A cult, giant metal kebab sticks, a load of paint and a few elephants!

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Hello!
It seems to have been a little while but I seem to have been doing a lot of moving over the last few weeks and am getting quite used to curry for 3 meals a day. I did eventually manage to make myself leave the plentiful supply of cornflakes that was Varkala and in a bizarre twist of circumstances checked myself into the local Cult. Yes, that is right i said Cult. Don’t worry 2 months in India has not turned me into a complete Spiritual hippy but having met a lot of people that had been I decided to pay it a visit. Its an interesting place, designed a bit like a 24 floor posh council estate it has shops, juice bars, a swimming pool (full dress only allowed), a charity shop and a souvenir shop where you can buy postcards and souvenir postcards of Ama (their Guru’s) feet being bathed in milk (don’t ask)! Now don’t get me wrong this Ama lady seems to have some nice ideas. She generally believes in sharing love and does all night hugging sessions (she is known as the hugging mother). Now you know me I’m always up for hugs, love them and i’m sure she gives great ones. The organisation also does a whole heap of humanitarian work so generally all very good however i do have to confess the Ashram (or cult place) is just plain weird. The Indian people i met there seemed normal enough but the westerners well lets say they all seemed troubled or just plain weird. Several i’m sure had some sort of mental health disorders and the rest well interesting! Dressed head to foot in white Indian ashram clothes, some were on vows of silence and generally no one would acknowledge or speak to you and there generally seemed a rather repressed air to the place. Conversation is not encouraged (imagine me there!!) because this helps to allow reflection on one self.

Like i said i’m sure Ama is a great lady but i wonder whether she realises what her ashram is really like. She wasn’t there at the time being on a tour of northern India so my general question was what do people do there. You have to do 2 hours of siva (free) work a day to allow the general running of the place but then you can mediate (however no one instructs you how to do this), go to yoga or join in the chanting. But as there in no set religion in the place my question is why are they chanting and who is the temple for?? As no one would really acknowledge or speak to me, i was rather left with these questions unanswered. It seems it is a place people maybe go to find themselves and maybe the answers they are searching for. To be honest i just left with a feeling on uneasiness and more questions!!!

From here i travelled through the backwaters (beautiful) to Fort Cochi which is an old Dutch port. Its touristy in parts but very cool in others. It still has a fair size spice trade and some very cool areas where you can just wander around buildings where there is one man sat behind a desk with a telephone and a large book , nothing else inside just a sign above the door staying ‘trading company’ and next door there is a warehouse full of piles of ginger – its cool just like I imagined from the times of Willy fog!

I got a bicycle whilst I was there and had a great time cycling and sweating myself around. In true Marion fashion I often ended up in random housing areas and shack estates but there was always a handy local to put me back on track. In true Indian styly I also found a good few temple festivals. One of the things i love about India is its ability to surprise me on a daily basis. Up I ride down one street and next I find bare chested men walking around with giant kebab spears! Imagine my surprise and horror when another man comes up and dabbing some white powder around rams the spear through his cheek! Even better he then gets another man dabs some powder and then rams the same spear through his cheek. Add 2 lemons on each end of the spear and cue the brass band and drummers. These 2 men now joined together by the kebab spear now happily set too on some crazy dancing! This is India! I saw up to 4 men on one spear and children as young as about 6 participating! Apparently its something to do with pain and worshipping god!
The next day, the same street and one horrible hangover later I then arrive to be swept up in the wonder that is Holi. This is the Hindu festival of colour and generally involves getting covered in paint and water. Being the only white woman there I obviously was a big hit with the paint and was still meeting people that evening who after 3 showers were still asking “what happened to your face?” It being bright red!

So I enjoyed Kochi a lot but running out of random festivals to attend I decided to head into the hills to do some hiking. Munnar is one of the highest tea growing regions in the area and is beautiful. Huge mountains and tea plantations everywhere its stunning. I got up early one morning to hike a mountain for sunrise and as we climbed this giant surrounded for miles by mountains and tea plantations at 6am all we could hear..... was the wailing of yet another temple festival!! Yes the whole hike was accompanied by some wailing and then beating drum of some Indian music. I love India.

From Munnar I spent a week in the mountains visiting other hill stations, Museums (yes i know museums and me –but this one was about tea!)and searching for wild elephants. Sadly the park I went to try and find these was shut by a fire along with every other attraction so I descended back onto the plains and the heat to spend a few days visiting some amazingly huge and impressive temples. Here i found a few unrestrained, painted and very bored looking elephants who have been impressively trained to accept money off pilgrims in exchange for blessing them on the head with a clunk of their trunks. I saw many a terrified toddler shoved under the trunk of these elephants before being given a small degree of brain damage under the thwack of its trunk! The elephant having done its job then passes the slightly snotty coins to its owner!

I’ve reached the beach again now but it being very end of season means it is like a ghost town. For the 100 or so travellers in town there is an equal number of hotels and restaurants and of course Indian men to be your ‘friend!’. I’m heading north tomorrow with the aim of reaching Goa at the weekend to meet Jemma for a few days before I run as fast as i can for the cool of the hills!
I’ll try and upload as many photos as i can but its slow going. Hope you all ok
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Photos

holi
with a new friend who turned slightly stalker like!

temple festival
yes in india they dance on elephants