Stick a Fork in Us... We're Done

We have reached the end game of our little saga. We are back in our hotel in .... OK, I give up: it's Chennai. Tomorrow morning we visit the orphanage and 'foundling house', and then in the afternoon we have to check out and move to our transfer hotel. We will leave for the airport at about 1 AM to check in for our 11-hour flight to London that leaves at 4 AM. After a 6-hour layover in Heathrow, we board our final 10-hour flight home. We will probably be pretty grumpy when we arrive. In fact, I'm already grumpy. I mean, we're flying coach! Bill, Bruce, I can hear you laughing. Erika will be picking us up at the airport in Seattle. Right, Erika?

Today, we hit one more temple as our guide was concerned that we had not filled our quota. This one was pretty interesting, if for no other reason that there were parrots. The town of Kancheepuram, where the temple was located, also just happened to be one of four centers for silk weaving in India. I think you can figure out for yourselves what we did next.

I saw a couple of new signs today on the bus ride into Chennai. The first was hanging over the entrance of one of the ubiquitous institutes and academies here. It read: "Central Footwear training Institute". The other was a billboard advertising sarees with built-in cell phone pockets.

OK, well... I guess this is our last post from India. Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you enjoyed it. Ummmm..., well, see ya!

Butterflies, Boats and Bas Relief

Our visit to India is rapidly coming to a conclusion and it feels as though we have only described a very small part of the impressions, sights and experiences that we have had. This post will do little to remedy that. But I will try to cram some of the things we've seen and done into the next couple of paragraph, along with some random thoughts.

Yesterday, we visited Auroville, a so-called city of the future. It was started by the spiritual leader of an Ashram in Pondichery known as "Mother" in the 1970's. It was designed to be a community in which new self-sustaining technologies would be developed and serve as a model for future communities. About 1500 people from 80 countries are currently in residence. From what I was able to determine from my visit, the city of the future will have bad roads and there will be many goats. There will also be a lot of butterflies. Pretty cool looking ones at that.

We finally arrived at our beach-front resort last night. Except for the appalling lack of fruity cocktails with paper umbrellas, it is all that I was hoping for. Of particular interest to me is the small fishing village located just south of the resort. A photographer's paradise.

Today we visited a truly extraordinary site: a 7th century temple complex carved entirely from an immense granite outcropping. It contains the largest bas relief carving in the world - about 750 meters long. Pictures cannot really describe the scale and refinement of the carvings. I am not surprised that this was the first place named by the UN as a World Heritage site. There was a troupe of Langur macaques there, as well, but the photo gods conspired against me and I failed to get any pictures of them. Our guide would tell me that this is my karma, but I still think it was just bad timing.

Tomorrow we are heading back to Madras (or Chennai... whatever), where we will begin the last frantic round of shopping before our departure early Sunday morning. I have no idea how we are going to get all of this plunder home with us, but if anyone can pack it all into three bags, then Carol can.

Random notes:

• Madras is the only city in India that has banned cows (and goats) from the city center. This was one difference that I did not notice until our guide pointed it out to us. Now, I find that I miss seeing them.
• India has 18 official languages, and recognizes 35 distinct dialects. There has been a concerted effort on the part of the central government to have everyone learn Hindi. This effort has failed miserably. To facilitate communication across the country, English (with a fair sprinkling of Hindi and Tamil) is often used as a bridge language. It is quite disconcerting to be watching the news (in English) on television and then to suddenly realize half way through a news item that you have no idea what they are saying. I think most Indians must experience this same feeling.
• Most of the small villages that we saw were primitive, but most displayed tell-tale signs of their place in time: electrical wires, packaged food items, painted signs, plastics, etc. About a week ago we visited a small village that was located not that far from the city of Bhubaneswar. Walking the half kilometer down a dirt track from our bus to the village was like taking a journey back 500 years. With the exception of a red tricycle that we spotted outside a hut, we saw no evidence of technologies, clothing or other artifacts that did not exist in the 16th century. It was a remarkable feeling to walk through this living time capsule.
• The bedside tables of the hotels that we have stayed at all contained Hindi or Krishna texts. Not a Gideon Bible to be found anywhere.
  

Driving Miss Molhiti

Mike here.

Driving in India is an experience like no other in the world. Naples, Paris, and even Mexico City offer nothing that can prepare you for this amazing chaotic ballet of busses, tuk-tuks, pedestrians and cows. In theory, traffic flows on the left, as in Britain. As applied to this country, it is a theory that remains to be fully tested. Even on divided roadways, it is not uncommon to see cars, trucks, and even ox-drawn carts coming towards you on your side of the divider. This is true both in the city, and in the countryside.

Life in the country seems to gravitate towards the main roads. Small businesses, usually housed in makeshift huts and lean-two’s, crowd up next to the road and sometimes onto the roadway itself. These enterprises offer a variety of products and services, but mostly prepared food and drink, fruit, automotive repairs, and for some reason that I cannot yet determine, underwear. These impromptu “villages” then generate their own traffic from the local area. With the storefronts right on the road, shoppers are then forced onto the roadway where they must contend with the constant flow of traffic. In the three weeks that we have been here, I have yet to see an accident of any kind, but many close calls. It would not be inaccurate to say that traffic here is an interlocking series of near-misses. I am convinced that the Indians are the best drivers in the world… or at least, the luckiest. They are certainly among the most patient. As one West Bengali driver put it, “…we do not have many traffic laws. We drive by God”.

We have seen many things here that are beyond our usual life experience. It is difficult to categorize these impressions in order to put them into a cohesive narrative, but they occur with such regularity that if they are not communicated somehow, they are bound to become lost in memory. One I feel that I must pass on is a sign that I saw hanging outside a complex of buildings. It read: “Government College of Music and Hospital for Pet Animals”.

Tomorrow we are off to The Temple Bay Hotel in Mamallapuram. I had a chance to check this place out yesterday on our way to Pondichéry. I am happy to report that we have Beach! The next challenge will be to teach the hotel staff how to make a good Mai Tai.

Monsoon Sightseeing

Well, Carol here. So for 15 days we have had pure adorable sun. I mean blazing, tan your toes weather and as we arrive for our “beachside” stay we go through dark heavy clouds that open up to pouring monsoon rain. We are in a nice luxury bus, so no worries-wrong…Our seats our comfy if you stay away from the windows that leak, and keep your toes up on the footrest, because water is running down the aisle and underneath the seats. Of course if you are sitting near the skylights, you have a bit more challenge staying dry, not impossible if you pull the window curtains at just the right angle over your body and camera gear.

After the drive to Pondichéry was finished, past flooded fields and waterlogged buffalo with the longest horns we have ever seen, we stopped at an Ashram. When the guru who started the Ashram died at the age of 81, his protégé, a French woman, took over the “business” after him. She put up portraits of herself in all the rooms and a prayer over the front door that said “Behave as if Mother is watching you always”. The “gift” shop sold holy cards and small keepsakes all with “Mother’s” photo. I bought a small card that just shows her eyes. Watching me always…

As we left the Ashram we wandered down a couple of streets to a temple and where I was blessed by an elephant while Mike photographed like crazy. Kind of sad to see the elephant standing outside the temple like that, he was well fed, but what a sad life. Though who am I to judge another culture - he was certainly revered by the devotees.

Monsoon rains hit again and soaked us as we ran through the streets (which flooded to about 7 inches in just a few minutes). Two other friends and I ran through the warm rain laughing, while Tuk Tuks (small motorized motorcycles with seating in the back for two) followed us yelling for us to “get in”, “get in”. I think they thought we were crazy, but it was fun. And we were soaked. Now off to dinner in a French restaurant. Really-Pondichéry was a French colony until 1954.

You Say Madras, I Say Chennai

Just wanted to describe our stay in Chennai (as I call it) so far. Yesterday we visited Fort George and walked through the museum and grounds. This was the center of growth for the East Indian Company. Last night we heard a lecture that described in detail the role that Madras (Chennai) played in trade development beginning in the 6^th century. Cloth, spices (pepper to hide the taste of spoiled meat), etc. were desired in many areas well before the British started trade. The British though were the most successful at getting the local princes to grant land to them so that they had a base for developing.

This morning we had a sumptuous breakfast of waffles, strawberry pancakes, papaya, bacon, pomegranate, and eggs. I am just eating my way through this country. Hope you all don’t mind.

Carol

Marking Time in Madras

Madras is an ambitious and sophisticated city, which is to say that the people here are less tolerant of American tourists pointing cameras in their direction. It was founded by the British 358 years ago, but it remained something of a backwater town until 40 years ago. Since then its population has jumped up to 6 million. This growth has been fueled in large part by the growth of large industry and hi-tech companies. This makes it somewhat unique in India and, in some ways, very un-Indian. As I said before, it makes a photographer's job harder. All of this is just a long way of saying that we haven't taken many pictures in the last couple of days. To tide you over, we are including some more images from our stay in Orissa. The last two were taken by Carol.

This morning we visited three churches here in Madras, including St. Thomas Basilica where Thomas the Apostle is buried. Or at least they say it was Thomas, but since he died in 72 AD and was buried on the beach, and it wasn't until several centuries later that the Portuguese came here determined to find his body and, yup!, they found a body buried on the beach and said it must be Thomas. In any case, the presumed Thomas was reburied and a succession of chapels were built over his crypt. There he lay until the 18th century when the Vatican decided Thomas should be shared with the rest of the Christian world, so he was dug up, and split up, and bits and pieces were sent all over the place, with the major bits ending up in Torino. All that's left of Thomas in Madras is a fingernail... I'm not making this up.

Tomorrow, we head off into the countryside of Tamil Nadu for five days. This is potentially five days that we will be out of contact with our faithful readers. If this is the case, then we will have only one more post to this blog before we return home next Saturday. I'm hoping for the best.

One of the hotels that we will be staying at is called the Temple Bay Hotel. It is located in a beach town. Now, are you all with me in assuming that this hotel will be located on the water? I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Redmond East

What a difference 500 miles makes. Chennai (or Madras, as the old-timers still call it), is located on the southeast coast of India, on the Bay of Bengal. It is just to the east of Bangalore, the hi-tech powerhouse of India. The close proximity is obvious as Chennai looks more like a modern prosperous city than the India that we have become used to these past two weeks. This is good for India, but bad for photographers. Who wants to see pictures of middle class Indians? In any case, there has been no time for photography today as we were traveling.

More pictures and an update on Madras tomorrow. I'll try to get some good shots of a Mercedes, or something.

To Puri and Back

We have just returned from two days in the coastal town of Puri. We stayed at a hotel that is named the Toshali Sands. Now, it may just be me, but it seems that a hotel with the word Sands in its name, located in a beach town, should be on the beach. Nope. The beach is about 2 kilometers away down a dirt road through a forest. It's nice when you get there, but it was not exactly the Mai Tai sipping, umbrella-on-the-beach kind of situation that I had envisioned. Oh, well.

Puri is a pilgrimage city. That's what the guide told us, anyway. As far as I could tell, the only pilgrims were shoppers. But, the real reason we came was to see the Sun Temple at Konarak. This temple is a big sucker, and well worth seeing. Lots of erotic engravings. Unfortunately, photos of them are too explicit to share on this blog, what with the nephews and nieces reading it and all. Trust me, they were hot.

The rest of our time in Puri was spent visiting various crafts people, their villages, and their shops. I know I should stop harping on the shopping aspects of this trip but these people are out of control. Just wait until you see the booty that Carol is coming home with.

We have now returned to Bhubaneswar, and tomorrow we leave, by air, for Chennai (formerly Madras). This means that we get to say goodbye to Christine (the evil bus), and look forward to one of the most interesting cities in India.

Someone asked how close we got to the monkeys. We got real close. About two feet. They are called Langor monkeys, by the way.


Carol, here.

Now Mike has not mentioned exactly how close to the monkeys. He was carefully photographing one monkey when another got jealous and grabbed his leg from behind. Boy did Mike jump. Needless to say, the monkey photography was finished for the day.

Puri, Pipli, and Konorak were beautiful. We spent a lot of time in small out of the way villages, walking down dusty roads and through villages that seemed so much from another century. Girls drawing water from wells, boys chasing each other through the palm trees, mothers cooking over campfires, it was just extraordinary. We walked close to mud huts, past barking dogs and around cattle, sheep and goats. Whether threshing the rice, chopping firewood or hoeing a field everyone was working. The children would follow and say "hello", and giggle. There was no begging, harrassing or bother and it was all a pure delight.

Today we visited one of only three temples in India that is devoted to women, 64 to be exact, open to the sky and built in the shape of a keyhole called a lingom (sp?). We were blessed by a priest and made an offering and then wandered to a pond where a beautiful woman was washing a purple saree that had filled with water and was catching the light just right (photo available when we return-Mike says my camera shots can't be loaded onto the blog-I think he's feeling a little threatened by the superb pictures I am taking).

And even thought the beach at Toshali Sands is a walk through a pine forest, it was striking. No people in any direction, just sand dunes, ocean, setting sun and sand crabs. I even found a small enamel box that had been offered to the gods in a ceremony that involves setting the offerings afloat. It is a box of kohl sent to the goddess in honor of a mother.

And yes, we did stop at a number of "shopping opportunities" but only in crafts villages that make what they sell-no middle man-so they directly benefit from their own artistic talents. One co-op of all women had beautiful coconut husk sculptures of deer and other animals. One bronze metal forge made small plates and bowls, and another village of seamstresses made fabric lanterns for the patio made with mirrors. But the most "shopping" fun I had was going to a seamstress in town to have some Salwar's made up so that I could dress "appropriately" for the weather and the local customs. I find the clothes wonderful and have made up a number of outfits-my tailoress is wonderful-I will have to find another in Chennai.

Miss all my friends and family, especially my mother, since tomorrow is her birthday. Happy birthday mom,
carol

And Sometimes We Must Go Shopping

This tour was designed for ceramic artists (and that crowd) to be able to explore the different art crafts and pottery techniques used by the artisans of East India… at least that is how it was sold to me. Well, my friends, the true nature of this little expedition has become all too clear. I think the title of this essay says it all.

Today we took our bus* out into the countryside of the state of Orissa (not to be confused with the countryside in the state of West Bengal – that was last week) to visit two crafts villages. The first was a village of weavers – every home had at least one loom in it, where they specialized in material for making sarees and salwars (those are the pants suits). They also conveniently offered a visitor’s gallery where one may view (and hopefully purchase) the finished product. Now these galleries are pretty impressive considering that the gallery, the loom, and the entire family are housed in one or two rooms. In any case, our tour group (Carol included) just about bought out the village’s weekly production.

Next up was a village making cast bronze art pieces and jewelry using the lost wax process. How they make this stuff is truly fascinating, and it was all demonstrated and explained to us in detail. We were then graciously allowed to purchase a few samples of their handiwork.

At both shopping centers… I mean craft villages, it is customary to haggle over the price of any purchase. This seems to be great sport for the locals, and I don’t mean the ones doing the haggling. Swarms of people gather around the action to watch the transaction unfold. Comments are whispered between the onlookers. I don’t speak the language, but I’m guessing that a little wagering was going on as to how badly the customer was being taken.

This was pretty much a wasted day, as far as I was concerned. Carol, on the other hand, seems quite pleased with how the day turned out. Go figure.

On a more fun note, we saw monkeys yesterday! …and puppies! I can’t remember what kind they are, but I am going to say macaques, simply because that’s the only monkey name I know. Erika can straighten me out on this later.

Carol is too tired to post this evening, but not too tired to tell me what I should be posting. In particular, she wanted you to know that she has taken some wonderful photos of children, but because we can’t get the card reader to accept the memory card from her camera, she can’t show them to you. I think she suspects that this is my fault.

We will be in the beach town of Puri for the next two days and I am not optimistic about the prospects for internet access. So, it may be a couple of days until you here from us again.

Oh, and we found the perfect Christmas gift for Bruce R.

*The bus hates me – more on this later

Temple Hopping

We are now in Bhubaneswar*, a city of temples. I mean a lot of temples. There were originally over a thousand of them built between the 7^th and 11^th centuries when Bhubaneswar was the capitol of Orrisa. After that, the capitol moved to the beach town of Puri where the temple building business started all over again. They have managed to preserve about 100 of the temples in their original condition. This is far too many, in my opinion, especially when your tour guide insists that you really must visit them all. However, viewing a sampling of the best temples is well worth it, especially the ones with the erotic engravings. You can tell that these were party people.

Yesterday, we visited the flower market in Kolkata. This is THE place to be if you like marigolds (anyone remember Monsoon Wedding?). You also have to really like people to go there, as it is packed. I am pretty sure that there were more marigolds than people, but it was a close count. Tomorrow we are off to visit the craft villages, a cultural experience that will no doubt be accompanied with opportunities to shop.

Carol insists that her cow pictures are better than my cow pictures, so I am including one of hers. I’ll let you be the judge.

In case anyone is wondering, we are having a great time… our stomachs aren’t, but we are. In fact, my stomach packed up last night and returned to Seattle on its own. I hope it arrives safely.

*You can pretend that you can pronounce this, and I’ll pretend that I spelled it correctly.

Carol here.

This hotel is wonderful with lagoons, water fountains, lush gardens, and exotic birds calling in the trees. Our suite is twice the size of our bedroom/bath at home and the carved wood, art, and views of Buddha outside our room is lovely. Last night I swam in the pool under an almost full moon while just 20 feet away a priest rang a brass bell and began evening prayers in front of a shrine. Until the man with the huge machine that sprays mosquito fog everywhere (you can’t see 2 inches in front of you after he passes by). I am sure it is just a “gentle” insecticide, don’t you think?

Yes, today we did see lots of temples and although Mike and I aren’t capable of absorbing the history lectures, the visual images are set in our brains. The sculptural tiles go from the ground up to the 110 height of the temple. Ganesh, Shiva, wives of the gods, women that are half snake and half women are all carved in stone. The artists, designers, and carvers from these temples were sent to Angkor Wat in Cambodia to construct the temples there. And some of the 11^th century temples were done by artisans that later went to Japan (so there are clear pagoda like similarities in the later temples).

Of course we were tired, hot and hungry and on our way back to the hotel for lunch when yet another “strike” and demonstration began in the streets. Our bus was stopped and told we could not use the road and so had to turn around and find another road to get to the hotel. Unless we were a communist car (the group “today” that was in charge of the demonstration –tomorrow it might be the opposition) we could not go through. 15 minutes later on another major arterial, we are stopped by another policeman and army guy that said we couldn’t use that road either. Luckily we think some money changed hands and we were only a few minutes late for lunch.

One last story and I will let you go. Yesterday Mike jokingly told the tour guide that his favorite soup was potato, leek and lentil (he made this up as a joke). Today our main course was , yes you guessed it, potato, leek and lentil soup. WITH chocolate éclairs. I don’t know how MIke does it, but the guide just loves him.