned were not tobacco to the shape of a small plastic template, the women rolling cigarette tobacco into these leaves and securing with a few twists of thread, they then put a rubber band around each dozen such cigarettes. We were made welcome by all the workers, invited to sit down and watch and photograph though no verbal exchange was possible, I asked vainly if there was anyone with a little English, but nothing beyond the usual What Country?, Name? We seemed to establish that none of them smoked.
On the point of leaving we walked out of the far end of the shed to talk over what we had seen and also to watch six people in the next shed with sewing machines, when the first man reappeared, said he was a retired professor of History and had we any
questions. Questions came non stop for the next hour.
First we learned the machinists were making shirts.
As for the Beedi which we had never seen being sold or smoked he explained this was a key cottage industry to be found all over India, the tobacco and the outer leaves were brought in from the northern states, and yes they were still smoked by the poor in their homes.
Like the cotton mills these were worker owned cooperatives subsidised by government in the interests of continuing employment for people with few other skills and keeping alive a traditional industry. Of course they run hand in hand with modern manufacturing of cotton and cigarettes, but this is done in privately owned factories. (I read the other day that the unemployed receive just 20rp per day, under the heading would you like to live on 20rp/day (30p or $0.4/day), previously I have tended to think a lot of thworld's poor survive on $1 or perhaps even one pound/day - on this evidence understating poverty levels.
From industry we rapidly got on to wider perspectives in one of the most interesting exchanges this trip. India is still a very poor country by western standards, for centuries it was bleed dry by colonials who were remitting all their profits to the mother country. Fifty one percent nationalisation in 1963 had started to redress the balance, but since 100% nationalisation in 1977 India had been able to start growing her economy as an emerging nation.
Tackled on comparison with China he emphasised two big differences, firstly China was never subject to colonial rule, except Manchuria by the Japanese, secondly they had not had to fight continual wars, thirdly democratic government versus single party government in China. There was the India Pakistan war which ended in the conversion of East Pakistan into a separate country, Bangledesh, and there was continual military opposition from Pakistan in Kashmir and in his opinion in their support for terrorism by extreme Muslims, and there had been an invasion on the northern borders by China which was ongoing.
Naxalite communism revolt started in Kerala amongst tribal people, but had now spread to the north where they were whipping up revolutionary opposition amongst the poor tribal people in those areas. Maoism had come from China via Nepal and was working on similar opposition from the dispossessed, and now Muslim extremist terrorism was an increasing threat as we have observed from the daily news.
I am tempted to float a hypothesis and that is that nationisation by India and the Cultural Revolution in China, which both occurred about 40 years ago, had a similar effect in that they swept away the old order and forced each country to start to build anew using the dynamic young who were left. Both then started afresh to build relationships with 'western' firms, but this time India's were on their terms In other respects I still find it difficult to resolve the very obvious modernisation in the west of China with anything I have seen again here in southern India or anything seen over a decade ago in north-west India. They have such different cultures.
I believe that China's growth will ultimately be checked by resentment from the masses at the culture of corruption (unstoppable perhaps in a single party state), just as I expect India to be increasing threatened from within by revolution from having left 50% of its population in the dark age. Fifty percent was my figure and I have often floated it in conversation without challenge, but I am bringing back a newspaper article which tackles the numbers from various angles and arrives at the same figure, though it discounts estimates varying from 20% to 80%.
Our man disappeared suddenly, perhaps for lunch leaving me in agreement with almost all he said, but still amazed that he should be so strongly convinced that Pakistan were enemies of China. We met that same fear a decade ago during a stay in a household in Amritsar. It was a little difficult to get him to agree that we were talking of a few Muslim extremists rather than the mass of Muslim population. Yet all around us in Kerala a we see lots of Muslims apparently living in harmony with Hindus and Christians, and both sects are extremely welcoming to us.
Why Kozhicode and Kannur are not established on the tourist trail I cannot see. For our money it Kannur is the best city, the cleanest and the one with more modern buildings, and as we shall show excellent beaches.
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| KANNUR, LOKANATH WEAVING MILL |
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| KANNUR, MANAGERESS, LOKANATH WEAVING MILL |
Not finished we stopped off from the same bus closer to home and visited another weaving factory, The Lokanath Weavers Co-op Society Ltd. Smaller than the previous with only 60 looms but making a bigger range of cloth, from bedspreads, to sheets, bathmats and shirt fabrics. There is little else to say except that we bought again, including a short sleeved shirt for 5 quid, some table mats and drying up cloths. My wheelie bag is looking more pregnant every day, Joan's was that way from the very start!
Not done for the day we took another rickshaw to follow the Tourist Office Instructions to get to the Theyyam.
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| THEYYAM |
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| THEYYAM FESTIVAL |
A previous day we had taken a rickshaw in search of Kannur Beach House for a price of 100rp based on a distance of 10km, under instructions from the tourist office again we told him to take us to Kizhuna Beach, the beach to its north as it turned out. It soon became obvious that he did not know where it was but was intending to have a very good crack at finding it, instead of going straight south on the minor coast road we zig-zagged down staying nearer the coast, on what were often little more than earthen tracks.
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Our indefatigable rickshaw driver |
First we passed KK Heritage 1500rp, they had a simple room with mosquito net vacant, which had been recommended by the tourist office as being cheaper than Beach House. Then on the shore line we saw Kannur Beach House, we had arrived we went over to case the joint and immediately told Rosi we had been recommended to stay by a previous visitor but couldn't find any driver at the station who knew their whereabouts.
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| KANNUR BEACH HOUSE recommended by Michael Edwards |
We excused ourselves by pointing out our driver who followed us down the tracks, perhaps anxious not to see his fares get lost. Finally we walked over a concrete bridge to the shore, where we saw a beautiful small bay, and it being the cool of evening there were a few people sunbathing and even more swimming. We mused about whether we could get out, because Joan with her two artificial knees and I who walk badly after sitting down or swimming getting out with dignity has become a big issue.
I can quite see why Michael Edmunds gave it a very high recommendation, one I am sure it deserves. Perhaps next year plus a visit to Hampi and a few other places we ought to have explored.
2500rp for full board compares cost-wise in this case with Royal Omar where we paid 2100 rp for excellent room, breakfast and dinner. Both have their advantages, one being in the city centre and good for exploration, the other an excellent hideaway in a seaside forest.
A destination which reminds me of the superb nudist beach we found years ago a small peninsular at the west end of St Tropez bay, which was reached by the longest and bumpiest of tracks (more suited to four wheel drives than Cortinas or auto rickshaws) leading through the trees and Mediterranean shrubs to a fabulous beach and a nudist village. If taking my clothes of was the price of entry to such a feast of young naked women then I was game, the kids were more prudish.
At the Thyyam that night there was a sprinkling of western tourists including the two English girls from Costa Malabari (who came over to speak and explained that their Hindu owner had been most informative), and a male walker we met on our walk to the beach who was staying at the same place. Illustrating that sometimes hideaways are not restrictive, there may well have been tourists from KK Heritage and Beach House because the only people we met were the owners of those other two establishments.
MYSORE and a NEW INDIAN GOD 25 February 2010
Writing at the end of our first full day at Mysore (25 Feb) at the end of the previous complete posting. Poked my head out of the door in this dress shop whilst a girl tried on her new trousers I saw the streets were wet. I spoke too soon, but it was only a heavy shower which had finished by the time I wanted to leave. Joan who went home earlier never knew it had rained!We travelled by bus which being private and destined for Bangalore nearly got us there, thankfully Colin the only other westerner on board realised what was happening, but we had a hell of as job to get them to get us back to Mysore. In the end they proceeded to the next town and paid the taxi fare to get us back.
We went straight to Chandra Palace as recommended strongly by J Kumari and obtained the last room for 500rp, the cheapest yet (ashram 300rp for two) on this trip and quite OK, clean comfortable with bathroom the only downside was a shortage of daylight, which resulted from overlooking the blank wall of next door; and a squat loo, which we both dealt with easily.
The TV was playing cricket as usual, Tendulkar was in his seventies at the time ad I watched a masterful display while he went beyond 150, at which time I felt it only proper to take a starving Joan to eat dinner. When we got back he had become the first cricketer ever to reach 200 in a One Day International, there have been 3000 such matches. Later that evening the media were anointing him as the new God of Indian cricket, better than Kapil Dev (Botham's rival all-rounder, or the master batsman Sunil Gavaskar.
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| MYSORE, SIDDIQ OUR EXCELLENT DRIVER FOR SEVERAL DAYS |
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| MYSORE MAHARAJA'S PALACE |
Replenishing liquid before entering the Internet cafe next door we discovered Badam Milk, full cream milk with almonds. Orienting ourselves by walking around the city centre (750,000) with its Gandhi Square, Clock Tower, KR Circle, Park and Palace making for easy recognition. It became a regular event to eat at the roof top restaurant Shipashri, a lovely all day venue where there is tandoor oven cooking after 7.30pm. A pleasant breezy location for breakfast and dinner, where I discovered a liking for Kingfisher beer, remarkably the first beer since the very first at Aleppy.
While tidying up I should offer an apology to the BBC World Service, there are times of the day when it is boringly repetitive of breaking news just like 101 Indian channels (not that I can understand them!) but in fact there are many more interesting programs, some directed straight at Asian affairs, some almost Discovery like. Take away the cricket and Premiership coverage and there is not much left besides Discovery itself.
Next morning Siddiq was waiting outside the hotel at 8.30 as we emerged to search for breakfast, he hailed us as we had not noticed him, and took us for breakfast where we had the first of three of triple decker cheese sandwiches, making a pleasant contrast to the Indian food we had been eating and enjoying for weeks.
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| JAMA MASJID of TIPU SULTAN DYNASTY on SRIRANGAPATNAM ISLAND |
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| JAMA MASJID of TIPU SULTAN DYNASTY on SRIRANGAPATNAM ISLAND |
He took us first to Srirangapatnam, 12 km away where be coincidence we had been dropped by the bus. This was a wonderful small town with much to see especially the Summer Palace of the Tipu Sultan dynasty with outstanding power over much of southern India. There was outstanding for the detail of the wall/ceiling painting and for once we were delighted to find someone who attached himself as an uninvited but knowledgeable guide. The grounds were also outstanding with absolutely no rubbish, but we found out this place too was run by the Indian Archaeological Survey. Wellington's brother lead the troops who finally killed the last Sultan Tipu, who had been betrayed by one of his sons, Colonel Wellesley the future Duke of Wellington himself is normally accorded the victory. We also saw the prison dungeon in which many British officers were imprisoned often for many years.
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| SRIRANGAPATNAM ISLAND HINDUS HOLY PLACE |
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| SRIRANGAPATNAM ISLAND HINDUS HOLY PLACE CORACLES USED for SCATTERING ASHES |
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| WATERS MEET on SRIRANGAPATNAM ISLAND, Crippled Girl being blessed |
The explanation was that the man's father had died and his ashes were in the urn and this was the traditional eldest son offering final respects to his father on behalf of the whole family. The urn had been taken to a coracle and would be lowered into the river at the meeting point of the three streams.
Finally we were taken back to Mysore and agreed to go in search of sandalwood oil. In the backstreets we first saw a woman making incense sticks, rolling the bamboo sticks in a chewing gum like paste of Sandal Wood powder (2%), with charcoal and honey as the binding agent, she did this with remarkable speed and would make several thousand a day. Inside we were seated with another excellent English speaking man who was the expert in essential oils an a specialist in Ayurvedic medicine. A French girl and her mother were handed the gold ring she had left there the day before, saying he could always be trusted.
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| OUR DRIVERS BIG PAYOFF and JOAN'S DEMISE - SCENTS |
It was not until later that we started to wonder about the possible confidence tricks involved, could we find the place again, no, did we have a receipt, no, am I a gullible fool, obviously.
The oils without being in anything like the essential oil concentration give out wonderfully strong perfume smells, so the oils in the original bottles may well have been dilute, second could we be sure the phials were indeed empty maybe they were part full of alcohol, thirdly are we sure the oils dispensed had been from the very same bottles as we had been given samples. Was the price list he showed really a copy of the official state prices. We knew as before that the rickshaw driver had taken us there would have received a commission and probable a percentage of the sale discount, I had factored that in from the start as his reward for an excellent day
out.
Aware of the probable trickery when we he finally dropped us at the hotel we still arranged to meet Siddiq the following day, because he had been such a good guide. We first instructed him to take us to the Sandal wood co-operative factory again subsidised by the state government. It was interesting enough, they first broke the sandal wood down in various stages until it was dust they then mixed it with water and distilled the mixture in on ton quantities ( a process which took more than a day, then a secondary distillation to get from 98% purity to nearly 100% and finally a drying stage? We then proceeded to the shop where I bought 5grms for 1200rp, yesterday I had bought 30gm for 1075rp. There was no longer any doubt about it being a scam.
As Joan reflected the drivers just take you to the confidence tricksters, there is no compulsion to buy and in the past two decades we have regularly walked out without making purchases. The drivers will get a small commission just for delivering you. It's we who are the gullible fools, buying things when we have no idea of the true price. It makes me thankful of not proceeding with the saphire ring in Chennai for in that case the price was over 500 pounds and the odds are we would have walked out with a different ring probably without a receipt. We asked whether we would have to pay import tax at the UK customs, answer not it was an article of art, what we did not know was that we would be counter Indian law by exporting a saphire gemstone over one carat in weight without an export licence.
From there we asked to go to the government silk weaving factory where they produce saris with the gold thread (actually silver first then gold) for which Mysore is famous (no photographs allowed). Although also a co-operative it was by far more modern than the cotton weaving factories with a large proportion of high speed Japanese looms of the Yamada model. These were controlled by what amounted to a piano roll which controlled the lifting of the wharp in order to trigger about 30 sections and when the pattern was complex the piano roll was of symphony length. since most of the a saris were of a single colour but with gold patterning on the ends and edges the vast majority was done without much alteration to the colour in the bobbin to create the weft? At first count I concluded there were 80 such looms and then we discovered that there were other rooms.
The process was started by the spinning of silk, the doubling of threads and twisting of the pairs to make them strong enough to withstand being twisted with a further dozen such threads. All saris coming off the looms were of a single colour plus the gold patterning on ends and edges and then sent for dying to a single colour as selected from say one hundred colours and shades. The softening that occurred as a result of this dyeing process was remarkable, turning a rough silk into one of the very highest quality.
All that was sold in the factory shop were saris, so we were not interested in purchasing. Next stop was the top of the Chammundi hill overlooking the city and the Hindu temple where we had to join a long queue of Indians wanting to gain entry.
First stop that day had been the railway station to check on whether we had seats on the night train to Chennai, because our tickets stated only that we were 12th and 13th on a waiting list. We were assured that we had berths and that they would be at the front end of the train where there would be lists of passengers and the seat allocation.
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| NINDI the HINDU BULL |
To end the day the rickshaw struggled up to the temple on the hill overlooking Mysore and on the way down we stopped to see Nindi.
We parted from Sidiq and he promised to pick us up at the usual restaurant at 6.30 and take us the palace which was due to be lit up from 7.00 to 7.30. It was a sight well worth seeing as will be obvious from the pictures. We got back to the rickshaw at 7.15 and headed to the station were we parted company with Sidiq.
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| MYSORE MAHARAJA'S PALACE, Sunday is illumination night |
The usual crowd of porters were pushed away before we could roll our bags onto the platform where the train was waiting (it started at Mysore) and slowly we made our way along the train, finally Joan noticed passenger lists stuck to the door of each carriage so we searched for Corbett on carriage after carriage as we walked towards the front of the train, finally finding just one entry, but further inspection showed an adjacent seat allocated to Lorbett. We boarded the train with 15 mins or so to spare. An arrow on the seat number indicated whether it was the upper or lower bunk, this carraige was the more expensive two tier arrangement we had preferred when buying the ticket, but we were also on the waiting list for a three tier carriage. In retrospect the two tier which we had not met before is far preferable because it means that one gets a half rather than a third of the bench seat with equivalent increase in stowing luggage under the seat, plus far greater headroom in the bunks. The train is now classified as an express and although starting two hours later than our guidebook showed also arrived an hour earlier. On leaving we realised that we had been on one of the newly electrified trains.
MALIBALIPURAM from CHENNAI railway stationt
By 7.00am we were in Chennai searching for a taxi to take us to Mahabalipuram, for we had decided to spend out last two nights there rather than in the less welcoming Chennai. We got room in the very modern comfortable rooms at Pallava Dynasty as discovered on our first stay. We ate dinner at the Mamalla Heritage as before, though Joan who is not taken by spicey Indian food was very disappointed to find that instead of the mild sauce of Malai Kofta she was in fact given hot Marsala Kofta because they had run out of the other sauce. On complaint it was deducted from the bill. We are going to give them a second chance in a short while and this time we will be early rather than late, so they have no excuse, because I have now completed this blog whilst yesterday I had spent 5 hours till 9pm catching up.
Searching for a taxi to Mahabalipuram was even more fraught than avoiding porters before boarding, it is essential to remain in charge of your own luggage or you will have no say in the choice or price of onward travel. In fact ignoring the unofficial pre-paid taxi desk we eventually arived at the queue at the official building, where they dealt only with auto rickshaws, they however did not have rickshaws going out of town so they sold us a 300rp ticket to the furthest point, an Enginering College, and then told us we would have to pay for the remaining journey at 9rp per mile. In fact we never saw the Engineering College but the same rickshaw brought us the whole way for 600rp, the same as we had paid from Chennai to Mahabalipuram the very first time and just over a third of the price being requested by taxi cars as we walked out of the station.
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| MAHABALIPURAM HINDU FESTIVAL CROWD |
See you soon.
