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Sadhu
Seen in temple, TrichyWe left Trichy on 11th March, heading North to Tiruvanamalai. The bus took five and a half hours, followed by a 14Km rickshaw ride out to the ashram. Sadly, there was a course on so the ashram was fully booked but whilst there we got talking to a local whose name was Princess (really!) who offered us a room back in the town. From the outside, the place looked rather fine, and it wasn't until the evening that we discovered that there was something very dodgy about the electrics. Being very hot at night we naturally needed the fan, but once switched on it became apparent that it was a case of either/or fan or lights - not both. Either to sit in the dark feeling slightly cooler, or being able to read etc. and roast. We roasted...
Princess is a married doctor with a three year old son. Her husband was an architect but he developed an incurable blood disorder shortly after the birth of their son and is now more or less hospitalised in Bangalore. Theirs was a marriage of love, as opposed to an arranged marriage, against their parents' wishes, and they have as a result been disowned
Wedding hall
Las Vegas comes to Tiruvanamalai by them. Princess is now almost destitute, relying on friends and whatever work she can get as an Ayurvedic practitioner. Her story really highlights the importance of family over state in India, very much in contrast to our ''welfare' state.
One evening on the way back from town with Princess we drove past what looked like a Las Vegas casino, all flashing lights and a lurid orange colour scheme. It was, in fact, a wedding hall, where the first night of a wedding event was taking place. In India, a marriage party takes place over two or three days. Although she didn't know the people, Princess got us in to watch the happy couple and relatives being photographed. The bride and female members of the families looked gorgeous in their shimmering, brightly coloured silk saris, the bride sparkling with elaborate jewellery. We were warmly welcomed, and invited to eat with them. Unfortunately we'd just had a meal, but they insisted. We compromised with a gulab jammun - a sticky little ball of condensed milk and rose water. A syrupy sweet delight.
The next day we hired a scooter and followed the pilgrim route around Mount Arunachal, a holy mountain where
the guru, Ramana Maharshi, lived and died.there is a big ashram, with many others, along the pilgrim way. It is a route that thousands of devout Hindus take, especially on full moon. Its a 14Km circuit, some of it passing through quiet countryside.
The following day we left town for the Singing Heart Ashram, run by a Danish/English woman, Jaqueline Maria Longstaff, who had had an 'awakening' when she envisaged an airport with arrivals and departures , and those in transit - a suitable metaphor for the cycle of birth and death. She's acted on this vision to build a 'cosmic airport' (the ashram) and runs courses on birthing and dying. We couldn't help wondering what the (cosmic) duty free would sell! Then we met a woman who was semi-permanently in residence there, running a business selling 'energy' products. The 'energy' is gathered from certain high energy places e.g. Mt Kailash, Varanasi and Mt. Arunachal and various important temples,(it's in the water, apparently) and mixed into soaps, incense, sprays etc.This would be the duty free, then.... She reported a flourishing business. Another example of 'would you believe it' is that she used to live in Lewes, and has a very
Mammalapuram
Rock carving: life size and life like! close friend who lives at the end of our road!
We left the ashram on 17th March. Ashram life was not for us.
Our next destination was Mamallapuram just south of Chennai, By the sea again, only this time it was the Bay of Bengal. The town, or at least the enclave we were in, is a mixture of Cochin and Gokarna. Like Gokarna, it has an authentic fishing village,and like Cochin the street our hotel was on is totally given over to tourists - internet cafes, Womad clothes and hippy accessories.Unlike these other two resorts, it is full of wonderful stone carving, some dating back to ....BC
The immediate beach is covered with boats, nets, and associated debris. Further down, past the boats and the human defecation, there is a quiet and relatively clean spot to swim, though the sea is very rough.There are many historic sites in the town. A route that takes in a number is very pleasantly organised, with a paved walkway shaded by trees. This is an essential as it is seriously hot, especially at midday, which is invariably the time when we're 'visiting'. Many of the rock carvings, while beautifully done, are quite different
Mammalapuram
Brahmin bulls from the temple carvings as they are much freer and depict everyday people rather than the myriad variations of Vishnu, Shiva, Ganesh etc. A life sized elephant, in relief, was so realistic we fed it a banana!
Some Macaque monkeys who frequented the place were plainly familiar with humans, did a rush 'muggin' on Pen who was carrying a mineral water bottle. A big male tried to pull it out of her hand and was quite willing and ready to do a stand off when John stamped his foot at him in retaliation. He gave him a look to kill, made a symbolic parry, and let it go at that....fortunately. They have such big teeth!
Mammalapuram is really 2 places. Where we were staying, and it's environs, is given over exclusively to western tastes, whilst the 'other' town, just round the corner, very quickly reverts to 'India'. This is so pretty much everywhere we've been so far to some degree, but the contrast seems so stark here. Sitting in a cafe sipping on a cappucino, watching the local fisher folk walk by is a strange and sometimes disquieting experience. they seem to be looking at us like creatures in a
Mammalapuram
Institute of Herpetology. Indian mugger, a cousin of salt water croc zoo whilst strolling past with a basketful of fish on their head. The cappucino is as good as you'll get in any Costas.....
Hired a moped and went to Madras Herpetology Centre about 14 kms out of town towards Chennai. It's also called the Croc Bank as it's main raison d'etre is acquiring a gene pool for all the species of crocs (25) in the world. The 3 indian types -Gharial, an extraordinary, mythical looking creature, has a very long, thin snout with long thin teeth. This is a fish eater. The other two -Mugger and the Gangetic croc, along with the Gharial were verging on extinction in the 70's and this was the impetus behind the Croc Bank. The program of captive breeding and release was started and worked successfully until the government changed it's mind and banned re-introduction. Meanwhile, the crocs at Croc Bank keep on breeding....there are a lot of crocs there waiting to be re-introduced.
There is also a snake venom collection 'farm'. This is staffed by the Irula people, a local tribe of hunter- gatherers who are legendary snake catchers. Until the late 70's snakes were caught and killed for their skins. This was made
Mammalapuram
Stone carvers workshop illegal, and the Irula people lost their main source of income. A cooperative was set up to remedy this and they started catching the venomous ones - cobra, krait and viper- to 'milk' for their venom. The snakes are caught, milked 4-5 times and released.
Snake bites are a huge problem in Asia, especially in the villages where people live and work in the snake's habitat, or create a habitat for them with rice paddies etc. Most people go barefoot, or at best wear flip-flops and the occasional encounter between snake and human is inevitable, and can be very bad news for the human! A bite from any one of the common 3 mentioned is very serious and often fatal if not treated with serum very quickly.
The snakes are kept in clay pots, about 100 in all, and are brought out to be milked. The Irula handlers seemed to be very nonchalant, leaving two cobras that were obviously ready to strike, with their hoods open and watching their every movement. the handlers moved around seemingly oblivious to the fact that they were well within striking distance of both the two Cobras, a Krait that was lying about, and a
Royal Enfield
Prince of Bikes! Russell's Viper that was curled up in a dark corner, hissing irritably whenever a handler walked past!
This all went on as the venom extraction was being demonstrated!
The following day John's dream came true when we hired a Royal Enfield, 'the Prince of motorcycles', and rode out to Ventendangal, a bird sanctuary some 50Km south. It was well worth the journey. There were several acres of pea green lake covered in what may be mangrove: huge spreading tree tops just above the water, absolutely covered by a riot of nesting painted storks, some standing with stripy wings open displaying a bright pink flash. There were also spoonbills, white and glossy ibis as well as the more common paddy birds and egrets. The ibis wheeled up into the sky like pterodactyls, and the whole semi-submerged landscape looked primeval.
We drove back to base for a few hours respite before taking off again for a night Turtle watch, organised by the crocodile bank. This proved very interesting, starting with a video showing the huge problems faced by the Olive Ridley turtles when they swim near the beach to lay their eggs. The trawler fishermen catch huge numbers of them in their
Ventandangal
Storks, Ibis and Spoonbills nets and they drown. The film was shot in Orissa where large tracts of the coast are supposed to be protected. However the trawlers continue to fish within the 5 mile exclusion zone, and thousands of turtles are being killed. An insert has been designed to be fitted inside the trawl nets which has a hatch which would enable the turtles to escape, but because there is a 5% loss of fish likely with this addition, very few trawlers adopt them. Another hazard that the Olive Ridleys face is when the young turtles hatch. They are very sensitive to light, and with the 'glow' over the ocean, even on a cloudy, moonless night, is enough to orientate the hatchlings. Sadly, light pollution from beach developments. nearby towns etc., throw them off course, and many head off in the wrong direction.
After watching the video, we had a brief look around the crocodile and alligator pens in the dark. When we held the torch at eye level we saw a myriad unblinking eyes shining in the dark -and that was just the ones that were awake!
We were taken to the under side of the Gharials enclosure, where there is a
Mammalapuram
Stone carvers workshop place where they can be viewed underwater. It was like being in a museum at night when the lights are turned off -slightly creepy, and then, out of the darkness, the Gharial came swimming towards us! It was extraordinary to see this dinosaur gliding out of the murk! Jurassic Park revisited!
The night sounds were extraordinary too, with gurgles and croaks from the nesting egrets which we at first took for whacky frog phone ring tones!
The sorry tale of the Olive Ridleys was compounded by a 4Km hike along the beach, very beautiful in the dark, to check the nests to see if there were any newly hatched baby turtles. Sadly, we didn't see any, but two dead mature ones were found - one an Olive Ridley, full of eggs, and the other a Hawksbill, apparently very rare on that coast. So, no sightings of young hatchlings but an excellent and informative evening. We roared back into town at 12.30 pm.
The town has been a centre for stone carving from ancient times to the present day. There are hundreds of workshops all over town, with stonemasons working away on pieces ranging from huge deities and elephants destined for
Mammalapuram
Ancient rock carvings temples all over the world, to small trinkets for souvenirs in local shops.
After five days in Mamallapuram we left Tamil Nadu and continued north crossing the border into Andhra Pradesh, the next state.
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