Autumn in South India

24 Oct	I had to leave early - at about 5 am to get to Arlanda in good time for the Paris plane (SK) at 7.55. I was travelling as light as possible and didn't want to wear any warm clothes which I would then just have to carry around India. Luckily the temperature was around 6°C so I didn't need to freeze too much in my thin jacket and summer trousers. Arlanda was crowded at the check-in desks but OK. But there were difficulties at Charles de Gaulle in Paris. When I tried to check in at the transfer desk the girl said that there was a problem, and that I should talk to a representative of Gulf Air. Eventually one turned up and said hurriedly that the flight was overbooked. She had time for me first when the flight had left, and put me in the first class lounge while she searched for alternatives. But there was nothing that day. So I was accommadated at the Hotel Hyatt Regency for nearly 24 hours. Arrived there about 2pm and took a quick lunch in the coffee-shop. The weather was gales and rain so the option to visit Paris was not on. Light dinner and to bed.
25 Oct	Sunday dawned bright and clear (and cold) , but now there was no time to visit Paris, so I enjoyed a leisurely buffet breakfast of croissants, pastries and juice, and shuttled out to the terminal where Gulf Air met me with smiles, express check-in and a Denied Boarding Compensation voucher for USD350. And after a short wait, at boarding I was upgraded. Business class (GF18) to Abu Dhabi. Very nice, first surprise was that Gulf Air was not, in fact, dry. Excellent food - from smoked salmon to profiteroles -and wines. Abu Dhabi already had a Christmas tree in the middle of their shopping centre. A short (and somewhat delayed) hop to Muscat (GF). And a quick march to the Madras plane (GF68) which left at about 1.30 am.
26 Oct	I had noticed a middle-aged Indian in the bus to the plane; he was sitting in a wheelchair, but seemed to have a smile and a joke for everyone. But as we climbed to our cruising altitude it became obvious that he was very sick and needed oxygen. But oxygen didn't help so after animated discussions among the cabin crew, and presumably the cockpit, we landed at Bombay, where a first taste of Indian chaos accompanied his removal from the plane on a stretcher. One more hour flying the width of the sub-continent in the dawn and finally we arrived at Madras airport at about 8.30 am, just 27 hours late. Extremely rapid immigration, customs, money exchange at Thomas Cooks(USD200) and I was at the prepaid taxi stand at about 9.00 am. It cost 185 Rs to Egmore, and the Hotel Nest International.

26 Oct	The newly opened "Nest International" was reasonably comfortable, although, as I found out later it appeared to be overpriced compared with all other hotels during the trip. Probably being so well situated in a big city accounts for some of the price difference but the rooms were quite small, and the beds hard. However there was air-conditioning, even though it was not necessary at the time of year. Despite lack of sleep I took a taxi for the day (5 hours for 450 Rs) to get a first idea of what Madras looks like. The car was an Ambassador, of course, reminiscent of Britain of the 'fifties. The first port of call was Fort St. George, and first impressions were of wide roads, lots of greenery, and in general plenty of space. We stopped outside the fort, and went past a large group of lathi-wielding police to get in. It was an impressive monument to British rule. The fort itself was built by the East India Company in 1639-40, and is surprisingly low, today it is part of the state legislature, and also contains offices of the Tamil Nadu government. St. Marys Anglican church is inside the fort, and is the oldest anglican church in Asia, consecrated in 1679. Most moving are the gravestones showing that many of the English officers or servants of the East India Company, and their wives and children were very young at death. It must have been a hard life, even for the colonial masters, and diseases such as cholera and malaria must have taken a very heavy toll. The museum in the Fort was reasonably interesting, many artefacts pertaining to the Colonial period, portraits of Governors and displays of coins and armaments and other trivia, it used to be an Exchange for the East India Companys merchants. Next we went to the beach, and visited the monuments to the governors of Tamil Nadu, Anna, also commemorated in Anna Salai and Anna Nagar, and to MG Ramachandran who was a film star before becoming a politician. Now the heat of India is starting to strike, luckily I had my umbrella which gives some relief, but I must buy a hat. At the southern end of the beach I visited the San Tomé Cathedral,built by the Portuguese between the fourteenth and fifteenth century, where in a small crypt is a skeleton, said to be that of Thomas the apostle. He is said to have landed on the Karnataka coast, and was martyred on St. Thomas Mount (near the Madras Airport) in 78 AD. Next was the Snake Park in Guindy, part of the National Park, said to be the only National Park within the limits of a major city. There were many reptiles, turtles and scorpions as well as snakes, they were all rather sluggish, but interesting enough. Then to Anna Salai (Mount Road) where I stopped at Higginbothams to buy maps. And finally to the Museum on Pantheon Road which has an excellent display of Hindu art, especially of Chola bronzes. There are also interesting sections on archaeology and less interesting displays of natural history. The building is a deep-red circular structure dating from 1851, and was originally the headquarters of the Pantheon Committee, a group dedicated to improving the social life of British people resident in Madras. For dinner wandered down to Egmore where there is an interesting bazaar area and plenty of restaurants - most of them are pure veg. South Indian places serving dosas, iddlys, uutappams etc all day and "meals" from lunchtime onwards. There were also a number of places serving North Indian dishes for lunch and dinner. Very few places serve anything western other than toast and eggs. I chose the "Ceylon Restaurant", a rather dreary decor but an interesting menu, of which some of the items were actually available, although at 7 pm I was too early for the tandoori items which apparently are prepared from 7.30 pm and onwards. Anyway, ginger shrimps, chicken curry, stuffed parathas and string hoppers were all very good, and their version of fruit salad and ice cream made an excellent desert - all for about 100 Rs. In the bazaar I bargained for a hat, paid 30 Rs after an initial price of 60 Rs was quoted, but it probably wasn't such a great bargain.
27 Oct	Today I ate my first South Indian breakfast, I found the Abiramis restaurant near the hotel, which would become my regular breakfast place. Masala dosa is one of the classic South Indian breakfast dishes, and is always good (thin pancakes stuffed with a mild potato curry) and like all other breakfast dishes are always served with sambar and coconut chutney. The other classic South Indian breakfast dish is iddlis, a mixture of rice and lentil flours, fermented overnight, and steamed, also served with sambar and chutney. Sightseeing day on Anna Salai and around. Learned to use the buses, Madras is supposed to have one of Indias better public transportation systems, the buses are numbered and some of them have the final destination in English. But standing at Egmore, and wanting to go to Anna Salai it's still pretty much trial and error, although I found the 25D which goes from outside the hotel to and from Anna Salai for 1.25 Rs and is generally reasonably uncrowded. Noteworthy for busses in Tamil Nadu is that certain seats are reserved for ladies, about half of the total. Rickshaws however are ubiquitous and cheap - even with the usual tourist surcharge. Although they will sometimes use the meter. Noteworthy for Madras and to a certain extent in all cities I visited is the lack of provision for pedestrians, pavements do exist in some places, but are often covered with debris, full of huge holes and in general disrepair, with the result that in general people are forced to walk in the roads.
28 - 31 Oct	See Mahabalipuram & Kanchipuram section below
1 Nov	Today was Sunday, probably the best day to visit the beach, known as Marina Beach. It is wide (perhaps 300 metres) and long (at least 5 km) and consists of fine sand, probably one of the best city beaches in the world. Unfortunately the water is probably severely polluted, and anyway the waves today would have made bathing dangerous. However it is still a very popular excursion for the residents of Madras and whole families were paddling at the edge of the ocean, the women completely dressed in their saris, and the men possible with their trousers rolled up. Stalls lined the whole way from the promenade to the waters edge selling all kinds of trinkets, bangles, fried chilies, seashells, kitchen utensils, shirts and other small items. Near the shore a number of fish stalls were frying shrimps, squid, whole fish, and fillets. I suppose they were locally fished, but didn't dare try them, although the smell was very appetizing. However it was not the correct day to visit Georgetown, everything was closed, and the straight streets in the grid gave a very boring impression. The area is the heart of the British trading centre, and still contains banks, shipping offices and many other offices, all of which were closed today.
2 Nov	The winter monsoon started today in Madras. During the past week the papers (The Hindu has the best local weather reports) have been writing that the monsoon is off the coast and is becoming more active, and there have been heavy rains along the coast in both Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. But we hadn't had any rain until today. I wanted to go to Gulf Airs office to ask about my refund, and to Thomas Cook to change some money, and to British Airways. All are on Pantheon Road within 100 metres of each other. It was cloudy leaving the hotel but it wasn't many minutes before the rain started, gently at first, but then so hard that even my umbrella wasn't much use. Gulf Air were very nice, but explained that there was no chance of obtaining any money from any of the Indian offices of Gulf Air. "Try in Europe" they said. Just for fun, I went for lunch at the "Connemara", a true remain of the Raj. For 350 Rs there was a buffet with 20-30 different dishes, soups, salads, Western, Chinese, and some more unusual Indian dishes - and an excellent range of creamy and calorie-rich desserts. Add pineapple juice at 75 Rs. and tax and service and it cost around 500 Rs, quite un-Indian prices. Enough for the same person to eat reasonably well on South Indian food for a week. During the meal it rained extremely hard, the climax of the days raining, because afterwards I was able to explore along Anna Salai with only the occasional shower.
3 Nov	The monsoon continued today, after a clear start, so it felt good to leave Madras. Left my bag at Nest International and walked down to Central Station in good time for the Hyderabad Express at 16.00. Sleeper class was well-filled but not overcrowded and adequately comfortable. The trains on this line are "broad gauge", so there are compartments with six beds arranged in tiers of three, and a further two beds outside in the corridor. The top bunk in the compartment is very close to the roof, but all the others are acceptable. Tonight there was no need for any blanket but my inflatable pillow came in handy. Strangely no food seemed to be available on the train, although "chai" and even more often coffee were offered by perambulating salesmen.
4 - 6 Nov	Arrived somewhere at 6.00 am and descended from the train, together with everyone else, after crosing the footbridge, and exiting the station I realised it was Secunderabad. A quick march and back on the train, and it shortly continued with very few passengers slowly round the Husain Sagar lake, which was extremely beautiful in the dawn light, to Hyderabad Station in Nampally. Exiting any station in India attracts crowds of porters, hotel touts, taxi- and rickshaw-wallahs, but at least in the South they appear to respect a simple "no". See Bidar section below
7 - 11 Nov	See Hyderabad section below
12 Nov	I arrived back in Madras from Hyderabad at about 6 am (on time). Indian cities do not rise very early (a legacy from the British) but I was able to get breakfast while pondering how to spend the day. One possibility I had considered was to take a day tour to Tirupati to see Indias richest temple, and centre of pilgrimage for millions of pilgrims annually. It is said that the total number of pilgrims there exceed both Rome and Mecca. But it would have meant many hours on the bus and queueing to enter the temple, so I will save that for another time . Instead I took the local bus 52 to Poonamallee. This town is practically a suburb of Madras but appears to be many years behind in infrastructure and sophistication. I visited the temple and spent some time in conversation with the morning worshippers. Returned a different route among some thundery showers. Arrived back at the Nest International at about 2pm, and Anders was there. A little later I met our leader, Meyappan and the rest of the Läs och Res group. Some I had already met at the seminarium in Stockholm earlier, but others it was for the first time. Meyappan is a lawyer by training , but has gone over to guiding as a full-time occupation. Dinner with Anders at the Ceylon Restaurant.
13 Nov	Day in Madras to give the rest of the group a chance to recover from the long flight; Meyappan took us all to his home for breakfast, and to meet his family. We introduced ourselves, and Meyappan gave us some background information about India, and about the coming weeks. Afterwards I went back to Georgetown amid more showers, it was certainly livelier now during the week, especially where produce was being transported to the warehouses. And a last look at the bazaars around Parrys Corner and down Anna Salai. Dinner with Anders at Ananda Bhavan, and then met all the group at 7 pm to walk the short distance to Egmore station where we boarded the Sethu Express bound for Rameswaram. This line is the metre gauge, so the sleeper class was slightly more cramped than the Madras-Hyderabad express. There was no room for bunks in the corridors.

28 Oct	Autorickshaw to Broadway. Help from children to "find" the right bus. They got 2 Rs and then they wanted more and more of course. The bus was empty when we boarded, and never became crowded. The fare was 12 Rs to Mahapalipuram. At last we left and threaded our way slowly through the suburbs of Madras, it is certainly a large city, but we finally came into open country before Kovalam (Covelong). The East Coast Road (National Highway 45) was flat and passed many of the wealthier Madrasis country estates. Little serious cultivation. On arrival at Mahabalipuram, the bus was met by the usual crowd of taxi, tour and hotel touts, but they were not specially bothersome. The Mamalla Bhavan annex was just 200 metres away, and provided excellent rooms for just 350 Rs. Clean and nearly everything appeared to work. Not full, some Dutch tourists and other various Indian and Western guests. The restaurant however appeared expensive (and rather boring). The restaurants here cater very much to Western backpackers, lunch today was at the Gazebo, close to my hotel, and the fish was ok, but neither Indian in flavour nor specially generous. I ate dinner in the Mamalla Bhavan near the bus station and was an "ordinary meals" ("special meals" only at lunchtime). Meals are a variety of (usually) vegetarian dishes around bread and rice. First a plate or banana-leaf is placed in front of the guest. If a banana leaf it is rinsed with water. Then some bread is served, puris or pappadums and some of the vegetables are dolloped on the leaf, or into small metal cups on the plate. Dishes are sambar (a spicy potato curry), rasam (a soupy, spicy gravy), other vegetable curries, a small piece of pickles, some curd, often a sweet. When the bread is eaten a large pile of rice is placed in the centre of the plate. The number of vegetable dishes can vary from 2 to more than 10 and this is of course reflected in the price. 8-10 Rs will get a very basic "meals" with rice and 2-3 vegetables, while 15 Rs will often get pappadums, rice and 5 or 6 vegetables with second helpings if required. To digress, the Suvarna Regency Hotel in Hassan served an "ordinary meals" for 18 Rs and a "special meals" for 36 Rs, which is at the top of the price range - and quality range. The ordinary variant was puri, pappadum rice, 6 vegetable dishes, sweet and curds. The special meal started with a spicy tomato soup, provided an extra vegetable dish (7 in all) and two extra sweets, an Indian halwa, and a Western ice cream and fruit salad. Back to Mahabalipuram, this was once the main port of the Pallava empire, from about the seventh century. The afternoon was spent visiting the "Shore Temple" on UNESCOS list of world heritage monuments, a Pallava construction from the 7 th century AD. It was certainly very beautiful, a pyramid crowned by an octagonal dome, and a smaller copy next to it, and surrounded by a row of bulls carved out of the solid rock, but it did not quite measure up to my expectations, it was smaller than I expected, and also the waves were not exactly "lapping at the stones". However it was very pleasantly situated, and many Indian tourists wanted my picture for their photo-albums, so we had several mutual photo-taking sessions. Towards dusk it was very pleasant to stroll the streets of this very small village and watch the street life. When it got dark I went down to the beach, and then found a pleasant restaurant with terrace. The food however was "travellers" food, nothing very exciting.
29 Oct	Mahabalipuram was known as the "city of the seven pagodas", today they are known as "rathas". Five of them, representing chariots and known as the "Five Rathas" are situated a pleasant kilometre walk south of the bus stand, the whole way passes stonemasons shops selling to tourists as well as to Hindu temples throughout the world. The characteristic chip, chip,chip sound can be heard the whole way. In the Mahishasuramardini Mandapam I saw the stone bas-relief of the fight between the many-armed goddess Durga, riding a lion, and battling evil in the shape of Mahishasura, the buffalo demon. Another bas-relief shows Vishnu sleeping on the coils of a serpent. The most famous of all these bas-reliefs however is Arjuna's Penance, stated to be the largest bas-relief in the world (more than 25 metres long and 7 metres high). It utilises a natural cleft in the rock to symbolize the descent of the holy Ganges, and among the many figures are some fantastic elephants. Nearby fields and hills are scattered with statues and more carvings, a huge balanced stone is known as "Krishnas Butterball" and has been in that position for hundreds of years, although it looks as if one push would make it tumble Returning to the bus station at dusk, I stumbled into a temple, where a priest invited me into the inner sanctum "only today for non-hindus, because it is a festival". Offer of taxi to Kanchipuram and back, hotel and sight-seeing for 600 Rs, seemed quite reasonable, but the bus costs 12 Rs, and for me is more interesting.
30 Oct	6 buses a day go from Mahabalipuram to Kanchipuram, the first goes at 5.15 am, I took the second at 8.45 am again not crowded, and again 12 Rs. The journey took 2 hours. At Kanchipuram a rickshaw-wallah took me under his arm, and showed the way to the best hotel in town, about 300 metres from the bus-station and cost 320 Rs / night, for a slightly grubby, but comfortable room. Unfortunately the restaurant there was not open at the time. At about 2 pm I started sightseeing and walked through the dusty streets to the Ekambareswara Temple. It was not the best time since all temples are closed from noon to 4 pm, but someone could open the gates, for a fee of course, and I was not in a very good position for bargaining. This is one of the later temples, from the sixteenth century, and one of the most spectacular, with one of the gopurams soaring to 60 metres, and containing ten stories of intricate sculptures, giving Kanchipuram its characteristic skyline. Having seen Ekambareswara Temple it was nearly 4 pm so there was no problem entering any of the other temples. The most important is the huge Varadarajaswamy Temple, which had also by far the most worshippers, queueing at the various shrines. It was built in the twelfth century, and has a main hall supported by enormous pillars, each carved from a single rock. It had a particularly fine temple elephant who would bless visitors in exchange for a coin. One rickshaw-wallah was annoying and followed me around, saying "Me good man, you ride with me". By the time it became dark I had seen enough temples, and relaxed by the tank of a small, unknown but charming temple. Kanchipuram is famous for its silk and most of the weaving is of the cottage-industry type.
31 Oct	Only one more important temple to see, the Kailasantha temple, is typical of the Pallava style, and is believed to be more than 1200 years old. It is situated about 3 km from town, so I took a rickshaw there. It was particularly beautiful, not tall and stately, but with gold and silver decorations, and some seventh and eighth century painting still visible on the walls of the tiny cells around the courtyards, and embedded in greenery. The rickshaw driver had, unexpectedly, not waited, so I had to walk back. After lunch I found the Chennai bus although the bus station in Kanchipuram was chaotic, the bus was crowded, but here it was possible to reserve a seat for 5 Rs and then buy a ticket on the bus for the journey for the usual 12 Rs. The bus stopped at Broadway so I hopped off at the Central Station in the hope of buying a train ticket to Hyderabad. In the tourist "cell" there was no-one else, so I very quickly had a Sleeper Class ticket from Madras to Hyderabad. But they could not sell me a ticket from Hyderabad to Madras, but redirected me to a counter on the next floor up, where tickets were sold for trains originating in places other than Madras. A short, and orderly, queue, and 10 minutes later I had that ticket as well. It must have been a very great advantage to computerise the reservation process.

South India (24 Oct 1998 - 11 Dec 1998)