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Published: December 30th 2013
25th December
It may be Christmas Day but no let up for us with the sightseeing. We were off to Trichy for the day, about 60km journey and picked up our guide on the way who was an Eddie Murpny look alike with the grand name of Marharajah. We visited a river which is a sacred place as all rivers are, this one has holy men, astrologers and various other people with weird and wonderful functions. People were bathing in the water, part of which was barriered off for safety but plenty of people were beyond the barrier where 20 have died in recent years in quick sand, some were doing their washing or washing themselves and others just sitting. Astrology plays a big part in arranging weddings and there were loads of astrologers waiting for customers, barbers seats where all hair from your body would be removed. There was a poor elephant here too, his back legs chained together.
We went on to a huge Hindu temple complex with lots of the colourful towers covered with the small figures of gods telling various tales. This area is known as the Temple heartland of Tamil Nadu and we went
up on to the roof to see the amazing array of towers which really were stunning. Inside was just as amazing with fine carvings on the many walls and a view to the 1000 pillar hall.
After this we went to our tour operators office as we needed to pay some money for the stuff that had been fedexed back. Indian Panorama is the company and we can't praise them highly enough for organising such a fantastic holiday. We arrived as they were having a Christmas celebration in their courtyard and they were so pleased to see us it was quite overwhelming! They made us so welcome, Father Christmas trotted over and they made us feel like highly honoured guests. There was a wonderful Christmas cake of Santa which Sal was asked to cut. We were so glad we owed them money giving us the opportunity to meet them particularly a lovely lady called Sindhu who has been there if we needed her. It was great to see people of all faiths celebrating Christmas.
We came back to Tanjore with a visit to the palace where the king still lives in a small part and we think this
is the one who isn't too popular as he isn't a Tamil, but we might be wrong as the temples and palaces are blurring a bit. The temple, known as the big one because it is big with a huge stone Nandi, sacred bull, this was the place for a spectacular sunset, however, it didn't oblige. It took us ages to walk around as so many people want their photo taken with us or the kids just want us to take a photo of them so that they can see it on the back of the camera.
We then visited a small house where they make metal ornaments using the Lost Wax Process, any guides reading this will remember their training at the British Museum which included this process so it was fascinating to watch as they gave us a demo going through the various steps.
None of us will be converting as far as religion is concerned as we are all too soft footed, having to take your shoes off to enter, sometimes, we have left our shoes in our little bus as there is nowhere at the temple and the monkeys pinch them. Sal being flat
footed and with creaky back has certainly had enough of being shoeless.
We had a second night at the Ideal River Resort and Sandier said we had made her evening the day before and she would remember it for a long time and hoped we would too.....Jane can, she can still taste the cream. It was such a shame for them that there wasn't as many people there as they would have liked, but they did well.
26th December
Waved off by Sandier next destination was Maduraihome town for Bala, as usual passing lots of interest, one of the strangest was maize drying in the road, they spread it out all over one half of the carriageway, which by the way are much better and generally have Tarmac in this state, sometimes there is a small amount and sometimes it covers about 100 yards, the funny thing is there never are birds around, you'd think it would be rich pickings for them. We passed fields of cashew nuts and people roasting them on the side of the road, we stopped and watched, as always, these people working hard to scratch a living. Driving by a river, there
would always be laundry being done, often more than personal laundry so loads of it hanging out to dry, saris laying on the ground making colourful patterns, other stuff on what ever was available, we had our clothes laundered at various over night stops so ours was probably hanging from a tree somewhere at some point.
It is festival time in Kerala and many pilgrims make their way there. They fast for 1, 2, or 3 months, not food fasting but no communication with their wife, wear no shoes and make the pilgrimage to a particular temple, if you are really devoted or maybe mad you walk, for so this could be 300k with no shoes, some go by car, which are packed with people and decorated with flowers and same with coaches. We passed one particularly colourful group pulling a cart and feeding the monkeys as they were going along.
We passed building sites that had a figure like we would have made for Guy Fawkes hanging outside, this was to stop any evil entering the building during construction. There is obviously a brisk trade for granite, a huge slice of rock removed looked very odd, must
have been a huge task to cut but looked like a cut in a loaf of bread.
The most ridiculous thing happened to us when Bala spotted sugar cane being loaded on to a truck. We stopped for a photo as men were lugging the cane through the field and then hauled up on to a truck. We realised there was a tv crew there filming so we took pictures of them and the sugar cane. They asked if we would mind being filmed, Sal was nominated spokesperson but with a language barrier and Bala laughing Sal stood there, being handed sugar cane to hold, then asked to look as though she is eating it which they liked and then one of the men brought a bundle of it for Sal to hold, it was very heavy. They then wanted Sal to say something......er........ Knowledge of sugar cane roughly zero ........but Bala to the rescue, in between laughing, he said that all the fuss was because this was the last harvest of the season and Tamil Nadu sugar cane was the sweetest, so this was repeated to camera by Sal and a batch of 3 microphones. Col was then
asked to come and hold the bundle of cane. How funny was that!!!!! Even funnier, Bala said he saw us on the breakfast tv programme every hour being repeated and we also made it into the daily paper! Ha ha!!
Our hotels have been fantastic and this one had a new feature for us, we each had our own little swimming pool. The rooms were huge with an equally huge bathroom which was all granite, an enormous slab with a modern sink on it and a shower with enough room for a football team!
Our guide was Sundrum, he spoke good English at a good pace. Some of them have quite heavy accents and are hard to follow but if speaking slow enough you can fill in the gaps, however, they sometimes get into their stride and talk faster and loose us, Pete usually admits to being lost before they say a word! Bless!
He took us to the Palace which is just a museum today, descendants of the Kings of the area are still around but live in poverty having lost all power and status. The building was quite magnificently carved and parts had recently been
renovated but more to do. It is quite sad that they allow people to touch and climb over some of these magnificent buildings and monuments, not just here but all over India, the ones in Mahabalipuram really do need protecting. We then went onto St. Mary's Cathedral, this area and going Into Kerala has a big Christian population.
Madurai is Tamil Nadu's second largest city and a centre for pilgrimage and has an enormous Hindu temple called Meenakshi (we think) having left shoes (ouch ouch again) we joined a long queue to be thoroughly searched. The place was heaving with people, many on their pilgrimages and this would be a stop off point. We went to the hall of 1000pillars in the temple where in the old days, 2 lengths of sari material would,wrap around 4 pillars creating a bit of privacy for a family on their pilgrimage. A quick bit of retail ( hasn't been enough time for that) then back to our lovely hotel.
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Monica
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Happy Christmas!
Thanks for the update Sally, it all sounds just wonderful! and glad you were able to celebrate xmas. All well here apart from appalling weather! love Monica x