Page 5 of Traveling Terry Travel Blog Posts


Asia » India » Tamil Nadu » Kanadukathan December 17th 2017

I think I’m sleeping in the dance hall. My room is in a renovated Chettiar mansion, built in the French Art Deco style in 1939 by a wealthy businessman as a gift for his daughter. The Chettinad area north of Madurai is known for thousands of palatial buildings built by wealthy families in the late 1800’s up until World War II. They spared no expense, importing Italian marble, Burmese teak, and Indian rosewood for their extraordinary structures covered with sculptures, hand crafted tiles, and exquisite detail. Each house follows a similar plan, with a grand entrance opening into a broad gallery room or two, then into a central courtyard with rooms off to the sides. Cooking facilities are in a separate building or far in the back of the house. And in the cooking is the ... read more
A Cooking demonstration
My “Dance Hall” room at Visalam
Rear Entrance to Visalam

Asia » India » Andhra Pradesh » Hyderabad December 10th 2017

These places are big, really big. Not just big, but massive. Grand. Outlandish even. The building blocks are huge, walls towering, and architectural details surprising at Golconda Fort, a complex of buildings that spreads over many acres and crawls up a hill. Seven kings (nizams) of the Qutb Shahi dynasty ruled over the fort from AD 1518 to AD 1687. The first three nizams built much of the fort during the first 62 years of their dynasty, fortifying the fort that had been there already for several centuries. I launched my day of the big-place tour with a hike through Golconda Fort, noting the imposing outer walls that look exactly as you’d expect a royal fort to look. To my dismay, a group of bouncing teenagers beat me through the front gates, but I managed to ... read more
Minaret
Doorway detail at Qutb Shahi Tombs
A mausoleum at Qutb Shahi Tombs

Asia » India » Andhra Pradesh » Hyderabad December 7th 2017

Yes, I’ve dropped into another world. I’ve experienced similar places in India: people weaving across busy streets, through streams of cars, motorcycles, auto rickshaws; endless honking, people spitting everywhere, pools of spittle, some tinged with red betelnut, women clad in dark draperies, eyes peering from a human mask. How beautiful those women must be—but I see their eyes only, darting, staring at me, then withdrawing their gaze, clutching a toddler’s hand, comforting a crying baby. The noise, oh the noise, swelling voices, arguing, calling, discussing prices in the market, crowing, the creak of the wheels of portable stalls, rumble of motors, honking, endless honking. What’s different about Hyderabad? A city of over 5 million, crammed with movement, the drone of the call to prayer early in the morning and several more times throughout the day, men ... read more
Charminar
Chowmahalla Palace
Arch—Chowmahalla Palace

Asia » Indonesia » Bali February 14th 2017

Before I started, I did not expect to climb all 1700 steps up to the temple at the top of Lempuyang. After a couple hundred steps I was sweating like a pig. I know, pigs don't sweat. But if they did, I was sweating like one. As we walked along, my young companion Uli listened to my story of my having resorted to riding a horse up the volcano in Guatemala as my two sons bounded on up the trail without me. There were no horses here. Together we climbed the stairs to one of the first of seven temples on the mountain. Had the day been clear, we could have had a magnificent view of Mount Agung, the dominant volcano in Bali. But it was cloudy and threatened rain. That didn’t deter me. I enjoyed ... read more
A lower temple on Lempuyang
Split gate to the clouds
Priest distributes holy rice

Asia » Indonesia » Bali » Ubud February 3rd 2017

Back in 1983 when I first visited Bali I fell in love. “I’m in love with the Balinese people,” I wrote in my journal. They weren’t just friendly, or kind, or helpful—there was much more. It was their hearts. They spilled beauty and warmth and light, and their smiles radiated an inner peace. Unconditional love was there, offered to the foreigner, and I soaked it in. When I continued on my solo journey then and moved on to Java and Sumatra, I couldn’t say I was in love with the people. Not like in Bali, where I had felt my heart expanding and growing warm when I was around the people there. So after a long time away, I returned to Bali this trip, remembering that extraordinary expansion of heart that I felt back then, and ... read more
The massive carvings at Gunung Kawi
Lily Pad Beauty in the Temple
After the coital romp

Asia » India » Tamil Nadu » Madurai January 23rd 2017

I spent a lively hour sipping a cucumber drink and talking with Rukmini Thiagarajan, the daughter of the man who purchased, renovated, and developed the historic property now known as Heritage Madurai, several kilometers outside the center of town. Now directing the management of this five star resort, she offered her driver and car one day so that I could visit places and people around Madurai that I would not have seen otherwise. Her driver, Venkateshan, has worked at the Heritage Madurai location for forty years, and is almost an institution. His kindly smile and careful driving delivered me first to Nilakottai, a place outside of Madurai known for the patches of jasmine grown on family farms. I wanted to meet and talk with women who picked those luscious buds that are daily bound for the ... read more
Daily Work for the Jasmine Picker
Traditional Goat skin puppet--Hanuman
Hard Working woman

Asia » India » Tamil Nadu » Madurai January 19th 2017

The banyan tree was massive. It stood on a spreading pedestal of ropey aerial roots, and lifted its heavy branches, dominating the shallow basin where it had made its home for generations. As I peeked through the branches at the tangled trunk, I knew this grandfather was special. I sensed energy floating from it, announcing its existence, commanding notice. This was the first place that Karikalan showed me in his native village. We had met several weeks before at a film festival in Madurai, where Karikalan’s short film was presented. His film was different from the others, because its setting was in a village, specifically, this very village outside Madurai. The story—involving a boy and his beloved goat—was so different from the other action-laden films with dialogues-that-make-you-wince, I encouraged Karikalan to make more films set in ... read more
Gentle woman
Returning from the fields
Caretaker and deity

Asia » India » Tamil Nadu » Madurai January 15th 2017

There’s something I need to get off my chest. It’s about food. Sure, I love food in India, and sometimes I think I’ve become addicted to specific foods—idli—mmm, those steamed white pillows of fermented rice and urud dahl batter, spongy and friendly. Morning and night—with coconut, peanut, tomato, or mint chutney. Oh so yummy. I love I love it. And dosa, fried crispy and rolled up, parotha, vegetable bryani, uttapam, pongal, lemon rice, curd rice, mint rice—I can eat mounds of rice in India. Yes, I love the food, the spices, the textures, the way it feels hot and squishy in my hand as I scoop it into my mouth. But what I need to unload are my feelings about eating the food in India. At times, eating here baffles me. “Have you eaten?” That’s a ... read more
Tables use too much space, sitting on the floor is most convenient
A Very special Rainbow Guest House Pongal meal
Serving food in the home

Asia » India » Tamil Nadu » Madurai December 31st 2016

I was visited by angels. Really. I was alone, feeling helpless, approaching panic. Then they came, the two young men, and they didn’t leave until things were right. “We’re just people,” they insisted. Nope, angels, no doubt about it. It all had to do with the puppy. I had been visiting the puppy with the hurt leg for about five days. Every morning, after walking around the shady coolness of Lady Doak College, I would step into the noisy world outside and walk a short ways up the street. The puppy would be crumpled somewhere in a dark, safe place, and when it walked, it held its rear leg aloft and hobbled instead. His eyes carried pain, and the first day when his leg was freshly injured, he whimpered when I scratched his chin. His mother, ... read more
Mother and Pup with hurt leg
Two Angels:  Saruhasan and Gokul
Almost done--good pup

Asia » India » Tamil Nadu » Madurai December 24th 2016

They call it a temple pond. But it is no small pond. Vandiyur Mariamman Teppakkulum is about one km around its red and white striped perimeter walls that enclose an excavation of about 16 acres. A smooth slabbed surface circling it makes for a good walk. Everyone else had the same idea one cloudy morning as I wandered around the structure. King Thirumalai Nayakkar excavated the soil in this area, it is said, to make the bricks for Thirumalai Nayakkar Palace. This was back in 1645 AD. Twelve staircases around the four sides descend into the tank. People can go down the stairs to the bottom to play cricket or to walk to the central mandapam that supports a temple and garden. Now the floor of the tank is dry, but soon waters from the nearby ... read more
Red white red white
Unraveling
The three guys from Rajasthan




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