Dance of the happy cows in Mamallapuram
Trip Start
Nov 04, 2007
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26
62
Trip End
May 03, 2008
Mamallapuram,
India
Sunday, January 20, 2008
We took the short bus journey from Chennai to Mamallapuram. We were quite surprised to find that Chennai bus station was like a proper bus-station, with platforms, platform numbers and everything labelled clearly.
As we'd read that there is plenty of accommodation in Mamallapuram we hadn't booked anywhere in advance, so we looked round a few places when we got here and settled for the best deal we found. We were pleased to find that the accommodation in this town was not the usual concrete blocks we've found elsewhere, but are much more like the guesthouses you might find in Thailand, although slightly less luxurious - small courtyards, bright tiled rooms, hot water, air-conditioning, with a friendly cafe attached. We are also about 100 metres from the beach.
It wasn't just the accommodation that felt more like Thailand. This is the first Indian town we've come to so far that is on the backpacker trail. Consequently about half the people here are westerners, which was a bit wierd at first as it's been a while since we've been anywhere like that. The downside for us is that whereas there have been an abundence of veggie restaurants everywhere else in India, we've only found one here - and that's where we've been eating. It's very cheap too, our lunch today cost 50p. (The stupid westerners eating pizza and burgers in the western-orientated restaurants are paying quadruple that ..... at least - Ros).
We happened to arrive in Mamallapuram during their annual dance festival.
Krishna's "Butter Ball", Mamallapuram
We went along last night after dinner to watch the show, which took place against the floodlit backdrop of some of the main cliff-rock carvings in the town and amongst some very nosy Indian children who would hang off our chairs and peer over our shoulder. There were also lots of very intrigued goats looking on from their own viewing area on the cliff, and the scene was set with massive bats swooping across the audience and stage between the trees and the neighbouring temple. The music was classical-Indian - so a little band with tabla drums, a couple of stringed instruments and a singer or two, all seated on the floor. The dances we saw were mainly individual girls, and were very classical in style. One, they explained in English beforehand, depicted a conversation Lord Krishna had with his Mother. Apparently his mother didn't want the cows put out in the sunshine as it was too hot, but Krishna believed being in the sun made them happy. Krishna won the conversation and the cows spent the day very happy. Riiiigggghhhhtt..... We're going back again tonight to see some different dances.Mamallapuram is particularly well-known for its sculptures and carvings. In fact many of them are exported around the world, and as you walk around it's impossible to miss the sculptors tapping away at bits of rock. It's just a shame they're a bit too heavy to put in our rucksacks! There are also quite a lot of temples in the town, all carved out of solid rock. We visited the two main temples this morning. The Five Rathas were only discovered and excavated 200 years ago. We're not sure if the erosion that has clearly effected them took places before or since the excavation! The Shore temple, as you may have guessed, sits right on the shore and it's quite amazing that it wasn't destroyed by the 2004 tsunami. Mind you, we've not seen any evidence of the tsunami at all.
