Advertisement
Published: September 17th 2008
From the Western Ghats into Tamil Nadu
After breakfast at the Coconut Lagoon a launch took us ten minutes or so up one of the canals to the car park on the road at Kumarakom where our driver Narayan was waiting for us with the Toyota. Our journey now took us inland to the
Western Ghats, climbing quite steeply for perhaps half of the 120kms to Kumily. As we climbed up to over 1,000m rubber plantations gave way to tea, coffee and spices. If it hadn’t been so hazy the passing scenery would have seemed quite attractive, but it’s also quite difficult to take one’s eyes off the chaotic traffic, the electricity pylons and mobile phone towers of modern development, and the piles of rubbish in the ubiquitous villages.
Eventually we arrived at Kumily and checked into the
Spice Village, the third CGH Earth hotel in a row for us, and another very pleasant spot. We were impressed with this family-run Kerala-based
eco-resort chain.
After a light lunch and a rest we drove to the nearby lake in Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary for an animal-spotting boat ride.
At least, that’s what it is billed as! Periyar is a serious 777 km²
National Park and tiger reserve founded over a hundred years ago, and access is strictly limited; trekking is hard to organise, there are no motorised tours available, and so the only way to get a crack at seeing anything is from dangerously crowded, decrepit ferry boats that chug around on a large lake. Millions of Indians a year must do this and think this is what seeing wildlife is all about. Unfortunately, with so many boats noisily puttering around the lake, most of the game would appear to inhabit other parts of the sanctuary. The few Gaur (Indian bison) and Sambar deer we saw were probably a kilometre away, and the only bird other than cormorants and egrets we saw was a fish eagle about 300m off. No elephant, and certainly no tiger! For hardened safari goers it is all a bit like a ride at Disney World except there are no animatrons to compensate for the lack of wildlife!
We spent the evening in our room relaxing. Since I had a bout of the traveller’s curse I called a doctor, who soon came with her assistant, gave me an injection, and lots of pills, and told me I should feel better by the
next day.
We left early in the morning for our four-hour drive to
Madurai, Tamil Nadu’s second largest city. The Kerala/Tamil Nadu border lies just outside Kumily and
Tamil Nadu almost instantly felt different from Kerala: poorer, perhaps, more intensive agriculture; more
atap versus tin roofs; a bit drier and dustier? It is hard to describe exactly why, but the feeling was certainly there…
By the time we got to Madurai ("Athens of the East") and checked into the rather jaded Taj Garden Retreat (I notice it has since been re-branded The Gateway, and tarted up a bit) I was feeling significantly worse, so we called another doctor who gave me completely different pills. Meanwhile Lisa went off to see the famous
Sri Meenakshi Temple with its twelve decorative
gopurams, each 45-50m high. Unfortunately, all but two of the towers were covered for their twelve-yearly painting, so the overall impression was less spectacular than it should have been. But she enjoyed the visit and seeing what was going on at ground level in preparation for a major festival later in the week. From the temple she went on to
Tirumalai Nayak Palace built in the mid-17th century by the ruler of the same
name. Reputed to be one of the finest secular buildings in India, only parts of it remain, but the colonnaded courtyard looks magnificent.
I was feeling substantially better by the morning - probably due more to the
Ya-Hom Five Pagodas powder Lisa had been feeding me than all the prescription pills I was popping. Four hours took us to Tiruchirappalli where we checked into the simple but clean and eager
Sangam Hotel and had lunch.
In mid-afternoon we went to see the main sights
Trichy has to offer. The gem amongst them is the
Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple dedicated to Ranganatha, a reclining form of Vishnu. It is the largest working Hindu temple in the world and over a million Hindus flock here every year either to die and be cremated on the nearby
Cauvery River, or to pray for a good reincarnation when death does finally overtake them. Built on a riverine island, and covering a huge sixty hectares, the temple dates back at least a thousand years, but work still continues today - the tallest (and least attractive)
gopuram was finished only twenty years ago. It has seven concentric walls converging on the inner sanctum and the outer walls contain residential streets where
only priests may live; there are said to be 50,000 priests - but since only 2,000 are needed to run the temple the rest work as anything from labourers to merchant bankers. It is a labyrinthine place with twenty-one gopurams, and shrines in every corner.
We adored this temple. It is full of priests, pilgrims, individual worshippers and families; energetic, noisy and vivacious, it is very much a living temple. We were struck by how friendly everyone was - both to each other and to us as onlookers. And unlike so many places in the world where people seem very shy of a camera, here in Tamil Nadu groups and families almost queue up to have their photo taken! We also came across our first temple elephant here -a large female (they all are) that gently takes a coin from your hand, passes it to her keeper, and then offers a blessing by patting your head lightly with her trunk.
Moving on reluctantly, we visited the nearby
Sri Jambukeshwara Temple that is dedicated to Shiva and is a sea of serenity compared to the Vishnu temple. It has some beautiful colonnaded courtyards, a splendid entrance
gopuram, and its central shrine
(which non-Hindus cannot enter) has a
lingam that is semi-submerged in water due to the level of the water table. It was a beautiful setting in the soft light of the sinking sun.
Finally we climbed 437 steps to the
Rock Fort Temple perched on an 85m high rock outcrop in the northern part of Trichy town. The temple at the top, dedicated to Ganesh, is closed to non-believers but the climb is worthwhile for the view over the island and its temples, and to watch local families unwinding and enjoying the cool evening breeze and the views.
We finished off our long day with an early-evening stroll around the bus station bazaar. Full of life and energy, it was buzzing with buses, trucks, motorcycles and milling people, a cacophony of noise and light. From all around us wafted smells of exotic fruits, flowers, spices, curries and frying
parathas, all mingling with un-burnt diesel and even less wholesome odours.
We were invited into an open kitchen to watch a group of women preparing a festival meal for 1,000 people the next day. Supervised by a group of men (of course), the women sweated over massive cooking pots, including one
that must have held 250 litres of
lassi, all being lovingly stirred. Centre stage was an ancient woman painstakingly preparing batches of
daal in a time-honoured way in a huge fire-blackened wok. They were all so hospitable and clearly proud of what they were doing - and all very keen to be photographed.
Back at the hotel we scrubbed the day’s dust off us, ate dinner and slept.
Leaving Trichy about nine the next morning we reached
Thanjavur (Tanjore) in less than ninety minutes and met up with a local guide at the entrance to the Brihadishwara Temple.
Said to be the epitome of Chola architecture the
Brihadishwara Temple was inscribed as a
UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. Our first impression was the lack of colour, which made the Brihadishwara quite distinct from any other Hindu temples we had seen around the world. We quickly learned that Hindu temples only started being painted in bright colours and cast in concrete about 200 years ago and, since UNESCO rules specify restoration strictly to original design, this wonderful temple has no colour at all and the images are solely of sepia stucco over brick, while the
gopurams themselves sit on massive granite bases.
Laid out in 1002 by one of the greatest Chola kings
Raja Raja Chola I, much of the central part is original 11th century while some of the fortified walls and the outer
gopuram are 16th and 17th century, but the overall effect and much of the detail are stunning. Near the central
vimana stands a magnificent granite Nandi (Shiva’s bull) weighing 25 tonnes and measuring 6m long by 3m high.
Just inside the entrance
gopuram we met another gracious temple elephant gently accepting offerings of bananas and peanuts and blessing adherents with a touch of her trunk.
We dragged ourselves away to pay a brief visit to the rather uninspiring and run down
Thanjavur Royal Palace constructed by the Nayaks around 1550 and added to by the Marathas from the north. Part of it is now a poorly maintained
museum but one of the galleries houses some priceless bronzes from the 8th to 18th century - what a shame they are not better displayed.
After a bit of shopping (Lisa bought a ring from a Kashmiri dealer of whom I had an instinctive distrust), we had a rather late lunch at another Sangam Hotel in the south of Tanjore. After
checking my emails at the business centre I passed a pleasant hour wandering aimlessly around the chaotic local streets at sunset, and we then spent a relaxed evening in our room.
Next ➤ ➤
Advertisement
Tot: 0.092s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 7; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0282s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
car rental madurai
non-member comment
Where did you find those temple dancer
Some of the photographs has been titled as temple dancer? wondering who told you they were temple dancer. Temple dancer means girls who has been dedicated to entertain the temple visiting crowds. They often required to fill the bed of local government authorities , politicians and brahmans (who do the pooja) to the temple. They are called "Deva Daasi", dedicating girls to temple has been legally banned during the british rule (thanks to Mr.Rippon and Lal Lajabathy Roy). These girls could have come from local dance schools to rehearse their newly learned steps. By the way, Thanks for visiting my city Madurai and writing beautiful comments