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Kumbakonam is a small town, but has disproportionally many
temples, it is in fact known as the "Temple City". But outside the temples it is
a small dusty, noisy, bustling and typically South Indian city. |
19 Nov |
It took about an hour to load our rucksacks on the minibus; the driver
and his assistant were very conscientious, and used a lot of rope to fasten them on the
roof, but we left Madurai by about 8 am, heading northeastwards, crossing the Vaigai river
and into the countryside, we noticed very clearly the transition between the lush greenery
surrounding Madurai to the dry, shrubbish countryside of the area known as the Chettinad
heartland, the land of the Chettiars. Possibly because of the poorness of the land,, the inhabitants became bankers and merchants and their villages, 96 in number, are among the richest in the country. Many of these Chettinad merchants did business with Malaysia, Singapore, Burma and Indo-China but were prevented by the British from expanding after the eighteenth century. Dotted around are many luxurious, but traditional mansions. Our guide, Meyappan, is descended from one of these families, and we visited his ancestral home not far from Karaikkundi. Unfortunately the caretaker was nowhere to be found so we could only peer through the windows, but even from outside the teak pillars and black granite gave a wealthy, if somewhat gloomy appearance. Lunch at Puddokottai, a nondescript small town, but until independence it was a princely state, and is said to have a fine Government Museum housed in the princes palace, although we could only drive past.  Thanjavur was the
Cholas capital in the tenth century, and the Big Temple dates from this period. It was
built by the emperor Rajaraja who died in 1014. It is big 400 x 250 metres and the temple
is surrounded by a pillared cloister containing 250 lingams, some magnificent frescoes, as
well as inscriptions recording gifts to the temple in archaic Tamil script.  The frescoes are original Chola paintings, revealed in the
1930's under some damaged seventeenth century paintings. In the centre is a 65 metre tall
vimana, from 1010. A fire damaged the temple recently, and restoration work is still going
on, as usual with women providing most of the labour force. We also saw the Palace Museum donated recently to the municipality by descendants of the eighteenth century Princess whose belongings are displayed there. We arrived at Kumbakonam during the rush-hour and crawled through the narrow streets to the Hotel Rayas, a fairly comfortable place noted for its "mirror room" where walls, ceilings and floor were all covered with mirrors (according to LP). However it was under reconstruction now, so we had to make-do with standard Indian hotel room standard. One mystery in hotels everywhere in India was why towels, soap and toilet-paper were rarely present when we checked in, but at least the first two were available on request. One theory was that the room boys expected a tip for bringing something that should have been there in the first place. I managed to take a short walk through the town before dinner, it appeared to be a very traditional small town, people busily plying their trades, selling all manner of goods from their doorways, and the oil lights and dust and smoke from cooking fires all gave a Dickensian feel to the town. |
20 Nov |
Sightseeing to the Airavateswarar temple in Darasuram  about 4 km west of Kumbakonam, where a very old man acted as
guide and although he knew relatively little English he told a lot of stories about the
pantheon of Indian gods. He has been mentioned in LP and was very proud of the fact.  The temple is contemporary with Thanjavurs Big Temple and although a lot
has crumbled (and is being restored at this moment) there is still a vast amount of
sculpture left to admire. Dancers and acrobats and scenes from everyday life are depicted,
as well as more religious scenes, and the temple was known as "the temple of
perpetual entertainment". The main shrine has a vimana that is 26 metres tall, with
an entrance hall shaped like a chariot.Then to our family in a small village along the main road east of Kumbakonam. There was a nurse of about 48, her mother, and a teenage daughter. Her husband, a doctor, was working in the Seychelles. Unfortunately the mother and daughter were working till 6 pm, and arrived back tired. It was difficult to talk to them, but they were obviously well off for the locality. The house contained two large rooms, and a kitchen, bathroom and toilet, all on the ground floor. Higher up were store rooms and a large terrace. Mango and bananas and coconuts grew in the yard, as well as all the herbs and spices needed every day. Kumbakonam is, like Kanchipuram, famous for its silk saris, and there were many cottages in "our" village equipped with a loom, where we watched the young girls spinning and weaving the intricate patterns, rich with gold and silver thread. Many of the weavers belonged to a co-operative giving a certain security for the families concerned.  We walked through the
village, Märta and I , and out into the countryside. Tamil Nadu has about 50 million
people in an area of 130,000 km² (about the size of England) so the density is not so
high. Here the villages merged into each other along the road, but fields stretched away
in all directions behind the houses. Very few people were actually working the fields as
we passed, men were returning from work in the towns, and children were returning from
school, and looking after younger siblings. The surroundings were peaceful, and typical
rural Tamil Nadu, again there was no abject poverty, some houses were small and cramped,
and shared with chickens and goats, but there appeared to be food in abundance, rice and
bananas and coconuts were everywhere.  Here
as much as in the towns and cities the custom of tracing the ritual designs known as kolam on the ground are practised every
day. These patterns are traced in rice flour and may have a religious significance, or may
be thought to provide food for the ants so they don't need to enter the house, no-one
seems to know for certain. |
21 Nov |
I went back to Kumbakonam after breakfast and wandered without any
particular goal. First to the Cauvery river, and across, and then several kilometres north
of town to where the open country started. Near the river was a temple- like building
which turned out to be a college for young brahmin boys training for the priesthood. But
they were as happy as anyone else to have their photographs taken. Returning to town I
wandered around the temple, the bazaars and the tanks. I stayed in the lodge opposite the Hotel Rayas for 150 Rs., this was the cheapest official hotel room during my stay, it was perfectly adequate with a fan, separate toilet and shower, and a "meals" restaurant on the ground floor. |
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The Kolli Hills stand out above the surrounding plains, and
rise to a height of 1200 m. In the hills pepper, coffee, bananas and guavas and many other
exotic crops are cultivated. |
22 Nov |
The bus left Kumbakonam, and we took the road to Thanjavur again, it
became darker and darker and suddenly the rain started. We stopped and took our rucksacks
from the roof into the bus and started again. It was a little bit strange that the driver
didn't use his windscreen wipers; another strange Indian driving custom to save petrol ?
Half an hour later when it was finally impossible to see anything we stop so that the
driver and his assistant can fix the wipers ! We continue, the rain stops, and we pass
Tirchirappali, we stop at the Cauvery River for photographs, and catch a glimpse of the
Rock Fort from afar. Lunch at Musiri, where the hills were starting to appear on the northern horizon, and continued to Namakkal with its fort, now the hills are rising all around us, and suddenly the road starts winding up into the Kolli hills. The road starts climbing at a police checkpoint, and then there are 70 hairpin bends climbing straight up the sides to the gently undulating plateau-like area of the Kolli Hills. We stayed at the Hotel Kolli Hills in Semmedu. They provided dinner, simple food of chapattis and sambar and omelette, but it was relatively expensive because, they said, everything had to be "imported". More likely, because there was no competition. Meyappan wasn't so happy about that. |
23 Nov |
It was cool when we left on our trek this morning, perhaps about 22
degrees. We divided into two groups, one with Meyappan as the leader, the other with a
local doctor as leader. We started out to the village of Semmedu, where much of the local
administration is situated. But it was a very small place, with the usual array of small
shops. The Kollis are a tribal people, but they speak Tamil, are relatively well off, and
own the land themselves.  Very
soon we came to a herbal medicine farm, and saw the display of various herbs, from
well-known mint, ginger and coriander to more obscure plants that are only found here. All along the road we saw banana
plantations, fields with pepper growing around its host tree, a kind of oak, coffee bushes
with red and green berries, guava and tamarind trees, and a host of other tropical plants
and trees. Guava trees were widespread and a common form of hospitality was for a boy to
climb into the nearest guava tree, and pick a handful to give us.  Most of the land was
cultivated, so there was no chance of seeing wild animals, but the bird and butterfly life
was plentiful and varied. Along the way when we stopped at a tea house there was a girl
sieving lentils who I wanted to photograph.  When I asked, she immediately went into the house, and I thought
that meant "no". But in a few minutes, she came out, she had only wanted to put
her best sari on.Lunch in a nice field, lunch packet with puris stuffed with potato curry, and hard-boiled egg. At dusk we arrived in the village where we had planned to stay the night, but the woman who was to put us up had moved to another village, after some discussion we were able to stay in the school-house, a big bare room where we could spread out our mat or sleeping-bag.  Naturally we were a very popular attraction for all the children
in the village, especially when we gave away a couple of dozen balloons. Water was
available in a jug, for the toilet we were shown a particular spot in the rice paddies,
and our hostesses slaughtered a chicken and cooked it, and we ate at about 8.30 pm. |
24 Nov |
It was wonderful to wake up in the fresh, cool air, and to start
walking in a narrow valley, passing people also just awoken brewing tea, laying out rice
and grain to dry on the road, and  returning from a dawn market in the next village. We trekked
just 5 km along the road until we met the other groupand then stayed awhile in a village for tea.  Next we visited a nearby waterfall, it was down nearly 700 very
steep steps, and first halfway we caught sight of the water, it was really imposing, it
was said to be 40 metres high, but it looked more. Approaching we were soaked by the
spray, and to get close up we had to traverse some extremely slippery rocks.  Some brave souls
actually reached the falls, others bathed in the pools around the falls, we all got
beautifully wet. Then back up the same 700, even steeper now, steps, visited the local
temple, and back to the same village for lunch. The village shop did some good business
from a dozen foreigners, biscuits, sweets, incense sticks from the local Gandhi ashram,
and other goodies. Returned to the hotel after lunch, and slept for most of the afternoon. |
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Mysore was one of the last princely states to be absorbed
in modern India. The last ruler still lives in the vicinity in one of his smaller palaces,
that he was allowed to keep. |
25 Nov |
 We left
early and before descending we visited a market in a small village. Many of the villagers
were selling their produce in small quantities, a few pineapples here, a handful of
potatoes there.  Even the professional shopkeepers had very small
stocks, with small sacks of rice and lentils and spices, large bottles of coconut oil and
other oils, which were poured into the customers own containers. Only guavas and bananas
were sold in large quantities. Then the bus took us down past the same 70 hairpin bends
back into the plains.Continued to Rasipuram - said to be the birthplace of R K Narayan, and on to Salem, where we lunched. Some hours for wandering around Salem, which appeared to be a non-descript, but typical commercial and metal-working South Indian city of more than 1/2 million people. One peculiarity (or perhaps not so peculiar !) was when I asked for a pineapple juice. The guy shrugged his shoulders, and said "power cut". That can't have been so unusual because the next place had a generator on the pavement outside, so I was able to have a glass of juice there. At around 5.30 pm we met again to go to the movies.  We saw "The Sign
of Leo" in one of the 137 cinemas said to be found in Salem. Cinemas are huge and
often are packed out. Tickets cost 15, 20 or 25 Rs. (the more expensive sections have
air-conditioning, which as so often in India means that there are lethargic fans to
circulate the air a little). The film itself was interesting enough and easy to follow
with some help from Meyappan. The hero led a group who wanted peace and religious
integration in their village, and struggled against a group who wanted to maintain the
caste and religious distinctions. After various subplots the film ended with a swordfight
between the leaders of the two factions in which both were killed, whereupon the heros
wife jumped upon the corpse of her husband and committed suicide. Everyone seemed to think
this was a satisfactory ending, not least the hordes of children watching this
bloodthirsty work of art. After the film, we went looking for a restaurant, finally found a classy place in a hotel; the toilet facilities were excellent, but the food wasn't so exceptional, I had a Chettinad prawn dish which was ok. Left in very good time for our train, due to leave at 00.30 am, it was delayed by about 90 minutes so it was nearly 2 am when we found our berths. Stations in South Indian towns usually contain the following establishments, coffee and tea stalls, juice stalls, vegetarian restaurant, sometimes a non-veg restaurant, booking office, advance booking office, railway information desks, may-I-help you desks, hindu reading rooms, tv-monitors on the platforms usually showing local soaps, newspaper and magazine hawkers, a bookstall, food hawkers. Salem was about average, many were still open when we arrived, but appeared to close about 1 am. Four or five trains passed through during our wait heading for New Delhi, Madras, Trivandrum etc. |
26 Nov |
Woke up at Bangalore around 8 am, and arrived at Mysore at 10 am. Rickshaw to the Hotel Scuds, which was comfortable but very susceptible to powercuts. In fact a notice on the lifts advised passengers to use the stairs when descending. Here too there was a fair proportion of Western visitors. We were hungry not having had any breakfast on the train, so we went into the first meals restaurant we could find. We decided to visit the palace in the afternoon and discovered that the centre of Mysore is green and park-like, but there are plenty of traders preying on visitors trying to sell sandalwood (for which Mysore is famous) in all its forms, incense sticks, fruit and coconuts, postcards.  But inside the palace all was forgotten, this was imperial India
at its most magnificent. The palace is not old, built in 1897 after the previous one burnt
down, and designed by Henry Irwin who also designed many of Madras public buildings, but
it appears to be a mixture of muslim and hindu styles, with all sorts of ornaments and
domes and minarets. Inside there are huge halls with marble floors and mahogany ceilings.
The family of the ex-maharajahs of Mysore still live in a corner of the palace. The palace
is lit up every Sunday evening, unfortunately we were to leave on Sunday morning.Leaving the palace we completed the circuit of the palace grounds and discovered the more normal Indian town to the north and west of the city. Mysores other famous sight is the Chamundi Hill, reached by a thousand steps (or a rickshaw), and surmounted by the Sri Chamundeswari Temple. I didn't climb it myself, but several members of the group walked up in the dawn on Saturday morning, and reported that there was indeed a grand view from the top. |
27 Nov |
 Early morning visit to the wonderful fruit, flower and vegetable market.
We ate breakfast on the way so it was 8 am before we got there, however commerce was not
yet in full swing, most of the stall-keepers were still taking delivery of, and arranging
the produce.  It is especially noticeable in these markets that
little meat is eaten in India, and here in Mysore away from the coast, very little fish.  In addition to foodstuffs some stalls
sold religious goods, including coloured powder. Returned to the hotel where Meyappan was waiting to take us to a rosewood inlaying factory, a bidi factory and an incense factory. Needless to say we had chances to buy all these wares. I bought some fragrant oils (lotus and lemon-grass) and some incense sticks. A skilful incense stick roller can make 7 500 sticks a day, and earn about 100 Rs.  Afternoon free for
own wanderings, Mysore is famous for sandalwood which is expensive; it is easy for
unscrupulous hawkers to disguise other woods as sandalwood by spraying a little sandalwood
oil on. so we are advised to buy in one of the government craft stored and not on the
street. Yesterday I bought some small paperknives and bookmarks at the Palace, today I
bought a box . |
28 Nov |
Maria, Rachel, Märta and I rented the hotel taxi today to make a trip
to Belur, Halebid and Sranavabelagola. We wanted to start at 6am, but the driver had to be
on duty at the hotel till 7 am, eventually we started around 7.15. The driver and his
assistant were both very careful drivers so we were in good hands. After leaving the suburbs of Mysore the countryside became very attractive, we passed through Srirangapatna, an island between two branches of the Cauvery river, noted as the home and the capital of Tipu Sultan. He fought the British in the eighteenth century for control of the area. He was defeated and killed here in 1799. His fort, summer palace, and mausoleum are all apparently well worth seeing, but we didn't have time to stop. We continued through sugar-cane growing country and about 10 am we saw Sranavabelagola and the statue of Gomateswara from afar.  Sranavabelagola is one of the most important places of Jain pilgrimage,
every 12 years in particular Jains from all over India converge on this little village,
and priests pour vast quantities of 16 holy substances, like curd, honey and fruit over
the statue.  We parked in the village and entered the hill of Indragiri which
is topped by the Gomateswara statue. After
giving a donation (5 Rs per person) to the temple we climbed 700 steps to the top of the
hill, where we could walk around the temple and approach the nearly 20 metre high statue.
It was built from a single piece of stone, more than 1000 years ago.Continued to Hassan where strange noises necessitated a lunch stop for us, and a garage stop for the car. A special meal for 36 Rs was excellent, unfortunately the car needed a little bit longer than planned at the garage, replacing some bearings that had worn out or broken.  We continued
towards Halebid around 2.30 pm along beautiful country roads. Halebid was fascinating -
the Hoysalaswara temple is a jewel of Hoysala architecture  , although unfinished after 80 years of construction around 1000 years ago.
The style is very different from the Chola temples we have already seen, being much lower
and built on a star-shaped base.  But every square inch of the surface is covered with exquisite sculpture.A short walk away is the much smaller Kedareswara temple, also in the Hoysala style,  and a number of small
Jain temples.Dusk was starting to fall, so we gave up ideas of continuing to Belur, and turned around to return, it became dark after Hasan and we had to drive for more than 2 hours in the dark, alternately blinded by headlights, and discovering unlit and almost stationary bullock-carts. |
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India has many nature reserves, Annamalai meaning elephant
mountain is one of the biggest in the South, it straddles the border of Tamil Nadu and
Kerala. |
29 Nov |
Left very early, 6 am because we had to arrive in Annamalai before
dusk, and ate breakfast along the way. The road was very bad from Mysore to Nanjangud and
beyond, we could hardly manage 20 km per hour. Apparently the Government of Karnataka
considers that improving the roads would make it too easy for bandits, terrorists and
sandalwood smugglers to make a fast getaway !! The roads were mountainous as we crossed the Nilgiri hills, and then descended into the plains to approach Coimbatore, known as the Manchester of India because it has a huge textile industry. A large proportion of the T-shirts of the world come from here. We noted a big police presence entering and leaving the city because it was the first anniversary of a bomb being thrown somewhere in the area. Lunch at Pollachi, and we finally arrived at Top Slip around 3.30 pm. The area was opened up by the British as a teak-producing area in the 1850's and the timber was "slipped" down to the valley from the top here, hence the name. A problem for independent travellers to the Indian wild life sanctuaries is the difficulty in obtaining reserved accommodation. Even Meyappan had problems with the bureaucratic procedures. There are very few visitors but apparently lodgings must be saved in case officials wish to stay, and every evening we moved around because of the whim of the park guardians. It didn't help that the sanctuary straddles two states and is called AnnaMalai on the Tamil Nadu side and Parambikulam on the Kerala side. Tonight we were allocated three different huts in the vicinity of Top Slip, from the aptly-named and dilapidated "Humble Nest" to the luxurious British built "Wood House" at the top of a slope with view over a grassy area where animals were said to gather at night.  We had dinner in the canteen and returned to
"Wood House" to enjoy the night air on the veranda and try to spot some animals.
We heard a lot of animals, but saw very little; two people said they heard a panther ! The
lawn in front of "Wood House" is usually frequented in the evenings by flocks of
Gaur (Indian bison) but not tonight. The only animal we saw was a family of wild boar,
which seemed to live behind the house. |
30 Nov |
Awakening at dawn there was a herd of spotted deer on the lawn, they
were not shy and stayed for several hours calmly grazing. After breakfast we walked to the
elephant stables, where our elephants were saddled up, a long seat securely strapped to
the back of the beasts, and we went for a n hour long elephant ride through the jungle. It
is amazing how surefooted these huge animals are on steep slopes, and crossing streams.  Then we started to trek on the Tamil Nadu side and during the course
of the morning we saw some Gaur, Malabar Giant Squirrels, Nilgiris Langur and more deer,
spotted and sambar deer. During the days in Anna Malai we also identified (at least our
guides did) the following birds :- Malabar Grey Hornbill, Short-toed eagle, blue-winged
parakeets (very common), wild jungle fowls, Ruperts Babblers and dringos, both
racket-tailed and black.We ate our packed lunch near a vantage point where we saw wild elephants and after lunch walked on to a waterfall, on our return to Top Slip we discovered that we were forced to move to Amburi Villam, a fairly newly-built large house, situated all by itself about 2 km from Top Slip. |
1 Dec |
Today we were to trek on the Kerala side so we took a bus to the border
where there was a certain amount of bureaucracy. We finally met our Kerala guides and
continued trekking, first through sholas (deciduous forests) and then through evergreen
forest, where we encountered leeches in sufficient quantities to make us hurry out of this
forest. Lunched with the other group on the edge of a dam, and then trekked along a path through some of the teak plantations which the area is famous for and saw one of the largest teak trees in the country. Overnight in the village of Parambikkulam at the Bison Valley Lodge. This village was, to a visitor, an idyllic place to be. There was no traffic, an occasional bus shuttling to Top Slip, and another to work-places in the vicinity. There was a row of very small shops, two or three hotels (meaning restaurants) which appeared to serve nothing but tea, and a huge traffic circle with a Post Office on one side, a Tourist Information Office on the other, and very little else. Looked at the dam, there are several dams and a water tunnel connecting them. |
2 Dec |
Started before dawn at about 6 a.m. to have a chance to see more
animals. Our goal was the tunnel entrance. Returned to the Kerala - Tamil Nadu border, where we were to overnight in the dormitory at Annapaddy.  Towards evening we visited an elephant school which I thought was a little
bit depressing.  The elephants are trained to carry teak logs, we were in time to
see the elephants being bathed and fed with compressed cakes about 30 cm in size which
gave as much nourishment as several tens of kilograms of vegetation. The elephant school
was very picturesquely situated on the slopes and in the sunset the views were
magnificent.We also visited two schools at Top Slip, a government school which was extremely well-equipped, with wall charts, tables and chairs, and even a television set; there is apparently no lack of government money for the tribal areas. Just opposite was another school which was private, it was a bare room with just a few slates ? In the evening our guide showed us some of his slides of spiders, and we gave some small presents to the guides. |
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