Tamil Nadu – From Pyrenees to Pennines

Indian Friday: Sightseeing in Chennai

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. From now on, increasingly exhausted, my entries become terser and frustratingly light on detail.

Sightseeing in Chennai

Saturday 1st December.

Got up. What else could I do? Pounded the area looking unsuccessfully for hotels. Went over to Y’s house – she was out at a school meeting, but we eventually set off at about 10.30. Every few minutes she would stop the car at ‘point of view’ and commanded me and my camera to ‘Take this!’ So we saw the English Church of the Naval Base – surprisingly early – the 1600s.

And at various points on the seashore where we’d stop for half a minute ‘Take this! Take this!’

We ended up in an Indian vegetarian cafe, the expensive bit upstairs, where I bought her a – quite nice – lunch.

Then ever onwards. Various sights on the beach again, then the Theosophical Society Gardens which was a wonderful green lung. It was interesting to see the 400 year old Banyan tree whose main trunk had gone but which had endless ‘babies’ spread over a very wide area.

And back to base at 4.30. I’d hoped to take a nap (though I don’t ‘do’ daytime sleep) but it was impossible – noise again. So I got up and rang and emailed loads of hotel – none with vacancies.

Then at 8.30, over to Y’s for a dry and pretty nasty mac cheese, and so to bed, perchance not to sleep. Y had rung the hotel who promised me a room away from the road tomorrow.

The building in my featured photo is I think the Ice House, which we didn’t visit. What interested me was the group of boys playing cricket. Such groups were everywhere, but not once was I instructed to take a shot of them. So it was quite hard to steal a moment to do so.

Indian Friday: Couchsurfing

Today, for one week only, I am abandoning my diary in favour of a piece I wrote just after I had left Thanjavur. I do sound a bit smug, I know. But I stand by every word I wrote then. My time in Thanjavur still stands as one of the highlights of my Indian journey. I’ve nearly used up any appropriate Thanjavur photos though. So there is just one shot today of a building I forgot to label at the time, a sad ruin of what it must have been, But red enough for #SimplyRed.

Couchsurfing

The following is an unsolicited testimonial for CouchSurfing. No money has changed hands in the production of this advert!

In case you don’t CouchSurfing is an online community in which travellers offer hospitality, and make use of hospitality offered while on the road. It’s based on the premise that this makes travelling more affordable, but more importantly, gives travellers the opportunity to experience the community they’re visiting at first hand, rather than in the somewhat detached way hotels and so forth can offer

That was a bit of a long lead in ….

In Thanjavur I stayed with Gwen, an American doing post-graduate research at the University there. We’d exchanged emails over a month or two, so she didn’t feel like a stranger when I met her. She gave me a wonderful welcome and time with her, so I wanted to treat her on our last evening together. She asked to eat at the best hotel in town, as she’s heard the food was good, and as a student of modest means, it was she thought, beyond her reach. Good idea.

A we passed through reception, we might as well have shown our passports. Thanjavur disappeared from sight to be replaced by marble walls and floors, corporate decoration, and uniformed staff of the kind that usually frequent these places. Where were we? Birmingham? Milan? Dubai? Mumbai? Who knows? And so into the restaurant, where we pulled our dupattas tight round our shoulders to combat the cold of the air conditioning. Consulted the menu (Indian, Chinese and European) and ordered our meal. Got talking to the English couple next to us as they finished their chicken and chips. They turned out to be on an organised tour, and it looked as though their time was spoken for. They were enjoying it, but were scurrying along at the pace set by the demands of the tour, with no opportunity to go off on any tangents, and certainly no opportunity to meet local people on their own territory.

Compare my time in Thanjavur with theirs. Gwen’s American, certainly, but she’s made it her business to be part of the community she lives in. She’s learnt fluent Tamil, so has good relationships with her neighbours. So while there, I had the chance to mooch round and enjoy with her the rangoli decorations and lights put out at night for a Hindu Festival of Light (not Diwali, yet another one). I met the neighbours and was invited into their homes. Narrowly avoided a big faux pas in one. Invited to sit down, I nearly plonked myself in the nearest vacant place on a sofa. Recovered myself in time and did not sit there, next to the husband, but squeezed onto the other sofa, with the women. Gwen said it would have seemed very odd to them if I hadn’t remembered in time. Chatted to another neighbour, a Christian, who explained that she liked to keep the Hindu festivals too, and showed us her Hindu decorations taking their place alongside her pictures of the Pope.

I ran errands for Gwen, and in that way had several language-less conversations in the food market, where everyone was keen to shake my hand, because tourists in Thanjavur don’t generally go and buy half a kilo of carrots.

We zipped round on her scooter and bought takeaways. We caught local buses together and visited temples. We had meals in local cafés. I wandered round her neighbourhood when she wasn’t there, and saw a small community going about its day-to-day business.

I was woken in the morning to local sounds (actually I was invariably awake anyway, I don’t do sleep in India); the Muslim Call to Prayer transmitted by loud microphone at, erm, 5.30 a.m. The church bells ringing a few minutes after that (20 % Muslim and Christian communities here). The street hawkers who kick in at about 6.45. The day-today noise which seems to begin so early in Indian communities.

And of course it was interesting to talk to Gwen, who knew exactly what I would be finding difficult, and could guess what assumptions I might be making. Gave me a quick Tamil lesson, and more importantly a gesture one (‘Yes’ and ‘No’ aren’t the same here, I learned rather late in the day). She’s much the same age as Tom and Ellie, but that didn’t seem to matter – it didn’t to me, anyway.

And I saved money, though that wasn’t my motivation. I tried to make sure I didn’t cost Gwen anything. So what did our new English acquaintances gain from their corporate type hotel? A thicker mattress maybe. Constant hot water possibly (doesn’t really happen in India). I’m willing to bet I had loads more fun. Oh, and by the way, the meal wasn’t that good, and cost exactly 9 times as much as the meal we’d had at lunch time in a local cafe.

Indian Friday: In which Gwen is my Tour Leader for the Day.

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.

In which Gwen is my Tour Leader for the Day

Sunday 25th November.

Up, and early breakfast, then took the scooter to New Bus Stand to get the bus for Kumbakonam- the 1 ½ hour journey for 2 of us cost Rs. 30.

Kumbakonam, a not exactly enormous town, has 18 – eighteen – temples. We saw 3. The first, Sarangapani is dedicated to Vishnu, and boasts a temple elephant, who for a small sum, blessed us both. We were much bothered by the monks and so on, but the carvings were magnificent and we did a little shopping too. Lots of the statues are painted here, unlike those in Thanjavur.

Kumbeshwara, the Shiva temple, was exquisite, with very fine and detailed carving.

The Nageshwara temple was not unlike the first one.Then we went and watched some bronze casters at work using the lost wax technique, and Gwen nearly bought one.

But lunch called and a hard hunt eventually found us a not bad spit-and sawdust lunch. Then the bus to Dharasuram. Again, the temple here is superb. Wonderful rows of miniature and not-so miniature sculptures, But the pavings were so hot. Really uncomfortable. Because of course, on holy ground, our feet were bare. It was great – we thought – that the sculpture was unpainted. But talk about sculpture to excess! No surface was unadorned.

On the way back to the bus we came across a park: and this friendly bunch, thrilled that Gwen could chat to them in Tamil.

Then we hunted for the loo and caught a bus home. We sat at the front, and Gwen saw someone be sick out of the window. It was that sort of journey.

I’m sorry my entry for this busy day, full of new experiences, was so brief. We went out for the evening (more about that next week) and I must just have been too tired to write more.

And I hope you worked out that my featured photo is today’s offering for #SimplyRed.

Indian Friday: Hello 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.

I should explain. These next few entries cover the time when I stayed with a young American academic. I’d linked up with her through Couchsurfing, an organisation that enables travellers to stay with locals with a view to getting more of an insight into the local community than the average tourist does. Gwen was the only person who contacted me in Thanjavur, and I was a bit reluctant. An American in India? How wrong I was. As you’ll find out.

Hello Thanjavur!

Friday 23rd November.

5.00 a.m. The station was heaving with life! Such a surprise. But it was a bit too dark and gloomy to read, so off to the booking hall. What a party! Well, no, not actually.- just a score or so of boys and men sitting in convivial groups on the ground collating the day’s newspapers. This took most of the time till 7.00 when Gwen arrived … on her motor scooter.

In fluent Tamil, she negotiated me a rickshaw and off we went. And at her flat, she gave me breakfast and the first decent cup of coffee of the holiday. I really like her. She’s lots of fun, and at the same time, very committed to her archaeological studies.

Towards 10.00, we hopped on her scooter and she gave me a lift into town, dropping me off at the Chola Temple. What a place! Magnificent multi-sculpted edifices – several separate temples all on the same site. I just explored for a long time. Then I mooched round town. I can cope with this one. It has a shape I can follow, though the streets are familiar now. Internet cafe, then a hunt for lunch. No language passed between us, but I got my rectangle of banana leaf, my choice of rice, and helping after helping of the various sauces dumped onto the rice. They went out and got me bottled water as I indicated I wouldn’t have that in the jug. All for about 10 bob (50 p in new money) and ½ of that was the water.

Eventually, I found a bank: a chaotic jumble of customers, with areas of desks all over the place behind which sat officials and their untidy piles of files. More dusty files in dusty metal cupboards, and for me, no sense at all of what happens where. I was shunted to three different places and told eventually to come back tomorrow.

Back to the temple and a rickshaw home. Gwen took me out to get a take-away – a ‘parcel meal’, which was indeed neatly parcelled with cotton and cost Rs.65. Lots of talking …and so to bed.

And so today’s Square for Becky’s #SimplyRed is clipped from the shot above, where goats were lounging in a disused brick-red building in the centre of Thanjavur. They seemed very content.

Indian Friday: The Goat Ate my Blog Post

I have had a busy time: away last week, currently away again. I’ll rely on that (probably apocryphal) schoolchild’s excuse: ‘The dog ate my homework’. In this case, it was these goats, spotted in Thanjavur, who ingested my blog post.

Mamallapuram: on the coast of Coromandel

Picture a perfect tropical beach. The palm trees. The white sand. The sun in a cloudless sky above a calm blue sea. That’s Mamallapuram. Now look just behind the beach. Are those statues, monuments?

Beach at Mamallapuram with the Shore Temple in the background.

Yes, they are. This town was once a thriving international port. The Chinese came here. The Romans came here. Sailors and traders from around the known world came here. An 8th century text describes how ‘the ships rode at anchor bent to the point of breaking, laden as they were with wealth, big-trunked elephants and gems of nine varieties in heaps‘.

And so it was that just before this time, King Navasimharavan and his successor Rajasimharavan built a series of magnificent temples portraying the events of a great Hindu epic Mahabharata. There are pavilions. There are shrines shaped as temple chariots. There are imposing carved elephants. Here: you can wander round as I did, together with many Indian Sunday trippers. I simply enjoyed these monumental carvings, without going deeply into their history. I was quite simply too exhausted by then.

The Shore Temple.

Sunday afternoon at the Five Rathas

Later I ambled round town. I bought soap and a toothbrush – remember, I hadn’t planned to spend the night here when I left The Hotel from Hell in Chennai. I got a few more souvenirs to take home. I ate on the open terrace of a sheltered restaurant, finding easy company in fellow-travellers. It was a perfect day. My last day. I’d be getting up in the morning to go back to Chennai, pack, get to the airport and … fly home.

An entry for Six Word Saturday.

Another India Season: Thanjavur

After I’d left my new English friends to do solo travelling, my first stop was Thanjavur. I wanted temples in Tamil Nadu, and it seemed to be a toss-up between Thanjavur and Madurai. Thanjavur won, because I suspected it was less on the tourist trail.

Thanjavur and its Chola Temple at sunset.

In case you don’t know, CouchSurfing is an online community in which travellers offer and make use of hospitality offered. It’s based on the premise that this makes travelling more affordable, but more importantly, gives travellers the opportunity to experience the community they’re visiting at first hand, rather than in the somewhat detached way hotels can offer.

So I stayed with Gwen, an American doing post-graduate research at the University there. We’d exchanged emails over a month or two, and she didn’t feel like a stranger when I met her. She gave me a wonderful welcome and few days with her. Gwen had made it her business to be part of the community she lived in. She’d learnt fluent Tamil, so had good relationships with her neighbours. So while there, I had the chance to mooch round and enjoy with her the rangoli decorations and lights put out at night for a Hindu Festival of Light (not Diwali, yet another one).

Rangoli decorations lit up in the street at night.

I met the neighbours and was invited into their homes. I narrowly avoided a big faux pas with one household: a young couple, both teaching at the university. Invited to sit down, I nearly plonked myself in the nearest vacant place on a sofa. I recovered myself in time and did not sit, after all, next to the husband, but squeezed onto the other sofa, with the women. Gwen said it would have seemed very odd to them if I hadn’t remembered in time. We chatted to another neighbour, a Christian, who explained that she liked to keep the Hindu festivals too, and showed us her Hindu decorations taking their place alongside her pictures of the Pope.

We zipped round on her scooter and bought takeaways. These are known as ‘parcel meals’, and neatly packed up for you in a cotton cloth. We caught local buses together and visited temples. We had meals, served on a square of banana leaf, in local cafés. I wandered round her neighbourhood when she wasn’t there, and saw a small community going about its day-to-day business.

Street scene, Thanjavur

Another street scene, Thanjavur.

Goats eat breakfast in Thanjavur

I was woken in the morning to local sounds: the Muslim Call to Prayer transmitted by loud microphone at, erm, 5.30 a.m. : the church bells ringing a few minutes after that (20 % Muslim and Christian communities here): the street hawkers who kicked in at about 6.45: the day-today noise which seems to begin so early in Indian communities.

View from Gwen’s window. She looks healthy, despite her diet.

And of course it was interesting to talk to Gwen, who knew exactly what I would be finding difficult, and could guess what assumptions I might be making. She gave me the odd Tamil lesson, and more importantly a gesture one (‘Yes’ and ‘No’ are the opposite way round from ours, I learned rather late in the day). She was much the same age as Tom and Ellie, but that didn’t seem to matter – it didn’t to me, anyway.

I’m ashamed not to be giving you an art history lesson involving all those temples. Quite simply, I didn’t label my photos well enough. Instead, I’ll give you a picture-show: From Thanjavur itself; from the small town of Kumbeshwara which has eighteen temples; from the exquisite temple at Kambakonam; and from Dharasuram. Sadly, one of my main memories of Dharasuram was the astonishing pain of trying to walk round the site. One always leaves ones shoes at the entrance to a temple, and the paving stones were fiery hot and burning. As usual, no surface remained unadorned, but studying them in detail proved impossible.

Besides the detail of the sculptures, enjoy the temple elephant giving us a blessing, and the bronze worker busy working at the bazaar within the Nageshwara Shiva temple in Kumbeshwara. Don’t think of these places as simply being lavishly decorated places of worship. They’re living communities, with bazaars, sometimes cattle and elephants. Some, such as the Chola Temple at Thanjavur, have inviting grassy spaces. Bring the family for a picnic!