Blog Number Two - Out to the Real India

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Ok so I am starting to get a little more organised. It's a week since I last wrote, have swapped the colonial look for the hippie one. Now in Goa and have moved from the upmarket room in the colonial house for a hut on the beach with a balcony, a deck chair, a woman named Suzie who walks around selling the nicest fruit ever, 2 good restaurants within a 2 minute walk and an alternative therapy room (shack) next door. The perfect place to stay for a night or 5, collect ones thoughts and recharge the battery before heading to the feared and dreaded north, where all the horror stories that I have ever heard about India have occurred. I am sure that it will be all worth it. So here is my second offering.. enjoy!

Blog Number Two - Out to the real India...

Madras - Chennai

So after 2 weeks of living the good life in Casa McGregor we packed our bags and headed off into the sunrise without our local resident in the know and driver. Aslam dropped us off and waved us goodbye, I think he was looking a little worried about what was coming next for us, and not really sure that we knew what we were letting ourselves in for!!! Nevermind! We managed to get through the front door of Bangalore train station still in control of our bags from the hordes of porters eager to get their hands on them (and our money), find the platform we needed and the train. Pre-booked in 2nd class AC, we found the carriage that had our names printed on the piece of paper with our seat numbers glued to the outside of the train and there we were 30minutes ahead of schedule. We settled into our seats, and just waited, thinking that it was going to be a pretty quiet empty journey with 2 minutes to go and the train only about half full we thought this was going to be a well comfy journey... after another 30 seconds the train was packed with standing room only and a minute later we were on our way.

We had a nice Indian man sitting with us, who let me take his Window seat for the journey which was nice. He immediately ordered food from the first attendant who walked through the train selling something that resembled a samosa with mystery veg inside (kinda reminded me of chicco roll but triangular!) I could see Mike wanting to have one but as we hadn't eaten anything that wasn't from a 5 star resturant or imported in the last two weeks he held back. 2 minutes later another attendant came trough the carriage yelling 'dosa dosa dosa.....' Our Indian friend gave the man a nod and looked at Mike to see if he wanted one too, Mike looked at me and said 'oh yeah, I'll give it a go' (famous last words!) and a little take away plate was put in front of him that had a pancake with spicy potato in the middle and a bag of hot masala sauce. The food passed the Mike taste test and from that moment on Mike and our Indian friend ordered food from every attendant that came past, onion bajis, potato thingys, dosa the works! The journey was going quite pleasantly, ok scenery, good food, every station you pull into you get the attendants at that station coming through the carriage with a new selection of mystery food to keep you happy, Indian train travel is really quite interesting and enjoyable. Indian train toilets are an experience in itself but I will leave that one out, lets just say that they are pretty rank but have nothing on a portaloo by day 3 at Glastonbury!

So we arrive in Chennai at 2pm in the afternoon in the blistering heat and humidity. Made our way out of the station to the prepaid auto stand and got a ticket to go to Triplicane road an area that had several budget hotels, we checked out a place called the Taj regency where we got our 3rd floor palace for the bargain price of 300 Rupee a night (just over £3!) A palace it wasn't but it was clean and for 3 quid one could not really complain so much. We met a couple from Australia Becky and Craig and spent the afternoon with them having a few drinks and talking about their travels to date, they were on month 7 of their trip, which seems like an eternity away for us but I am sure that it will come up faster than a blink! We went for walk to the waterfront and checked out a night market that was an Indian version of Southend, full of food stalls and tacky souvenirs more geared for the local market goers so was all rather tacky and fluro! Headed back to a hotel local to ours for dinner on the roof (for the bargain price of 350Rupee for 2 main meals, naan, veg and a beer) back to our palace for a refreshing shower and sleep.

We woke up when the city woke up in the morning with the honks of cars and tuk tuks and the clanging of vendors selling their food. Our plan for the day was to get up and head for the Kapaleeshwar temple, the Ramakrishna Mutt temple and the San Thome (St. Thomas) Cathedral in the morning and then jump on a train to Kanchiparaum and spend the afternoon there, as the temples were (accordingly to the lonely planet) only about 1 km from where we lived, and there was a 'regular train service throughout the day' between Kanchiparaum and Chennai. So off we headed for our first wander through the streets of Chennai. We passed people heading out for the day of work ahead, some people carrying baskets full of food off to sell at the market, others carrying racks of clothes, people getting their breakfast in, others off to temple, it was just all go with people everywhere going about their daily lives. Saw loads more communist propaganda posted everywhere as there is apparently a state election coming up, a few little temples and mosques, a local market and a shanty town, people washing their clothes and swimming in the very grey river and not a tourist in sight (other than us!) I think by the time we had been walking an hour we started to question the correctness of the lonely planet map and continued on as it started to pour with rain. We took shelter under a shop umbrella with a local businessman for the few minutes of the downpour who when it finished called us over a tuk tuk told him where we wanted to go and told us that we weren't to pay anymore than 20Rupee (the tuk tuk driver was not impressed!) so after about 5km of driving we finally arrived at the temple. The surrounding streets were thriving with activity, people were making wreaths of flowers for temple worshipers, people selling temple souvenirs, fruit and coconuts for offerings, market stalls, tuk tuks weaving in and out of the pedestrians.. just random local Indian madness. We managed to deflect our first wannabe guide and wandered around the temple on our own. The temple was a hive of activity. People rushing around everywhere on a mission to get to the deity that they felt the need to pray to on that given day as quickly as possible and taking out anyone in their way. (I have found that Indian people only know two speeds... very fast like they needed to be somewhere yesterday and a complete standstill. There is completely no middle ground on this one) I stopped to talk to a man that was smashing coconuts in a well as an offering for his business to the goddess Lakshmi she is the one regarding wealth - we like her! & she is married to or the mother of (I have been told two different stories so need to get a confirmation on that one!) Ganesh - the one with the head of an elephant - I am not sure what he is about but I will find out by the next time I write) so anyways we wandered around the complex but were not allowed to go into the inner sanctum being non Hindus.
After here we headed for the Ramakrishna Mutt temple, we got there just in time for another massive downpour that lasted about 2 minutes then the sun came out again. This was a fairy recently built temple that's available for people of any faith to come and meditate, it was established by a swami who wanted to promote people of different faiths coming together peacefully, it was a really nice place to sit and contemplate life for a while.

Our plan of getting South Chennai done in a couple of hours was shot, now 1pm we decided to grab some lunch so headed for the nearest veg resturant, which was awesome. Had a good feed and decided to head for the train station. The regular train service to Kanchiparaum from all the Chennai stations as quoted in the lonely planet was in fact a single train from only the main Chennai train station at 7:05 am in the morning... so now that are afternoon plan was dashed we decided to head off to the cathedral. On the way we got stopped by what we thought was a wedding procession or some Hindu festival as there was drums banging away and people dancing in front of what looked almost like a float that you would see in a parade, covered in garlands and flowers making up an elaborate design. People were wafting around incense and flowers were being thrown into the air people were chanting and singing along to the drums. I really thought it was a wedding procession weaving its way down the narrow street from the temple and was eagerly getting into a position with my camera at the ready to get a good shot of the lovely couple. As it came closer you could see all the people in front dancing and clapping their way and could see into the float that was being carried by a number of men but I couldn't see anyone sitting in it being carried. A few moments later when the float had come up beside us we saw an elderly man laid out covered all in white and with flowers placed all around his body he had just come from the temple where priests had blessed him for the last time with the red and white powder that you see people wearing on their foreheads walking around the street. I saw no people mourning or crying, dressed in black or even looking sad, everyone was dancing and singing almost celebrating the end of one passage of life and welcoming him into what ever comes next. The procession weaved its way across the busy intersection with all the pedestrians, cars and tuk tuks coming to a standstill for just a moment till it passed into the next narrow street then the chaos of the streets returned to the busy, honking franticness that is India.

We made it to the cathedral that was a welcome relief as the big white building was nice and cool to sit in and catch our breath from the humid 40 degree heat outside. I thought that it would be just another church like every other church you see around the world but was pleasantly surprised to see that it was not like an other one I remember being to... it was like a fusion of the the catholic world that I am familiar with and the kitchness of Hinduism all melded into one. I though it was fabulous to see the saints all being worshiped with offerings placed in front of them in the same way that you see Hindus worshiping Ganesh and Shiva. The cathedral much to my pleasure had a Kitch Baby J! But no ordinary Kitch Baby J, this one not only has a daily change of clothes but also has flashing lights! Fabulous!! (Sonia, I have a video of the flashing light show just for you!) Also in the cathedral is the tomb of St. Thomas the apostle (so I have now seen all 3 of the tombs that there are for the apostles that have one) checked that out and had a chat, then decided to head down to the beach and check out what daily life was down there. We were expecting a few fishing boats, people selling their daily catch, a few people walking along the beach all quite same same that you get everywhere but we ended up in the middle of a communist rally somehow!! there were literally thousands of people dressed in yellow heading to this rally with banners and flags waving and banging drums, weaving their way between locals selling their fishing catch on the street and people doing their washing on the pavement, it was just pure craziness. We did our best to escape the mayhem but it seemed everywhere we went we were just surrounded so when we saw the Vivekandanda house we made a dash for that. Vivekandanda was a swami who was known as the wondering monk, he travelled the world preaching and stayed in this great round building that was formerly used as a storage facility for blocks of ice that were shipped in from North America. We paid our 2rupee entry (about 3p) and spent and hour wandering around the exhibition about Vivekandanda's life and a bunch of random Indian religious paintings. It was all very interesting and well worth 3p, even if just to escape the communists for an hour. We spent the next couple of hours on a bit of a goose chase trying to sus out how to get to Kanchiparaum tomorrow, everywhere we asked we got a different story so that was always going to be one hell of an adventure! Went to the fort and wandered down a freeway getting completely lost amongst fabulously decorate trucks, qued for an hour to get a train ticket back to our local station and then went for the nicest curry I think that I have ever had and only cost 40p! Brilliant! So that is it for Chennai. Was an interesting place to visit and I think we enjoyed it as it was our first splash into the real India. It was dirty and humid and noisy and busy but it was interesting, had an exciting vibe about it and full of a lot of nice friendly people, good to fill in a day, and glad that we decided to pop in but was equally as pleased to leave it! The next day was our day trip to Kanchiparaum but will save that for the next post....

Again for those of you not on facebook... here are links to my photos that I have posted for Chennai
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=82615&l=e2374&id=528670733
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=82639&l=130f5&id=528670733

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