kodaikanal, 12-16 august 07

the bus tugged n lugged its way up the soft hill at a hopeless crawl with its burden of peoples n luggages, slow and steady and really rather maddening to us poor passengers still queasy and slightly ill. but still, even in our weakened state, and in our annoyed even anguished anticipation, we could not help but still feel this excitement, as we drew away from the plains and into the hills, coming around curves to views of terraced farming forests and mists thickening at the limits of our vision, obscuring the beyond. i could feel my heart becoming lighter as the air cooled, as if i was entering some fantasy world, leaving all the stresses and worries of the real world, the strains of our travels, behind. and so finally it was with relief that we made it into kodai, and disembarked into a rush of touts and the crowd of traffic.

we got out of that crunch and down a bit of hill and to our hotel (“snooze inn”) and collapsed onto our beds. and we proceeded for the next few days to spend the bulk of our time devouring western n tibetan food like half-starved crazies, sleeping have into the day bundled up thick in blankets and occasionally between naps n foodfests sneaking out of the rush of central kodai down this or that quiet residential street where all the houses looked like cozy country cottages and all the gardens positively british.

we did make an attempt at the trekking thing, most likely a bit of a mistake considering our condition, and frustratingly along with us were a crowd of energetic yet angsty francophone teenagers (one of whom asserted that she would rather die than have her photo taken with the rest of the group, as she moved towards the edge of the precipice as if to drive her point home) to make us feel pathetic and inferior, especially at first. the walk was uneven and rough, lots of ups and downs on slippery paths with loose stones and soil so really kinda stressful especially considering we had to make at least some efforts to keep up with all those ‘youngsters’ and so not fall pathetically, shamefully far behind. my inability to deal with steep downhills was definitely a problem here; when faced with such situations i froze in my tracks, and looked around for the nearest branch/body to cling onto. but we made it thru to the end... at which point, once we arrived back at our hotel, i could feel the exhaustion, the full physical cost, of this little adventure descend upon me. i managed it to the israeli-run cafe a bit away for a snack, but soon’s i got back i was down and out, no hope for any activity for the rest of the day and the majority of the next one.

which might have been good timing at least cuz it was that night itself that the huge festival for ‘la salette’ (a figure of a crowned virgin mary kept in a nearby church) and so kodai was descended in a cacophony of bangs and shouts and the blare of music out of speakers strung along the street from top to bottom of the hill. kodai was not really at this time in a condition to be wandered about, tho i guess really sleep did not come to quick either in the midst of all this. as outside the crowds paraded their idol about in a halo of neon lights, i tossed n turned and sighed the night away, clutching at my quilt for comfort... it wasn’t until three or four that finally quiet, and sleep, came.

the next two days we went back to our lounging over-indulging ways, sleeping late into mornings and eating away the afternoons. frequenting most that israeli cafe, always so pleasant except those moments when invaded by students of the super-prestigious american-founded boarding school in town, all loud and over-styled over-done and absolutely selfish and obnoxious like only the self-entitled self-absorbed rich teenager can be. but no matter, there were still the foods there, which we still enjoyed to the utmost and so mmmmed away much time over.

and in this way before we knew it we found ourselves on our last day, the days having spun by in a haze, and with a good bit of trepidation we set off on our overnight trip to kochi, starting out in some rusty old contraption with some obnoxious spanish girls and a bundle of stinky potatoes underfoot.

madurai, 11 august 07

after another classic breakfast of idly and pongal and an early checkout, achieved only after some serious wrangling with the guy at the desk on the subject of improperly imposed luxury taxes, we caught our bus out of trichy. after a quiet and sleepy ride, we finally got in to madurai. the hotel was the cheapest yet, and simple, but with a view from the roof over into the meenakshi temple complex. we went wandering about madurai: poked our heads into unsigned offices and peeked around corners in search of the tourism office (never found), ate a miserable lunch (never trust l.p. guide food recs ugh somebody here so got paid off), sat about in our hotel room (so hot, what to do?).

finally, motivated by our early planned departure the next morning, we set out for the therumalai nayak palace, a ruin really, a twenty minute walk away. what was left tho left me wishing i could have seen the original, this one remaining hall such a huge impressive hulk, putting me in mind of an opera house or somesuch thing, great white pillars and grand archways and all done up in (what at least looked like) stucco work. tourists, mostly probably in madurai for the meenakshi temple, sat around on the stairs and milled about vaguely under the vaults...

we saw a museum dedicated to gandhi, off on the other side of the city. it was fine. it featured the blood stained loincloth gandhi had been wearing at the time of his assassination. and endless other memorabilia and pictures and informations that involved too much text and attention at that point of the day.

and round towards evening time we made it back to the temple. a similar sort of thing to ranganathaswamy temple in trichy, but that it was better preserved, smaller, and had some absolutely incredible stone carving. the best part was the room of a thousand pillars, which they called a museum and charged an entrance fee for. which was totally worth it, because it was lined with these pillars that were bursting out into life, what might have been simple ordinary supports of stone transformed into gods, mythical creatures, each one unique and elaborate and dynamic. we wandered among these, and finally out into the proper temple itself, amidst all the mess and movement of pujas going on, following the streams of people. across from the entrance to where the most holy of the shrines was (blocked to non-hindus), there was far below a tank dug and full of water, with a man-sized gold lotus ornamenting it. we walked around this, walked behind all the commotion into the lesser temples where a few straggling pilgrims also wandered, and then left, back to our hotel.

the next morning after a night of some rumbly tummy time among certain of our party, we collected ourselves as best we could and left madurai before the sun was full in the sky. i think we were ready for something different. no more of these dusty tamil nadu cities, and no more idly n pongal, at least for a little while. on to the cool of the hill station, the clean of the air, the calm of the forest. on, to kodaikanal.

trichy n tanjore, 9-10 aug 07

departing pondicherry by bus we broke off from the coast for the first time and set off into inland tamil nadu. mostly empty, lots of agriculture, it seemed, tho few folk in evidence, also tons of highway construction and isolated engineering colleges springing out unexpected shiny and grand out of this grassland, that grazing ground... for a long time the landscape was flat, many dried-up riverbeds, dust flying into the open windows onto our faces and into our hair. but as we approached trichy there came up these sharp dramatic little hills covered in green, there came waters. and so crossing the river we came into trichy, set to winding down the whole long sprawl of it to its southernmost tip, where lay the bus station.

trichy was a buzzing little town, and as we rattled in covered in the dust of our travels we passed busy bazars and shopping streets aplenty, before turning into the bus stand way to one end of town, far from the action but close to the hotels. ashby’s hotel, so highly recommended on the basis of some kind of colonial charm (tho we saw nothing of it), felt mostly like a run-down motel, our room yellowing, our bathtub and showerhead malfunctioning, and a musty smell in the discolored curtains. outside on the terrace empty kingfisher bottles were idling on the cracked glass of the tables, and in the lobby a drunken scotsman solicited the hotel staff’s help in his search for some nameless fat french lady. behind the concierge’s desk was a padlocked iron door emblazoned in red with the word “BAR”.

well, there was at least the saving grace of the t.v. in the midst of this sad situation. schmabil, excited at the prospect of catching up on his precious hindi soaps, set right at it almost immediately upon arrival, begging me to not change the channel when i threatened with the remote. i sighed and sat down to my ginger milk tea, and we both rested ourselves an hour from the bumps and jumps and jolts of the ride inland. him with his quality television, me with my heavy dose (a full thermos!) of sugar and caffeine.

after which, stopping only to devour down a meal at a south indian place by the bus stand, we set in to see the sights of trichy. first stop was a dargah, in front of which we were caught in a rush of children who wanted their picture taken. only schmabil was actually allowed in, being a man, so i sat outside among the womenfolk and answered all the questions that the descendents of the man enshrined within asked of me. from where i sit it all looked glittering and gorgeous in green and gold.

from there we walked down to the lourdes cathedral, modeled after the famous one of france... inside the sexes were separated women to the left and men to the right; there were no pews but a bare floor where people sat cross-legged and said their prayers. i had never seen such a format in a church, so it was all unexpected to me. some kind of prayer tape was on repeat, rattling out in a cloud of static thru speakers, in tamil or in latin i couldn’t tell.

from there we climbed up the hill temple, thru cool rock tunnels past old carvings; no hindus allowed beyond a certain point so frustrated at our stolen and brief glimpses of gorgeous colors painted across the ceiling within and all kinds of sculptures, we went on, climbed to the top of the hill and looked out over the city, musty and dusty, lights shining orange thru the thick air as the sunset came on... we scrambled back down and hopped a bus and were back to ashby before we knew it. and after dinner watched tamil music videos into the night...

the next morning we set off to tanjore, with its world heritage site temple as well as a palace... and the temple was incredible. in the early morning light it shone warm, its unpainted red-gold sandstone basking, a lovely, rich color, so sweet in the sunlight. a huge nandi was front and center upon entering, while innumerable other nandis lined the outer enclosing wall. in the back were the hundred and eight lingams as well as some beautiful mural paintings of hindu religious images. the towers towered above us defying our camera lenses as we wandered around the neat and clean grounds.

happy we left and walked into the town proper to get to the palace, a confusing carved up incoherent thing, some four museums some random opened-up spaces one nice painted-up hall and numerous displays of silverware piles of coins unlabeled portraits junk old pottery headdresses all manner of randomness really. tho there were some rather nice statues, carvings, manuscripts... we left grateful to be done, a little confused and definitely overwhelmed by volume of objects, and the lack of organization/differentiation between what was worth displaying what wasn’t.

back in trichy we went to see one more attraction, a bit outside of the city. a temple complex called ranganathaswamy temple, and dedicated to the sleeping vishnu. huge, sprawling, all busy and all over the place, pujas going on here and there, some people resting against pillars, others wandering around... all these smaller temples within the larger complex, most not so incredible but fun to wander around. a couple of beautiful things, some old murals hidden away up some steep staircase including one lovely rendering of that sleeping vishnu, some impressive pillars carved into the shape of rearing horses supporting a pavilion where the real horses were really living...

afterwards we walked on back through the same series of grand gates thru which we had entered, a path lined by shops fruit juice stands restaurants all a mess of people and commerce. eventually got back to the bus station, bought loads of fresh fruit for dinner at a produce shop that left me impressed with its organization and proper appearance, comparisons quickly coming to mind with the tangle of vendors on a kolkata street, hemmed in by cracked concrete and exhaust fumes, nudged into the scene like an afterthought.

and so had a peaceful restful evening of guava and grapes sitting on our beds watching reruns of good old american sitcoms half-asleep after an exhausting day. early to bed, for it was on to madurai the next day.

pondicherry, 5-8 aug 07

pondicherry was i think just what we needed at that time, after a rough start in chennai and mahabalipuram. white town all cool and serene and painted up and down the streets in a clean white, broad avenues and beautiful houses, set on the sea. a place to just be, wander some pretty streets, see some pretty churches, hide away for a few hours in this cafe or that under the whirr of fans overlooking a courtyard strewn with potted plants, breathing. dawns fading into lazy mornings into sleepy noontimes into slow afternoons into soft sunsets...

true, not much to see exactly, a few churches simple n elegant, a rambly botanical gardens, the streets of white town, the seaside with its piles of stones boulders guarding against the rough sea, a scattering of hindu temples with their classic domes crowded with brightly-painted statues... but still, atmospheric and calming for a frazzled schmemma and schmabil...

our first night we spent in a place called the ajantha guest house, right out there by the sea and promenade. there we managed to create a bit of drama and disapproval, i think it is safe to say. first by giving the guy who carried our suitcase up the stairs a measly ten rupees (he gaped at us in disgust and marched out of the room in indignation), then by creating a scene with the manager, claiming we had a reservation there and a printout that showed rates for the room at half of what this guy was asking for, only to discover the online reservation thing had been a total hoax, the ajantha guest house that we had booked at was in fact called something completely different, no relation, not even nearby. after that embarrassment we tried to keep a low profile, and planned to get out of that place (a bit too costly for us anyway) soon’s we could. so the next morning after breakfast we got ourselves together, ready to set out for the ashram-affiliated guest house across town, on the canal that was the dividing line tween white town and everything else. porter dude again brought our luggage down the stairs and schmabil doubled his previous tip, pressing a twenty into the outstretched hand. in response this guy gave us the ugliest face and went over to the manager and waved the twenty in his face, shouting something in tamil before giving us one more angry backward glance and storming out.

what a relief to find our new accomodations, half the price, lovely, and with an elevator. no porter problems here. maybe lacking the terrace looking out on to the sea, but clean, large, airy. with a courtyard full of mostly potted but a few planted plants... rather like the mission back in kolkata.

the next few days floated by, sitting in satsanga restaurant drinking the best coffee i’d had in i don’t even know how long a year maybe just letting our minds wander sighing and talking tough to the cutest puppy who kept coming by and putting his pointy head soft against my leg and looking up hoping and so sweet, this puppy had his game down for sure, and i gave him a firm talking to, no human food for puppies! schmabil messed with the camera while i wrote and we both teared thru more than a couple crepes, more than one basket of brown bread... one afternoon into evening in a gorgeous hotel the dupleix sipping fruity champagne cocktails (and in schmabil’s case a cucumber martini, which at least he liked, weirdo) our planned brief stop for a drink turning into hours, talking about i don’t know what, the world, the future, lotsa nonsense there too, then moving into the courtyard to leaf thru old fashion/travel magazines and giggle, before again back into the dining room for a fancyschmancy dinner, all of this of course way beyond our means but after this it would be 20 rupee thalis and 7 rupee idlis all day and all night so we let ourselves be a little ridiculous... brick oven pizza n fresh lime sodas at au feu de bois cozy and rustic and especially so in the sudden downpour outside... tho was freaked out after a certain point that at most of these restaurants the bill was invariably given to me, what do they think, that schmabil was some kind of kept person? weirded weirded out.

but yes there were other things beside endless food and coffee and wine, and all of our walks, there was a sad little museum, some peeks into the aurobindo ashram, and then there was a trip out of town to a beach, our autowallah was mean and dropped us off at some random point at the seashore claiming it to be serenity beach and us having no proof either way we got out paid him and walked only to discover fishermen’s boats and nets, determined however to find a proper beach we walked on thru the scorching sand til we reached some small set-up, a sun-shelter and a clean-ish beach, peopled by some unexpected foreigners in bikinis along with a couple dudes in lungis. an interesting pairing of beachgoers. we sat there under the shelter with them reading, before schmabil decided it was time to play in the water, which was fun til it caught us unawares and soaked me up to my waist...

i shouldn’t skip tho the whole ashram thing, seeing as the aurobindo people are rumoured to own half of pondicherry and really were a subtle but ubiquitous presence. an order founded by a bengali former freedom fighter sri aurobindo and built largely by his chosen partner, a frenchwoman with a penchant for the most bizarre headresses to be worn over the end of her sari which she pulled over the top of her head, termed only ‘the mother’. pondicherry is the location of aurobindo ashram’s headquarters, as well as the place where sri aurobindo himself is buried. it is all pretty low-key, it seemed; we visited the ashram to eat one meal and it was just room after room and quiet folk overwhelmingly indian shoveling thru bowls of the blandest food, and at the sight of sri aurobindo’s burial it was also rather quiet, the faithful and the only interested alike silently passing through... maybe the main action of the ashram is at their city auroville some ten kilometers or something outside of pondicherry, where thousands of foreign ashramites along with thousands of native ones live together...

we did get a chance to attend some film screening that was supposed to give more information, be a set of short doucumentary films on the mother and the aurobindo ashram. half of the films seemed rather less strong on the informational side of things, and to amount ultimately to a kind of audio-visual puja. the first especially, fade-ins and fade-outs of flower upon flower, in fields, in solo close-ups, interspersed with images of the mother, music of her own composition playing in the background. in fact, this film was termed an ‘offering’. other films followed, a couple attempting to impart some amount of information perhaps but the sound track was so scratchy it was hopeless... the worst was the final in the series, which was a loop of the same exact footage of the mother giving blessings to the masses, five minutes long, shown four or five times in a row, it was moments like these when we wondered if one had to be on drugs to appreciate this (the films were after all done up in psychedelic colors and produced in the early 70s) or else truly be swept up in some devotional fervor, truly believing this lady (who seemed really a little crazy) was god (as she claimed to be, at moments).

altho the aurobindo thing was interesting, and i wished we could have gotten out there to auroville and all that, the overwhelming impression i was left taking with me of pondicherry was mostly that of the colonial city, not of some spiritual center. its cafes all charming and open and airy, all these cutesy-wutesy boutiques with their soaps and incense, blouses and scarves and broad-legged pants in light south indian cotton... all the eeriness and all the guilty pleasure of a city still half colonial, from what we saw.

we were surprised and somewhat weirded out in fact by the dominance of french folk, it felt almost as if in these old colonial ‘white town’ areas that most of the people on the street were non-indian, and in restaurants it was as if the empire had never ended, tables occupied by foreigners gregarious over glasses of wine or pots of good (praise the lord!) coffee, barely a brown face to be seen but for the occasional except of course for the servers, chefs, guards, etc. it really struck us in the boutiques of the town, they were all over... for instance the place casablanca, whose tagline was ‘the world is yours’ (eek!). it felt like some kind of ex-pat pottery barn cum anne taylor or somesuch thing, full of classy cunning home furnishings, here and there a touch of the indian, along with fine leather bags, designer jewelry, stylish clothing for the westerner finding his/herself in these tropical climes—an exquisite balance found in these wares between environmental conditions and cultural imperatives (of both cultures, the indian, to be modest, the french, to be stylish). this seemed to be a store for the ex-pat yearning perhaps here and there for the touch of the exotic, but basically not willing to compromise on anything fundamental to their sense of aesthetics and/or lifestyle. for their fine, manicured lives, all the luxury of india without any of the dirt, without the cheap stitching and fall-apart fabric.

an interesting place, and we stayed longer than i thought we would. but finally one day we decided it was time, to the relief of our bank accounts and consciences but with a bit of wistfulness in our hearts, at leaving the comfort and calm that we had found there. we had other cities to get to, trichy, tanjore, madurai, so we bundled up our things and set off for central tamil nadu.

mamallapuram aka mahabalipuram, 4 n 5 august 07

we sped down the coast on our crusty old public bus out of chennai, flying over the smooth coast road past beach resorts before these walled enclosures gave way to open land, fields and trees and beyond them, from time to time, glimpses of blue-gray sea cool and hazy and distant, the wind blowing up into the bus smelling like green and saltwater.



took a turn-off past some blackened shacks on a road deep in mud from recent rain, came out onto mamallapuram’s east raja street. we offloaded onto the street and by autorickshaw got to our hotel, center, hippie-town. crusty hippies wandered about, along with clueless khaki-clad kids with wide eyes, tender mouths, guides clasped to their chests like shields.




sitting up in the hotel cafe, a gaunt man in a lungi garlanded with beads recounts his story as he cradles a puffy-eyed baby on his lap, the mother sitting across peaceful with wild long hair and baggy clothing. he has been ill, there have been visa issues, but ok, he’s been on the road who knows how long now, where in fact he met this girl and they became travel-partners, where to go they don’t know, maybe continue floating, baby added, really i worried for this baby. the woman takes the baby and lifts up her shirt to reveal her lack of undergarments and begins nursing where everyone can see, schmabil n i avert our eyes, father talks a good bit of all the coughing-up of blood and hospitalizations with a couple of sympathetic brits in short shorts, who seem to have had their own share of maximum-strength antibiotic injections or what have you, one begins to wonder why these people persist in staying on, why they all dont just go home.



with relief we depart that cafe, get out into the town to see the famous rock carvings. fine, not bowling-over impressive, pleasant to ramble around tho... the most impressive piece arjuna’s penance, a multitude of figures carved across a single wall, but ruined by would-be guides and postcard sellers that followed you all the way up and down all around, making enjoyment impossible... kids squatting down and relieving themselves in the park, dealers approaching us with offers of drugs on multiple occasions, dirty looks, overpriced tickets to all these attractions, finally we retreated into some french-run cafe, fresh lime sodas and cool away from the sun and dust and people. confusedly trying to figure out why the travel guide had said that this was the kind of place you could lose track of time in, failing to mention the shady dealings and ashram-dropouts or whatever who seemed really to be on their last legs ill and faded-out and lost...



the one thing about mamallapuram was the sea. rough and dark, we watched from a pile of stones sitting the crowds hanging about the edges of the sea, not venturing deeper than maybe a a foot or so in, mostly fully clothed except for a few boys who stripped down to their underwear, people in blue jeans or salwar kameez or sari getting soaked from top to bottom as the waves surprised them where they stood or as they pulled each other down laughing into the surf.



but sea or no sea, we decided it was time to move on, we had had enough, so a day early we left mamallapuram. early at a busstop on sunday, us and a jumble of other foreigners, across from a ramshackle church from which clanged and clattered out the joyful noise of its worshippers shouting out their songs, the clamour of tinny cymbals and the rough thumps on drums, interrupted only briefly here and there for a short sermon, perhaps some prayers, continuing the whole forty five minutes that we waited for our bus...which finally did come, crowded, we squeezed us and our monstrous large suitcase in and held on tight, as the bus took off, leaving musty old mamallapuram behind in a cloud of dust...

chennai, 2 and 3 august 07

we arrived in chennai at noontime; the slow ride thru knotted traffic past billboards for the latest movies in tamil hindi and english as well as for political purposes of some kind or another, boasting towering and terrifying images of sonia gandhi, jayalalitha, others... at length arriving at our hotel hidden down some side street in triplicane. quiet and airy and simple if smudgy and flaking and rough around the edges, tho the presence of a film crew throughout the bottom floor, overflowing from the courtyard, wires snaking out around a tumble of tables and chairs, meant that at night as they shot some seedy cabaret scene we would awake listening to loud tamil voices and bangs, cracks, stompings down the length of the hallway.

whatever the disturbance of these doings in the hotel, it was a welcome refuge from the city, which from what i could tell seemed mostly made for cars, walking almost impossible. the only real nice walk we had was down the edge of the beach, past all the thatched huts of fisherman, past the huddle of their boats on the beach, past women pounding away at their laundry, past fish spread out on the pavement to dry in the sun.

what else? a dance-drama about manipur with dancing and incredible staging, all the time each moment looking like a picture, at the music academy with roopa, tapas at a too-cool-to-be-true restaurant down the street afterwards... our first south indian thalis, yumyum... the supposed resting place of st. thomas in a modern, brightly lit, antiseptic and marble-lined crypt... the most adamant auto-rickshaw-wallahs i have ever encountered, insulted and in fact closed by any attempt at bargaining down to a fair price...

other than this, there some temples, some churches, some malls, some museums, all were fine and nice but i felt like i didn’t know how to make it all coherent, i couldn’t draw connections and figure out what chennai was really. maybe partially because it isn’t a walking city, things felt like they didn’t coalesce into something i could see as unique or even really identifiable in some way as being chennai rather than being some other city. maybe it is a city that takes more time to know. maybe its the kind city that hides away in people’s homes, and other un-public places. or maybe we were just missing something.

in the midst of all this dust and congestion tho we didn’t feel much like sticking around to wait for chennai’s heart n soul to reveal itself, so we set off ahead of schedule for mamallapuram aka mahabalipuram, down the coast.