Madurai to Rameswaram

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In case you’re confused, god knows I am, yesterday was Day 4. Today, Day 5 is Madurai to Rameswaram. Pilgrims walk hundreds of kilometres to be cleansed and blessed here.

We decided the best course of action was to get the hell out of Madurai in as short a time as possible so of course we ended up following one of the other teams……to the temple. Arse. The Madurai temple is meant to be something quite special, so, as per the rest of this trip, we didn’t see it. This was a shame but the temple was in the opposite direction of the one we wanted to go in, ie. in the centre of town, and from bitter experience we knew the time was of the essence, so regrettably we passed.

We instead proceeded to find a local who would sit with me and guide me out of Madurai on the right road to Rameswaram, approx. 180km away. Luckily ‘helpful locals’ were fairly thick on the ground in downtown Madurai and we picked a helpful local with bad teeth.

Having safely (using that term VERY loosely here and in fact throughout the entirety of this blog) negotiated the right road out of town, it started to rain. At this point, I should perhaps remind you that Miss H was not the most up-to-date model. Archaic in fact, (hence her name). We had no speedometer (ha!), no petrol gauge (guffaw!) and a manually operated wind screen wiper (bonzer!) - which we never thought we’d have to use. What a team. At irregular intervals, Billie or Rebecca would lean over my shoulder, thrust their chest in my face and clear the windscreen with this fine piece of equipment. We do have a photograph of somewhere.

Billie unfortunately saw, all too starkly, how dangerous Indian driving is when she saw a body by the side of the road, it had obviously been hit, probably at night, by one of the juggernauts or buses that we had been missing by inches all week. A sobering thought.

The rest of the drive was beautiful across Pamban Bridge, (also known as Indira Gandhi Bridge). The bridge was constructed by the British over a hundred years ago and is still in good condition *insert joke about British erections here*. Unfortunately Rameswaram itself was not so picturesque and would probably win a prize for ‘Shittiest beach in India’ - in every sense of the word.

Rameswaram is considered one among four most sacred pilgrim centres of India and has the longest temple corridor ever built in India. SweetchariotofireTRUFAX.

We stayed in the fabulously named Hare Krishna Hotel, no men in orange with funny haircuts with tambourines were in evidence though, but lots of cows wandering about the town (plus ca change).

The main attraction here, the temple - a recurring theme I think you’ll find, was fascinating. Groups of pilgrims (distinguished by their different coloured lungis) are cleansed in each of 22 baths before they can enter the Inner Sanctum and pray. Each tank represents good health, love, wealth, learning etc . It's the only Hindu temple where followers of Shiva and the other main Hindu god can worship together . Initially we felt that we were intruding but people seemed comfortable with our presence and we were actually made to feel very welcome. There was a element of ‘It’s a Knock Out’, with men and young boys careering round the temple, in various stages of undress and usually sopping wet. You expected Stuart Hall’s dulcet tones (‘And the boy from Chennai is getting a right soaking…he’s having problems with his lungi, oh he’s up again, no he’s not…’) at any moment. (If you can’t remember this momentous programme you should be ashamed).

That evening at the hotel we had a party on the roof of our hotel. It was BYO beer from the wine shop (which had no wine, and never had had any - well why would it?). We were royally ripped off (charged the equivalent of a beer in a bar in London for each beer) because we were wimmin although we did manage to off-set this as dinner at the Ganesh Mess (banana leaves as plates, eating with fingers - who needs knives and forks - etc) cost not more than 75p all in. Can’t say fairer.

The next morning we had another send off by the Chief of Police but no handshaking for the ladies from Sweet Chariot of Fire, just a nod of the head.

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Comments

[Paolo]

Keep 'em coming!
Jo, your travel writing becomes more and more interesting, amusing, entertaining and absorbing with every blog you post. I am pledging a quid for every anecdotal joke you squeeze in hence forth. So keep 'em coming!