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Published: January 29th 2011
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It has been a while since I last wrote and that is because we have been traveling a lot and not stoping too much, we have finally arrived at the beaches of Kerala to take a well earned breather.
The last time I wrote we were in Mahabalipuram which is historically a stone masons town where over the years they have been competing to turn massive boulders into the most incredible carved objects, culminating in the shore temple smack bang as the name suggests on the shore. We met up with a guy named Alex who we met in Hampi and we were introduced to his girlfriend Maddie. A nice couple from Oxford who are on a gap year.
We arrived right in the middle of Tamil New year (Pongal), and being a small beach town just south of Madras, over the long Weekend it got pretty busy during the day especially on the Beach, where large groups of guys stared seedily at the girls and took sly photos with their cam-phones. There may well be a few funny pics of me out there not looking too pleased with me having my pic taken without my consent, don't get
me wrong its becoming a fun part of our trip (people wanting their pic taken with us), but that day was like being an animal in a zoo. The funny thing is that to us these groups of males only, swiming fully clothed, holding hands and walking romantically along the beach together also looks very odd to us to us, Marta says its not a gay thing but im not to sure.
As i said we got there during their new year and the local tourist board had put on a show for us whiteys at a local village complete with dancing, music, musical chairs, pot beating and a lady in a trance, it goes without saying Ive never felt more like a tourist and had to try really hard not to get a dot put on my forehead. My favorite part (if you've seen the video on the last blog) was and old man dressed as Ganesh with badly placed holes for his eyes, so people had to redirect him by grabing his shoulders all the time. After the festivity's were over we were treated to lots of politicians talking and talking and talking in Tamil, which was
so riveting that we left with a bunch of kids i'd met while climbing a tree, to go and look at a lake.
We left Mahabali puram For Puducherry where there is many gallic touches left over from French rule and many nice heritage hotels and while some parts were lovely and the nicest parts of urban India we had seen, you dont have to walk far to find shit everywhere again, the hard fact being that plastic is not Indias friend it just seems to get piled up at the roadsides and sometimes burned, you can smell burning plastic a lot of the time of the time. But the clear advantages of Pondicherry were the availability of both beef and alchohol and i finally got my G&T.
From there we started a temple tour that started in Tiruvanamalai where, from a crazily busy little Tamil town springs this massive complex of temples all fantastically carved from white marble. what we both loved about these were the were still totaly alive and being used as much as ever, a great spot just to sit in the shade and watch the madness around you. To the west of the
temple lay an extinct volcano which was apparently sacred and from where you got a great birdseye view of the complex, Some guru had lived in silence up in a couple caves for most of his life so there loads of confused whiteys all siting looking serious or in some kind of meditation trance, these new age people annoy me the view was good, but come on why do you not strike these poses at the top of arthur seat or in the lake district? you've got to come to India to be a really pretentious prick. I tried to lighten the atmosphere by making Marta laugh, suggesting that when the guru was all alone in his cave at night and let go a ripping fart, im sure he had a wee chuckle to himself.
Then it was on to Thanjavur where there was another beautiful Temple, this time made from a golden sandstone and surrounded by grass to sit on ( this was one of Martas favourites).
I must stress that i do not go to these places for spiritual enlightenment, mostly i go for the ascetic beauty of the temples, a curiosity of why humans believe
in the things they do and like most of the cows, dogs, monkeys and tramps i go for the cool of the shade. This can be very confusing for the Bramin (preacher) at the end of the half hour que when i politley refuse his blessing i have been waiting for, I just want to see what goes on in the inner sanctum and i feel i would be the biggest hypocrate to staunchly defend atheism for years then get a dot just cause im in India innit.
I think whiteys with dots on there forehead look very daft indeed and i can guarantee you they dont understand the religion let alone believe in it.
Im sure hinduism is a mystery to most of the billions of Indians who do believe in it. Its a bit like ancient Greek but still going and with a cast of millions and like most religions a total contradiction. I got given a small plastic bag full of holy leaves to put over a statue once and when i got to the statue there was as many plastic bags as leaves, im not sure if the plastic bags were blessed too.
As
Saint Santa
At first i thought this really funny but really i think it should be part of the churches new modern image it probably represents most christians i know better than anything else my mother and father could tell you ever since ive been a wee boy what i love to do best in a new country is crack my head open, so why should this be different, putting my bags on the bus i cracked my head and started bleeding, a short rickshaw to the hospital and a couple of staples later and we were on the next bus to Madurai.
Throghout our journey images of three people were omnipresent the governers of Tamil Nadu (Stevie Wonder and lionel Ritchie) and their favorite Bollywood hero Vijay (who looks like a Tamil Paul Martin). I made friends on the bus with a Police men and said that it seems that the politicians spend most of their money on self publicity and massive jeeps with big massive flags on them for preferential treatment in busy traffic, while the people live in poverty with no apparent sanitation or refuse collection and he said i was 100 percent correct, shame. Its great to have policemen mates on the bus if you want to get indian prices for food and drink.
Finally it was on to Madurai. Madurai is one of the oldest living
cities in the world, a centre of trade since the ancient Egyptians and in many ways unchanged since, an incredible place with all religions living together peacefully for century's. Needless to say it has the daddy of all Hindu temple complexes, massive, very busy and very colorful and a fantastic and insightful Ghandi museum. Theres a lot of love for Ghandi there as it was where he gave up his material possessions and took to wearing the traditional loincloth, the uniform of the streets in Madurai. around the temples there are many areas where different types of traders bunch together according to what they sell and do good buisness giving how many shops there were.
We both loved madurai and is certainly my favourites since Hampi a real step back in time.
What we loved most about our tours round Tamil Nadu must be the temples not just cause there so beautiful but because they are still functioning places and not museums.
We have arrived in Kerala via the very southern tip of India and we are just starting to work our way up again, hope you are all well and untill next time
Take care
Marta
and Mikey
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