Thursday, January 12, 2006

On From Goa.....back in to India.....

Get Out and Push,lads!






Just a few metres behind Palolem beach, India waits, enticing you back in.
During December we made our trip to Hampi and Gokarna, hopefully see separate article, but a couple of days after Christmas we set off on the night bus to Bangalore. Night buses actually have sleeper bunks installed , we had used one for our Hampi trip, and this time found ourselves squashed into the back of the bus, readily prepared with our bed cover, bottle of water and a sleeping pill, bought over the counter just before we got on...to no effect! Maybe being in the back of the bus did not help, but we shook, rattled and rolled our way through the night, even smashing our heads onto the roof above as we accelerated over sleeping policemen, potholes, manholes and anything that got in our way. After a toilet break one hour before we got to Bangalore, we staggerred out 13 hours after leaving Goa into the centre of town, left our luggage at the station, booked tickets out on the SLEEPER train(!) that night to Madurai, and did our day of tourism. Revived with an egg curry,mmmm...., we chose Lalbagh gardens to relax in, 260 acres of relative peace in this cosmopolitan city. The gardens were a bit of a shambles, but I enjoyed the wide selection of mature trees, and we both enjoyed dozing on the lawns, then wandering around and inspecting the glasshouses, designed to emulate the original Crystal Palace! Eagles!
Having to wait till about 9pm for the train, we treated ourselves to a pot of Tea at the Oberoi hotel...250 rupees!...but what a nice place to do it, even enquired about a room,.............
250 DOLLARS! No, took the train.

We needed no sleeping aid that night, slept like babies and awoke about 6 heading in towards Madurai. Madurai is the temple of all temples. The town revolves around the temple, which is bang in the middle. As Caroline & Simon were heading here we actually waited till they arrived before we visited it, as Simon is an excellent temple guide! Our journey left us shattered and seemed to take a couple of days to get over. Madurai is Tamil Nadu, a poor state in India, but a friendly place and teeming with all the 'chaat' of daily Indian life. On our street there were a handful of hotels which catered to western tastes i.e. food served on plates not banana leaves, an occasional beer, but otherwise you go local and enjoy it the best you can. We celebrated New Year here, watching the fireworks and crackers from the hotel roof but we didn't do the hokey-cokey or sing auld Land Syne! As usual!
The temple is awesome, covering several acres of the town centre, and in constant use, pilgrims visiting shrines, bathing, praying, meditating, painting...so alive this religion, and always hundreds of people doing everything everywhere! To try to begin to understand the gods and what they do and who they are would require us to become Hindu for several years!
We're not!
Another daytrip took us down to Chettinadu, home of rich and prosperous traders, bygone, with their beautiful and sumptious houses, courtyards and landings, decoration and artwork, all now heading towards decline, but some preserved and cared for.
From Madurai Jac and I went down to Ramashwaram for a night and a day, the place nearest to Sri Lanka on the map. Another 4 hours on a bus, but this temple could not match Madurai for us, and Ramashwaram is very poor, and very dirty, and we got wet, very wet...oh well, back to Madurai, and a visit to the best museum I've seen in India - a Gandhi museum, told the whole history of the Raj from an Indian point of view, and finished with the blood stained tunic Gandhi was wearing when shot...sobering.

From Madurai we left to a Hill Station- Kodaikanal, 2000 metres high in the southern Indian hills, a promise of cool air and lots of tea! Cool air certainly, in fact it felt freezing, and WET!, and in the end we were glad to run away from this place with our clothes wet, no heat in the hotels! -
and not a decent cuppa anywhere! Until we got to Munnar in Kerala -wow! - now thats what I call a hill station! Rolling hills of tea, hedges of Poinsettia, 2 metres high with brilliant new red growth, and trees, unknown to me, covered in orange blossom! &Unfortunately only one night here since our time was shortening that we had left in India and we still wanted to get to Kochin to see Vicky and Lindsay, but the tea was great! At last!

Kerala has the highest rate of literacy in India, and it shows. I think its more prosperous, its bus drivers more daring, and the communist party is still strong! While Ernakulam is a bustling, modern commercial place, Fort Kochi where we headed is a genteel and cultured environment, with art galleries, traditional Chinese fishing nets operating off the wharves - I helped the fishermen pull their nets, a bit like tug of war, and paid for the pleasure!, cool fish restuarants, bijou shops, and local Keralan dance shows - totally amazing. And you should, but we didnt, cruise the 'backwaters' of Kerala...Still, you can't beat spending time with your sister, which we did, and of course, one last thing, who turned up 5 minutes before we left for the airport and Sri Lanka, but Tubby from St Denys - a regular at the little guesthouse we ended up in, one of them chance meetings you know will always happen when you're 5000 miles from home!

Photos to follow! t.b.c.

1 Comments:

Blogger Mim said...

Stumbled upon your blog and I just love it. I took the night bus from Pune to Goa last year. Wish I'd thought of a sleeping pill. At least on the way back I thought of a motion-sickness pill! I stayed in Arambol but next time would love to see Palolem and may even take your suggestions with me! Should be within a year.

I can spare you Pune unless you want to see the Osho ashram. It's not a pretty, or terribly interesting city.

Thanks for taking me to some of the places I haven't gotten to yet, after 3 trips to India.

7:06 PM  

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