Author: margaret21

I'm retired and live in North Yorkshire, where I walk , write, volunteer and travel as often as I can.

Indian Friday: A Tourist in Thanjavur

My diary, revived from my trip to India back in 2007. This second part details my solo travels during the last three weeks or so.

A Tourist in Thanjavur

Saturday 24th November

Up betimes and off.  Why wouldn’t I be up early when I’d been woken by the Call to Prayer from the mosque at 5.30 a.m.?

The view from my window as I got myself organised for the day.

Gwen had told me how to get to the bus stop, so I did, and got on a bus and asked for ‘Temple’.  Though he indicated he didn’t go there, he didn’t turn me off, so I wasn’t concerned, as Thanjavur isn’t a big town.  However … we fetched up at the New Bus Stand, miles out.  Nobody spoke English, so I chose the most built-up road, and headed, I hoped, into town.  It soon petered out.  I had no choice but to go back, pick on the local part of the bus stand, wait for a bus and ask any prospective passenger if it was going to the temple.  Luckily it worked, and soon I was there.

It was a wonderful place.  Exquisite carvings, a lovely atmosphere and I even got a good guide, so I happily spent a couple of hours there.  Then the bank.  It’s just chaos. Luckily I didn’t have to queue, but I still had to wait 20 minutes white a bored functionary filled in endless forms and passed me along the line to get my money.

Bank of India Thanjavur. This shot was taken VERY surreptitiously because there were attentive guards with real guns. Needless to say, they are not in shot!

A walk along Ghandiji Road (I was able to check because of the presence of a Ghandi statue); lunch at a great cafe; an hour on the internet, then back to the Palace Museum.  What a dump.  Dusty, unkempt, piles of rubbish everywhere, long unmown grass.  But worst of all, a ‘guide’ who had the most rudimentary English attached himself to me, and I couldn’t shift him.  So I didn’t go and see the Chola bronzes, the most interesting part.  He also took me to a shop, which I fled from, though later I found another, with quite lovely things.

I walked back to the centre making friends with two stall holders in the outdoor market who wanted pictures sending on.  Then shopping there for Gwen – very friendly people with no English  who wanted to know my name, shook my hand and generally made me welcome.  They laughed when I proffered Rs. 70 (under £1)  for my purchases.  They wanted Rs 7. Oil laps everywhere because of the Festival.

 A rick home then a tour of the district on foot with Gwen to see the rangoli decorations lit with candles outside each house.  It was all very attractive, and everyone was out and about admiring each other’s lights.

Street decorations, Thanjavur. And this one’s squared to qualify for Becky’s #SimplyRed.

We went into two of her friends’ houses and sat down.  I nearly boobed in one by all-but sitting down in the easiest spare place – next to the husband. That would have been a real faux pas!  The home was very sparsely furnished: these people are young academics.  Gwen says two bedrooms are more than enough as families generally all sleep in the same room.

We made pasta sauce, ate… and so to bed.

The fearured photo of Brihadishvara Temple is from Unsplash, by Avin CP.

PS. One of today’s suggested tags courtesy of AI is ‘Fiction’. Really. This is not fiction.

I Spy with my Little Eye …

something beginning with H. That’s what Sarah of Travel with Me wants from us today for Leanne’s Monochrome Madness.

Well, in among all the other acts, Ripon’s Theatre Festival included a few sets of Morris dancers – just as likely to be women as men these days. And they all flaunt terrific Headgear on their Heads. I mean… Hats. Here are a couple: and including two more in the featured photo.

Horses. I won’t show you show-jumpers, or mares with their foals in bucolic meadows. Here’s one waiting patiently for the 159 in Masham one evening as we were on our way to Photo Club. The last bus had left an hour and a half before. In truth, she was on the way to Appleby Horse Fair, an event that. although centuries old, isn’t as long-established as Morris dancing. This horse was one of dozens of horses and vardoes we see making their slow way there in the weeks before.

Let’s continue to be a little Olde Worlde. Here’s a House spotted last year in Vitré in Brittany, a town which boasts almost no other housing style.

Or shall we go for a little Hut in the grounds of Sleningford Old Hall, or a tiny House, fairies-for-the-use-of, in Nidd Hall?

Fairies make me think of other out-of this world creatures, as seen at Hallowe’en.

Not frightened yet? I can sort that out. Here’s the Hideous Head of a Gegant in Premià de Mar , and a Haunting Harridan from the Puppet Museum in Cádiz.

I don’t want to leave you quivering though. Let’s go back to Morris Dancing and Hats of course, and let the Slubbing Billys cheer you up. In black and white, and in Glorious Technicolor With Red Highlights for Becky’s #SimplyRed Squares.

Perfectly Placed Postboxes

The featured image, spotted in Buxton, in England’s Peak District sets the tone. Here is is, a cheery chappy, just waiting to receive your letter. If you write letters any more ….

Then there’s our local post box, still with an image painted on the wall behind dating from 2014, the year we moved here, and the year that the Tour de France started in Yorkshire, and passed through the village. And in a nearby village, the box dates from the reign of Queen Victoria. Look! ‘VR’: Victoria Regina. And finally, a box spotted last autumn topped off with yarn bombing for Hallowe’en.

For Becky’s #SimplyRed Squares.

Spectacular Streetshows

Ripon Theatre Festival this last weekend: and Saturday and Sunday brought street performances and spectacles all over town. Best of all was that despite the incessant rain and intermittent thunder we were threatened with, not a drop fell while we were all out and about enjoying ourselves (and performing too, in the case of choirs like mine). But. What a cheek! Hardly anyone was decked out in red! I’m relying on photos from previous years to plug the Red Gap.

For Becky’s #Simply Red.

A Rusty Red Bench

This rusting wreck is multi-tasking today. It’s lived a blameless and long life in the ruins of Jervaulx Abbey, offering views of the Dales and what’s left of the Abbey in the long years since Henry VIII had it made unfit for purpose during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

Today though, it’s doing a tour of duty for Becky’s #Simply Red; for Jude’s Bench Challenge; and for Debbie’s One Word Sunday. It’s a little dishonest, as I’ve had to tinker a bit to make it Simply Red. Don’t tell the ghosts of those monks who once called this place home.

I’ve even managed a tweaked shot of part of the Abbey looking a little red too.