Tubes in India!

Tubes in India!
Madurai is inland, roughly parallel with the northern tip of Sri Lanka. The train came in with the evening and our orientation walk oriented us mostly with the foods on offer. Few of the orientation walks actually orientate you, mostly they just confuse. On the map, the city is a small, navigable dot. Walking through the streets for an hour is dizzying.

I wasn’t watching where I was going anyway, because there were all sorts of foods hanging and sizzling on the corner. Just around from our hotel was a local coffee shop where to mix the sugar (everything has sugar) into the coffee they pour the coffee and milk from a bowl to the cup back to the bowl again in long streams. People in the south appear to drink coffee more than chai and I have successfully re-kindled my addiction. Most of the coffee is just Nescafe, but they do a damned good job with it. I think they make it with hot milk rather than water, so its more creamy than Nescafe at home.

Then there are the most golden yellow bananas you have ever seen. And they are everywhere. Fruit stalls are packed with them sitting besides apples and guavas, but the coffee shop, the plastic toy man, even the shoe shiner will have a bunch ready for sale. All bananas are as sweet as lady fingers at home. Fruits stalls also sell red bananas, which taste just like yellow ones, maybe a little sweeter.

Men with cast iron pans, maybe a metre in diameter, fry eggs and paranthas and serve them on banana leaves. We didn’t have one of these – it was after dinner and I could fit in no more.

People just chop the top of green coconuts and drink the water from them.

All this goes on in the usual ramshackle environment of half-finished buildings with rusted reinforcing bending out of the foundations, cracking paint, tangled electrical wires, missing pavement stones, rubbish, the honk of tuk-tuks and the ring of bicycles.

Madurai is our leader’s (Charles) home town. Charles is a protestant, who used to be one of the street side entrepreneurs, selling his mum’s hand-woven silk bags. He does truly love the intrepid job and its good to hear some of the stories behind the ubiquitous and often invisible entrepreurs.

Before breakfast the next morning, we rose to visit the main temple of Madurai. The temple consists of five gates, each symbolic of some part of the body (arms, legs and the head). The gates are enormous, multicoloured obelisks covered in the painted sculptures of Hindu gods. Inside were half-naked men in orange pants praying, and an elephant that took money and ‘blessed’ people by dribbling on their head with its trunk (I think the dribbling was incidental). The elephant looked to be treated quite well (and you can see it have a bath, although we missed that), but an elephant lumbering through the dark stone pillars of a temple, rather than in the wild, is still incongruous. The inner sanctum of the temple was very old, nearly 100 years, but non-hindus were not allowed inside so we could not see it.

A guide took us through the complex (it is a complex, with at least five different areas and a garden and pool inside) pointing out different features of the design, including some pillars that played musical notes when you tapped on them. These pillars (which do not look dramatically different to the non-musical ones) were actually used as instruments.

Ancient statues of gods (there are so many of them, there are three main ones, but each has a son, daughter, cousin, brother, sister, uncle, and at least ten different incarnations so there is plenty of source material) abounded in the hall of 1000 pillars (it actually has 984 pillars) which served as a temple and a museum in one.
We visited another colourful, but smaller temple after the big one. Kate ate a very sour gooseberry on the way back to the hotel.

It was in Madurai that Ghandi decided to eschew other forms of clothing for the loincloth. As such, there is a Ghandi museum about 4km out of town and we visited. The centrepiece is the loincloth that Ghandi wore when he was assassinated in Delhi (in 1948 I think...).Browned bloodstains are still visible on the garment.
There was much more to the museum. The first section was an account of India’s path to independence, from the first European contact to 1947. The plaques placed emphasis on different (and very disparate) groups that fought battles, conducted insurgencies and suffered (and participated in) massacres during the period of European rule. What I found interesting was that, in Rajasthan, there was much less emphasis on this in museums. Perhaps I did not go to the right ones, but perhaps it was also because many of the Maharajas allied with the British to settle their own scores and increase their power.

The final plaque was surprising. Although the preceding plaques, about 20 of them, had detailed a litany of violence, atrocity and racism, the final plaque read that England had left India gracefully and as friends. It made me think that India had largely lived up to this statement. Indians I have spoken to (mostly middle class) deeply resent British rule and as a continuing blight on national pride. I asked one person whether they thought anything good came out of British rule, to be answered with a flat ‘no’ (but I do wonder if there isn’t a little bit of ‘what good did the Romans ever do for us?’ about it). The old man in Mandi (in the mountains) was quite romantic about what he could remember of British rule, although he did receive a pension from them.

Anyway, despite the appalling indiscretions, Indians treat English with respect. In fact it is probably safer to say you are English than Australian at the moment. I think it is very admirable (the English bit).

The museum then went through a book-length account, divided into more plaques, of Ghandi’s life, complemented by many of his personal artefacts, including the distinctive round glasses he wore. I was interested to read that Ghandi was initially attracted to and tried to integrate with English high society, to eventually be rejected, and himself reject, it. There was also a letter that Ghandi had written to Hitler on the eve of World War two imploring him that he was the only person that could avert a catastrophe.

In all, I was moved by the museum.

We left that night in an overnight train for Varkala. This train had no Air Conditioning. A/C carriages do not just mean they are cooler, but that they are quieter, less people get on and off, you get sheets and a blanket and the door connecting the toilet to the carriage closes.

The journey goes into the ‘experience’ category. The floor smelt like tangy urine. Everytime someone would get on or off, or they chai man would come, they would bring the stench of festering toilet mess with them. Kate and I were sleeping in separate booths. I hardly slept. When I did, I was woken first by a smell like someone had defecated beside my bed and second by a smell like someone had vomited beside my bed. I saw a rat near the toilet. Unfortunately we think it was this train journey that made Kate sick.

Varkala is tropical. It was raining when we arrived, but slowly, as if it were straining through the hot, still air. Everything is damp and the atmosphere is constantly on the verge of bursting. In minutes my shirt was completely soiled with sweat. Palm trees and banana fronds are everywhere and moss grows over all the houses.

Varkala is a postcard, beachside, town away from the chaos of India, and we stayed about 2 minutes from the beach. Red cliffs overlook the beach and the ridge is well populated by hotels, restaurants, t-shirt entrepreneurs and men walking around with bongo drums. I think this is another of those places where people come to find themselves or hide from something else.

Kate’s first day was not good. After breakfast she was not feeling well and we returned to the hotel. She had a bout of diahorrea and vomiting and slept. Around midnight that night she had another bout. She was okay, but weak, by the next morning.

When Kate was sleeping I went out. There is surf in Varkala, but only 2 surfboards and one had already been rented for the week. I needed the board and the beachside entrepreneur knew it. He dutifully followed the laws of supply and demand, and I payed a rather overpriced $25AUD to rent the board for a day and half. In perspective its not a bad price, but for India, that is expensive.

To look at, the board was a piece of junk. Yellowed, dinged and with a nose that looked like it had been shaped by a child with paper mache, at home it would go straight to the tip. To me, it was the most valuable possession in India. In its better days, this would have been a very nice board. It was 6’4, which was a handy size considering I hadn’t surfed in 6 weeks and where the paper-mache hadn’t got to it, was a very nice shape.

I surfed twice that afternoon at a left-hand point break further down from the main beach. There were some decent waves, 3ft on the sets and the north-east monsoon meant the winds were light and offshore. The ride was only short but fun.

At first, it was a little scary. I was not in great surfing condition, there was no-one out, I had no idea about the currents, or local wildlife. The water was brown, but whether it was silt or sewerage I could not tell. But it looked pretty safe and people do surf there. After an easy paddle out and fluffing the first couple of waves I got some nice gentle lefts. My arms were like spaghetti after twenty minutes, but I hung on for an utterly exhausting hour-long surf.

I went back to check on Kate and fell asleep myself. When I woke I developed a new appreciation for how taxing on the body surfing is. Everything hurt. Even my face.

In the afternoon I surfed with an Australian guy who had been here for a month. He was friendly, if seedy, Tasmanian who worked in the mines when he could and travelled when he couldn’t. He was quite forthcoming with the fact that if he cannot satisfy all his carnal needs in conservative India he would jet off to Bangkok.

I got some really nice waves that afternoon, it was a touch bigger and I was feeling fitter, and we surfed until dark.

Kate was feeling a little better when I got back, so I went out to get takeaway and we watched ‘enchanted’ while lying bed. Unfortunately Kate had another rough night, but she was feeling between by morning. We woke late, and the Australian guy said that the waves were clean and overhead in the morning. By the time we were up, and had eaten breakfast, the wind was onshore.

Kate and I hired an umbrella and deckchair on the beach and swam and lazed on the sand. Umbrellas were a necessity as the heat outside was unbearable.

I surfed for 30 minutes or so at the main beach but it was ugly (both my surfing and the waves, that were bumpy and riddled with backwash).

I surfed again that evening, after Kate and I had perused the shops along the cliff front for a ‘kingfisher’ t-shirt and a little pressie for Harry. The wind died off only a little with the sunset, so it was still onshore when I took to the water. I surfed further up the point again, and there were some nice lefts coming through. I surfed until about sunset, when I had to return the board. It was an amazing surprise to surf in India. I had held out faint hopes for Goa, but I think Varkala will be as good as it gets until Sri Lanka.

Tuna, blue-ish prawns the size of your forearm and butter fish were the evening’s trawlings at the restaurant we visited for dinner. My crumbed Tuna steak with chips and salad was tasty and plain (i.e not saturated in Indian spices). It went down very well after a day of surf. Kate had some vegetable noodles which were also well received and gentle on the stomach.

We rose early to have some breakfast (consisting of coffee, eggs, toast, porridge and fruit salad, all for about $4) at a restaurant on the cliff we had taken a liking to. Looking out over the water, long offshore lines were rolling in. Some were breaking and barrelling much further up the beach in sets that looked as although they were lining up (in reality they didn’t). It looked a touch bigger than the previous day too. It would have been very nice around the corner.

We were both sad to leave Varkala. Two nights was good, but nowhere near enough, and before we’d had time to shift into a relaxation gear (especially for Kate, who had been sick), we were on the road again – this time to Apelly, on the Keralan Backwaters. Our train rode past many palm-lined inland lakes with milky blue water. There were no eunuchs.

Upon disembarking the train, our tuk-tuk driver did his best to remind us of our mortality, and we hopped on a ferry to the guesthouse we were staying at. The Keralan Backwaters are reportedly one of the ten things to see before you die. I don’t know what the other nine are, so I can’t really assess the claim, but they are impressive. Kerala’s backwaters are like a flooded swamp that everyone decided to inhabit. The area sits 2.5m below sea level. Hundreds of small islands are linked by a maze of canals. Some of the canals lead into much larger inland lakes. Houses line the water’s edge, shying behind the coconut trees, banana palms and overgrowth. On the small steps people wash and do their laundry. The canals take a steady traffic of canoes overloaded with rice crop and luxurious houseboats like floating grass huts.

The ferry ride took about an hour. We arrived at around 3pm at the home of the people we were staying with – Phillip and Maria and their daughters. We were immediately ushered into the dining room for a lunch of spicy chicken, locally grown rice (that has very large, fluffy, brown grains), and a coconut based potato curry. The food rivalled our previous homestay, and was, at worst, the second best food we have had in India.

The people we were staying with were quite wealthy. The house could accommodate twelve, with a large, modern kitchen, and a flat-screen TV.

Farmers here grow a unique form of rice, which they apparently do not export from Kerala. After the harvest, they open the gates regulating the water flow and flood the acres of paddy fields. After lunch we walked out into these paddy-fields that are very open and stretch to horizon, interrupted only by the palm groves demarcating each field. It was harvest time and green machines roved the fields, displacing the water birds, and despotising their crop on the sides of the fields, from where the farmers would pile them on blue tarpaulins. Women were burning the crops before the machine harvested them and a wall of smoke and flame clouded the view to one side.

It started raining. They expect some rain this time of year. Twenty minute showers are common in the afternoons. It is the north-east monsoon. But this was very unusual rain according to Phillip. The clouds were so black and so low they looked to be touching the palm trees. There was no lead up to rain, it just started coming down in fat drops and did not stop. Lighting started to flash around the fields and we huddled in some random farmer’s house while umbrellas magically appeared from the surrounds. It didn’t matter though, we made the 20 minute walk back to the house through the dashing rain and past the riverside, and most abandoned their useless umbrellas, accepting the saturating. Its not unpleasant walking through a tropical storm like this. The air was still warm and it was fun.

Our camera was miraculously okay. Its a hardy piece. I dropped it in the desert and it survived that too.

We showered and went back downstairs for a dinner of parottas (like chipatis but flimsier, oilier and tastier), a curry and a coconut pesto.

Unfortunately we could not go canoeing on the river because of the weather. We left on the ferry again the next morning, but after a traditional breakfast of green pea curry, rice noodles and deep-fried bananas. From the wharf we took a local bus to Cochin. The bus was uncrowded. With a nice breeze from the window, we sat and watched the parade of houses, cows in the middle of the road (although there are less in the south, presumably because they eat them) churches, bullock-draw wooden carts ridiculously overloaded with straw, women in saris sitting side saddle, no hands, on motorbikes, exhausted looking buses with hands waving wildly out the window, and extravagantly painted trucks with ‘I love India’, or ‘Horn please’ or ‘Jesus loves you’ or ‘Laxshmi (the god of money)’ or ‘National Permit’ brandished in silver lettering across their windscreens. Red communist party and vodaphone insignia are everywhere.

Cochin is another maze of islands and rivers but they are much larger and link with the ocean. Cochin is also a port. Shipyards share the banks with 5-star hotels and naval bases, while little ferrys, tankers and warships cruise around.

The main island is called ‘fort cochin’. There is no fort there now, but there was once, before the Dutch destroyed it. Cochin was an important trading town throughout its history, including its pre-colonial history, and has Dutch, Portuguese, Jewish and English influences. The fort was a 20-30 minute ferry ride from the hotel. We arrived in mid-afternoon, but there were some mix-ups and a very long queue for the ferry tickets which meant we did not arrive on the island until 4:30. Men and women queue separately for their ferry tickets, although there is only one person manning the counter. Tickets are only sold when the ferry docks, resulting in nervous lull before a free-for all when the ferry arrives. To queue in India you have to stand, breathing down the back of the person in front of you to get anywhere. Leave a centimetre and it will be occupied.

We walked through the dutch palace, which now serves as a museum of Keralan royalty. The oldest synagogue in the commonwealth (an odd accolade, considering Judaism shares only a peripheral connection to the commonwealth) and its accompanying Jewish town are nearby, but we did not get a chance to visit. We had dinner at seafood place. Kate and I both had tandoori fish.

The night-ferry home had me questioning the freshness of the fish as by bowels turned just as I was stepping on the ferry. The rumbling motor seemed just at the right frequency to make it worse. I got back to the hotel just in time (you always make it back ‘just’ in time don’t you) for some explosive loo action, but it did not hang around and I was fine by morning.

Our mornings excursion suggested that it may not have been the fish. We took the 7:15am ferry back over to fort Cochin and visited the Chinese fishing nets. These nets are lined on the shore of the island and act like huge wooden hands, reaching into the water and scooping the fish out. On the end nearest to the land, five or six large rocks hang and the same number of men pull them to raise the net. They dip in once every couple of minutes. In times past, these nets would not doubt have pulled in nets pulsating with fish, but now they only pull in one or two small, wriggling baitfish, and are used primarily to show tourists. Nevertheless, it is an extraordinary sight.

Just behind the nets though, were four or five fish-mongers serving from corrugated iron huts. Yellowfin tuna, snapper, mackerel, kingfish and prawns were haphazardly displayed on the frontage. Some of them were still alive.

We visited a basilica after breakfast. It had two white spires and the usual edifice of white arches. Inside, the church was wildly colourful. The ceiling was painted with murals from bible stories and the front part of the chapel, where the minister would stand was painted in bright pink and blue, with more colourful murals. The pulpit was bright blue and adorned with a sparkling golden star. Photo-realisitc pictures of a savvy looking Jesus in his mid-twenties decoracted the pillars of the hall. You’d think Christianity was born in the 1980s and Jesus was an underwear model. It was exactly like one of the crazy hindu temples in the north. The pastor was friendly and the church felt quite vibrant. Religion in India is kitsch, with sparkles and fairy lights and fluro-colours.

We walked to Ghandi beach, which was a measly patch of sand between two stone groins with rubbish and weed on the shore and abandoned buildings behind.

We visited the protestant church where, Vasco-de-gama, the explorer, was buried. It was a more Spartan church than the basilica and preparations were being made for a marriage. There were some very old Latin inscriptions embedded in the walls.

The heat was unbearable by this stage so we had tea at a local gallery/cafe that had some fairly raunchy paintings in the foyer. Morning tea turned into lunch as other group members arrived. We left again at one-ish to find a shop with contemporary Indian fashion that Kate had seen in the cafe. It was quite a walk. The main road runs parallel to the shore and we walked out of the touristy part, past a putrid river emptying into the harbour, into an area of abandoned houses, overgrowth and shops stacked to the ceiling with hessian sacks brimming with onions, chilli and potatoes. We had a look at the clothes. They were very nice, but not practical at the moment.

The ferry back to the hotel struggled through some weed and the attendant flitted nervously between the engine and the room the driver was in, but we got there. A ferry ride costs 2 Rs and 50 Pasie, or around 6 cents.

An overnight train took us to Bangalore, and then we took a 4 hour bus to Mysore. The train was pleasantly gentle on all the senses. As is customary, many of the middle aged men tried to sneak pictures of the girls in the group. Some we have encountered haven’t even tried to be discreet about it. Some just film right in their face. Many people want to come up and take pictures with you (and many ask), and it is great and fun, but some men use it as an opportunity for a grope. With women and families it is a nice exchange, but sometimes we’re not sure with the men. I don’t know if it is curiosity or what, but some men will just walk up and stare (leer?) at the girls. They will stand there for ten minutes if no-one moves them on. My instinct says it note pure curiosity as they never come up and stare at me.

It was much cooler in Mysore (its really about 23-24 degrees). Locals walk around with camo ear-muffs and brightly coloured bonnets on. Mysore is inland and further north than Cochin. Considering we had to catch another 4 hour bus back to Bangalore the next day, it was an odd stop. The main attraction, however, is spectacular. The maharaja’s palace is in the middle of town and it is by far the most impressive palace we have seen in India. It is well preserved (keeping in mind it was only built in 1912, I think) and every part a manifestation of power. We visited it that afternoon. There were elephants in the expansive, enclosed gardens.

On our walk back to the hotel we detoured through the market. In dense alleys we wandered through the spellbinding array of colours on offer. First there were fruits. Yellow bananas, red bananas, guavas, green mandarins, golden pineapples, yellow coconut, green coconut, brown coconut, red apples, tomatoes, orange papaya. Then there were the pigments for ceremonies. All the spectrum of colours were on display in piles of powder, but in fluro. Next were the vegetables and finally were the flowers. Each vendor sits behind a pile of flower garlands like you would roll a hose. There is jasmine and some bright orange flower I didn’t know and roses still dripping with water. We stopped on the way home to try the local sweet, which was an orange and green ball of sugar.

Dinner was at a restaurant that advertised, among other positives, that they would ‘provide vomit bags upon request for the convenience of all customers’.

Early the next morning we walked up the 1000 step Chamundi hill. Chamundi is the personal god and protector of the Maharaja, and also an incarnation of Shiva the destroyer. Chamundi won a battle against a deamon-horde a long time ago and is thus worshipped here. One thing I don’t understand is why the deamons bother invading anywhere when they always lose. Why not just settle down and form an evil society?
Chamundi hill actually has 1101 steps. The temple at the top was quite impressive , with delicate silverwork inside. A cow tried to steal my bananas and then a monkey followed me around trying to steal the rest. I eventually gave the monkey a banana which it peeled and shoved down its throat. I tried do the same with my other bananas so it wouldn’t steal them too. Monkeys are cute but aggressive and they might have rabies.

In the afternoon we left again for Bangalore, then another overnight train for Hampi. The train was comfortable and both Kate and I slept well. Hampi is an extraordinary place and we are staying in huts, right beside a rice farming village.

But Hampi will have to wait, I have rattled on too long.

Our love to you all. We will call properly when we get to Goa.

Love Charles and Kate.