Tuesday 5 November
- We drove the short distance from beautiful, serene Cardamom Hοuse in the foothills of the Western Ghats to dusty Madurai — the Temple City, City of Honey, City of Jasmine, the City that Never Sleeps, the site of the wedding of Shiva and Parvati in Hindu mythology. After the natural calm of the past several days it was a shock to plunge again into the chaos of a large Indian city.
- We were welcomed with a lei of jasmine and marigolds on arrival at the Heritage Madurai hotel, formerly the British officers’ club and an oasis of calm — and mosquitos. The city is surrounded by small lakes, ponds and streams, so there is plenty of opportunity for the annoying little blighters to breed.
- We met up with our guide at the 17th century Tirumala Nayak Palace, built by the fabulously wealthy maharaja and designed by Italian (!) architects. It was an extraordinary mixture of classical (Greek/Roman) style stone pillars, complex painted Hindu plaster figures, and Arabic-style arches.
- Our guide was an entertaining character who did not hesitate to let us know that he has become a YouTube sensation for videos demonstrating the local traditional dance style. We thought he might be exaggerating, but several people came up to him to shake his hand. Some were quite jealous that we had him as a guide. He certainly had remarkably expressive and flexible hand and facial gestures. He was a former school teacher and very good at explaining the baffling and complex stories of Hindu mythology. (Prabu, our dancing guide)
- Our next stop was a visit to the vast, astounding Meenakshi temple — a site of pilgrimage for centuries and visited by over 2 million people a year. According to our guide, the Indian government wants it to be declared an 8th Wonder of the World — no idea what that means. After leaving behind our shoes, socks, cameras, cell phones, watches and any other electronic gear (for religious reasons) we were allowed to enter through metal detectors and a body search (for security reasons). There was so much to see and to take in inside the temple. A few highlights, but sadly no photos:
- Five huge conical towers decorated with literally thousands of brightly colored statues of the gods. Each god has a different color and the sight is spectacularly garish.
- A neem tree hung with hundreds of little wooden cradles each containing a baby Krishna. Women hang them on the tree as a prayer for fertility.
- A huge canopy and a statue of Nandi (Shiva’s bull) carved from a single piece of black granite. If you whisper in the statue’s ear, Nandi will take your message to Shiva.
- A ceiling painting of a circular bowl with a spout that points towards to viewer from whatever direction you look at it. We walked all around and it is very puzzling.
- A popular statue of Shiva in female form (don’t ask), discretely dressed in multiple skirts, showing the correct stance for a woman to give birth. Temples are not just for religious observations but also places for education about sex and married life.
- The temple is unusual in having shrines to both Shiva and Parvati, who normally have separate temples. As non-Hindus, we were not allowed to enter the shrines. There was no line to visit Shiva, but Parvati had a line with a wait of over 3 hours — easy to see who was more popular.
- A huge weighing scale designed for a person to sit on one end to measure their own weight in produce — bananas, coconuts, rice — which they donate to the temple.
- After our fascinating and educational visit to the temple it was time to return through the dusty, crowded streets to our hotel for an early night as we had to be up for a 5:30 start the next morning.
Wednesday 6 November
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| House sign created new every day |
- Our early morning tour of the back streets of Madurai was fascinating. We were guided down narrow alleys with fresh water pumps every few hundred yards -- no running water in the houses.
- There were cows in the street being milked by men, and the milk being delivered by women — unpasteurized and uncooled — in small metal containers to their customers. Customers get two milk deliveries a day and refrigeration is hardly needed as the milk is used within a few hours, or turned into yogurt.
- The street in front of every house was being carefully washed and the woman of the house was creating a design in chalk powder at the house entrance. Each design is unique and different, reflecting the skills and mood of the woman. Young females looking for husbands are judged for their design proficiency, as well as their cooking skills, looks, and deference to the grooms parents. A young man is judged by the bride’s father for his ability to wrestle a large bull to the ground and to lift a 100 lb stone over his shoulders.
- We encountered families of goats, and sellers of 6 different varieties of spinach.
- Lin had sweet-smelling jasmine flowers woven into her hair. We were given samples of jasmine oil by a perfume maker.
- We took a welcome break at a famous tea and coffee shop where we enjoyed small glasses of tea and a delicious freshly-made, deep-fried, cardamom-flavored rice doughnut.
- The banana market was fascinating with dozens of different varieties. We tasted the red bananas of which they are very proud. The flavor is more intense than our regular bananas, and the flesh is slightly pink.
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| Banana Market |
- We were amazed to see a vast pile of dried chilies being loaded into sacks by hand. Just watching made our skin feel hot and itchy. Hard to believe anyone could need that much chili.
- After the tour, we checked out of our hotel and flew -- late -- to Chennai, the last stop on our tour. We were sad to say goodbye in Madurai to our driver of three weeks, Kumar (a simplification of his longer Malayalam name). He had shown admirable skill in navigating us round south India's difficult roads and undisciplined traffic, while keeping us entertained and informed with his stories and insights. His use of English was interesting if somewhat challenging as he had learned it by osmosis from his clients. He was immensely proud of his state — Kerala. He could speak Malayalam, Tamil and English, but could read only Malayalam. Interestingly, his children can speak English and Malayalam, but can only write English. He referred to his wife as "she", and his mother-in-law, who lives with his family as "she's mother", who according to him can be "shouty".
- Chennai is a huge city — over 10 million people — but much better organized and cleaner than Bangalore. We were taken quickly from the airport to our modern un-Indian Radisson hotel in central Chennai.
- Our final day in India was occupied by two tours of Chennai - formerly called Madras.
- In the morning, we visited the main tourist sites, First, another large and complicated temple with many small shrines. Our guide tried to explain the significance of it all, but we felt a bit bamboozled. With 33 million gods, many with multiple aspects, it is easy to get lost.
- We visited the Catholic church where Jesus' disciple, (Doubting) Thomas, is buried - he reputedly came to India in 52 AD. It is a rather fine building, with an interesting statue of Jesus standing on a lotus flower (Buddhist symbol), and flanked by two peacocks (Hindu symbols). Thomas' tomb was guarded by a stern nun, who forbade all talking and shouted at anyone who had not removed their shoes, though she was wearing sandals herself.
- The road running along the huge, wide Chennai beach was impressive and lined with stately buildings from the British colonial period. Our next stop was the fort where the English had established their colony, and the museum, full of rather dusty artifacts from the colonial period and the early days of independent India.
- Our final stop on the morning tour was the Anglican Church, where Anthony's grandfather was ordained in the 1880's. Anthony tried to communicate with the church authorities to see if there were any records of his grandfather, though with limited success.
- Our afternoon tour of the old bazaar was in many ways the best tour of our holiday. Our guide spoke excellent English, had a depth of knowledge and lots of good stories and information. She showed us many interesting aspects of the wholesale market that was set up to trade with the British East India Company in the 17th century. We visited a shop that sold many different kinds of rice, another making ghee and oils, learned about the health benefits of different fruits and vegetables, tasted jaggery made from sugarcane, coffee beans and spices.
- Finally, it was time for us to prepare for the long journey home. We left 90 degree F Chennai at 11:30 on Thursday night and were back in 25 degree Philadelphia 26 hours later.
Our trip was memorable, stimulating, exhausting, enthralling, equal parts busy cities and quiet countryside — we are still trying to take it all in. India is an endlessly fascinating country, and we loved our encounters with the friendly, welcoming people of the south. We'll post some more pictures in the next few days.
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