Where have all the cows gone?
Trip Start
Dec 05, 2004
1
17
25
Trip End
Jan 17, 2005
Trichy,
India
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Colourful temple gopuram
. The men mostly wear lungis - a kind of sarong thing folded up above the knee (we certainly didn't want to see any of these dropping off!) and bare chested and sometimes shoeless. There were quite a few sadhus (holy men) walking around accompanied by their followers, usually shielded from the baking sun by a parasol. Men from the Brahamin caste were allowed to jump the long queues to get into the inner sanctum (as non-Hindus we were not allowed in here). Many of the children and some women had shaved heads as in Hinduism it is brings extra blessings to offer your hair (especially the first hair of babies) to the gods. There were whole families sitting around having picnics (some wanting photos with us) and stall holders selling their wares. The usual touts and children making coin collections were as always abundant and I did my usual reverse selling - there was one child who followed us for 20 minutes, he was very funny!We caught a bus back into town to the old part of the city and eventually located the Rock Fort, made up of a number of small temples, one of which was up the 437 rock cut steps where there was a panoramic view of the city. We didn't bother with the final temple 50 steps more dedicated to Ganesh (elephant god - remover of obstacles) because to be honest in 30 degrees C we were dripping by this time! During the climb up and down we encountered young lads who tried to shake our hands and kept pushing past us laughing
Demon in Sriangam temple
. We also met some beautiful women (one of whom, when I said how beautiful she was, exclaimed that she had black skin and my fairer skin was more beautiful - I told her that her skin was lovely - there is a feeling here that the fairer the skin i.e. North India the better and there are skin creams on sale which promote skin lightening!). There were 4 little girls who came over to chat to us and play with my bangles - cute as anything and like most of the young girls in India they were all wearing little meringue bridesmaid type dresses!It hit me as we were wandering around the Big Bazar looking at some fabrics, that there was something missing..... cows! I realised that since arriving in South India, the only cows I had really seen were few in number, quite healthy looking and tied up to gates and posts. It was strange not steering around them and also other animals, who I suppose had lots of fertile land to roam rather than the streets. Apparently Krishna who is more of a northern god is a lover of cows, which then makes them holy, so they are allowed to roam wherever they want. We got a rickshaw back to the hotel area and had lunch in an up market hotel (Jenney's Residency), where I had a great South Indian thali (not had one since strangely - they don't appear on the menus in Kerala). We collected our bags from our hotel and went to the train station, where we got unreserved cattle class tickets for the 2.5 hour journey to Madurai
Ganesh
. Well as is to be expected in India, the train was running an hour and a half late, so we communed with the staring men on the platform and the mozzies, and eventually started chatting to the only other westerners there, Tara and Julian. This American couple told us they had been in Mahalipuram on the day the tsunami struck, having breakfast in a beach restaurant. They showed us photos of the waves getting higher and the water coming in. They had jogged away from the waves and went to their hotel (which was also damaged) to pack their stuff. They ended up staying another night as there was so much chaos with people trying to leave the town, and going back to the restaurant they found a heap of wood and their hotel pool was full of junk. Luckily only a handful of people died in this town. It was quite chilling!Eventually the train arrived and we ran with everyone else, as best with could with luggage, to scramble onto the train. Well it was a real bun fight and we lost - no seats! Julian went to find the ticket inspector (well squeezed his way down the narrow aisle) and eventually he found two seats in the cattle class (2nd class benches) reserved section for us to take (for some extra rups). So we rotated for the remaining 2 hours. I have to say that this journey was one of the highlights of my whole trip. We met some wonderful people, who were so generous and friendly
Nandi bull in temple
. There was Maria (Christian) and her father next to me, opposite a Muslim lady and her teenage twin daughters with their long plaited bunches (who spoke English as acted as interpreters). Across the aisle with Debbie was a beautiful Hindu woman who was hanging onto every word Debbie was saying to Julian. They all showed keen interest in looking at our photos and we exchanged information about our lives, jobs and families. Maria insisted on buying me a cup of chai and then an omelette. The 2 hours flew by and we eventually arrived around 10pm at Madurai.We all headed over to the Supreme Hotel (where we had a booking for a few days later but because of our changed plans we were there earlier), unfortunately they were full but sent us over to a hotel which wasn't in our Lonely Planet - Madurai Residency. We really hit gold with this hotel. It was smart, cool, a well furnished. The staff fell over backwards to help us. We thought we would splurge as new year was approaching and took an air-conditioned room for 2 nights at a tenner a night, brekkie included. Bargain! After a quick snack on the rooftop restaurant with a view over the huge temple complex, we headed to the sanctury of our cool room to watch some western TV!
