Hugh:
After a 6 hour bus journey from Pondicherry, complete with a stoppage for some sort of breakdown further ahead, we arrived in Tiruchirappalli - more conveniently known as Trichy.
As usual we planned to find a hotel when we arrived, and there were plenty within walking distance of the bus station. On the bus we'd met a French couple and a Swiss guy (and an American girl who was travelling onwards, with the biggest suitcase I have ever seen - all for a one-month stay at an Ashram. "They told me to bring towels and a yoga mat" she told us. I'm not sure how big her Yoga mat is!). We went to the first hotel with the French couple and Swiss guy, and were told that the hotel was full. Apparently it was a very "auspicious" day and therefore the world and his wife were getting married (perhaps I should say the world and his girlfriend!). We spent the next 3 hours trekking round every hotel, and each time we got the same response. By this point we were weighing up the options of getting on a bus out of Trichy or sleeping at the bus station (well, we have sleeping bags with us!). By a small miracle, and in no small part by us looking extremely desperate, the most expensive hotel in town said they could give us rooms for the night but we'd have to be out by 9am. This made our weighing up a little easier. Although it was expensive by Indian prices, it was about 30 pounds, so not a bad deal really. Plus (and this is Roz's biggest excitement about the hotel), it had a bath!
After dinner with our European friends, and a very comfortable sleep, we were up early and once again pounding the pavements to find a hotel. It didn't take too long this time (I think it was about the 3rd hotel we tried) we found one that had a room for us. By now we were ready to take a proper look around Trichy. We hired a tuk-tuk to take us around the 3 main temples in Trichy.
Ros:
Hello there. I'm just taking over this update as the guy who runs this internet cafe has just come and tried to charge us three different amounts to stay put on the machine, confusing us totally and messing up Hugh's thought train!
So, where were we...temples.
Trichy is quite well endowed with temples. The old city is dominated by the massive Rock Fort (with temples inside) that was built in the Chola era. We dutifully climbed up, were stopped from seeing the most interesting bits because we weren't Hindu (despite Hugh's suggestion of bluffing it!) and chatted to lots of Indian children who all wanted to know why we couldn't speak Tamil.
The second temple was more conventional - in that it was a series of walls with different shrines, leading to the largest one in the centre. It was the quietest temple in the town and had a slightly more laid back feel to it. We were accosted by a guy who insisted on telling us about the temple - we generally try not to engage with the slightly dodgy looking individuals who try to inform us about the temples as they are rarely doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. This one was no exception, but we couldn't get rid of him (and had no change, so he actually only got about 10 rupees out of us!). We dutifully waited for the temple elephant to take Puja (it wandered around with some people banging drums and went to different bits of the temple giving blessings), took lots of photos and tried to look as if we understood the story of the foundation of the temple - something to do with an elephant fighting with a spider, who both then die. A bit later a bloke comes along, sits down and a jumbo fruit tree grows out of his head.
The final temple was the biggest one - and was very confusing. Our tuk-tuk (I should start calling them Autos, as they're not called tuk-tuks here) took us through several of the outer perimeter walls before depositing us at one of the gates. We had to take off our shoes and leave them in the auto and go barefoot from then on. At the previous temples this had not been a great problem as the flagstones were largely cool and shady. This temple, however, was a total suntrap - often with wide open sandy stretches that we somehow had to get across (cue 'ouch ouch ouch ow ow' and lots of Indians laughing at us). The temple had a very strange feel to it - there were lots of shops selling bits and bobs and lots of people sitting about eating. It felt, in places, more like a bit of the town than a temple.
Once again, there was a lot of the temple we weren't allowed into - including the big gold bit in the centre. However we paid 10 rupees at a bookshop and a girl unlocked a big iron gate that allowed us to climb up onto the roof to get a fairly good view. We are grateful that we had a guidebook to tell us such things exist, as you wouldn't guess otherwise!
Anyhow, enough about temples, as actually, the day was to get a bit more interesting (temples are very pretty and everything, but hey...). We popped back to the hotel for a freshen up and a bite to eat nearby and then headed back to the old town bazaar area. It turned out that the Auspicious day was not just good for weddings, but also for the opening of a temple and we'd arrived bang slap in the middle of a massive festival. It is hard to describe how busy, loud and confusing it all was. We were the only white people around and everyone wanted to tell us things, get us to look at things and generally ask us "from which country are you coming?". There were hundreds of people crammed into the small streets; there were elephants weaving their way through the crowds; cows adorned with flowers; horses being led behind troups of bare-chested drummers and other people blowing horns for all they were worth. Along the side of the street people had decorated the pavement with chalk flower patterns and set out offerings to the gods. The actual goddess figure was pulled along in the most chaotic bit of the procession, with people moving to and fro with plates of coconut, fruit and flames for people to purify themselves with.
So there we were, in the midst of all this looking very confused and we were adopted by some Indian families who insisted that we took photos of them, their children, the elephants, the goddess, the fireworks (oh yes, fireworks kept going off very, very close overhead!) and anything else that they thought we shouldn't miss. They then insisted we went home with them for dinner.
Now, we had been warned that we were likely to be invited home with Indian families sometimes as they love showing visitors hospitality, so as they insisted that their homes were very nearby we decided to put aside our English reserve and go along with it. So, we found ourselves sitting in a flat in a block that seemed to be full of Jain families, being fed lots and lots of food. The family wouldn't eat with us, so they just supervised our eating ('What, you mean you're just going to dip it?' exclaimed one of the little girls when Hugh dipped his idly in the sambar as we'd been doing whenever we'd been served idlies before! This was followed by her picking Hugh's idly up and dropping it into the sambar for him!). The meal started with cucumber and onion sandwiches...which seemed a bit odd...(wondered whether they thought it was something western people eat?), then we had idlies and sambar, onion dosas (that seemed more like parottas to us), baked chappattis and pickles, sweets, grapes, a banana, betel nut...and it was all we could do to stop there! They then insisted on giving us lots of little gifts - bead necklaces, bangles, earrings for me (they seemed quite shocked that a girl should be out without earrings), pens and rings. We were a bit overwhelmed and didn't know how to refuse politely to stop them giving us too much!
We then were asked to go to an upstairs neighbour's flat, who also wanted to introduce us to her family. So following a troop of whooping and shouting children we made our way upstairs. They sat us down and said that we had eaten South Indian food, now we could have a North Indian meal. We really hope that we didn't offend anyone when we insisted that we were full! So we had a lovely almond and saffron milk drink and a sweet, looked at the wedding album of the eldest sister, saw her baby and said our goodbyes. I think that we disappointed one of the original families we'd met on the street as we didn't go to their flat as well! But by this stage we were getting very confused and tired (and very full!). So we asked for their addresses so we could post them copies of the photographs and took an auto back to our hotel (it became clear that the auto driver was on something chemical...so we got out early) and collapsed, not quite believing the evening we'd just had!
The next day (today) we went for a day trip to the nearby town of Tanjore, where there is a big temple and a palace. But really, after the madness of Sunday that seems rather tame to write about ;)
Where we stayed:
Hotel Breeze, Mcdonalds Road: posh hotel with swimming pool, massage therapies and the like (none of which we could use due to checking in so late). Staff were very helpful and friendly, and the complementary buffet Indian breakfast was delicious. It cost 2,700R per night including taxes (very expensive for India).
Hotel Vignesh: much cheaper at 450R per night. Our room is very big and clean, but there is no AC, just a fan, squatty toilet and the water isn't hot (it's supposed to be). It's fine for a base for this town.
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