November - and where to spend it

November is not my favourite month. It is still Autumn but the season of mellow fruitfulness has long gone, the leaves changed colour, gave a show for a while but now lie rotting by the roadside.

Leaves lie rotting by the roadside. Betley, Nov 2008

Thomas Hood
National Portrait Gallery, unknown
artist, image from Wikipedia

December starts badly, too, but then comes the winter solstice and the start of a slow, painfully slow, improvement. And the Christmas and New year holidays provide a little light relief at the darkest time of the year.

January is at least the start of something new.

February is mercifully short - and spring might be just round the corner, though sometimes it dawdles.

I do like cold, clear, crisp winter days with blue sky above and crunchy white frost below, but you don't get those in November. Without a doubt, November is my twelfth favourite month.

And others feel the same way. Thomas Hood put it nicely almost two hundred years ago.

"November"

No sun--no moon!
No morn--no noon!
No dawn--no dusk--no proper time of day--
No sky--no earthly view--
No distance looking blue--

No road--no street--
No "t'other side the way"--
No end to any Row--
No indications where the Crescents go--

No top to any steeple--
No recognitions of familiar people--
No courtesies for showing 'em--
No knowing 'em!

No mail--no post--
No news from any foreign coast--
No park--no ring--no afternoon gentility--
No company--no nobility--

No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member--
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,
November!

This year we have spent November at home. I am not complaining, we have ventured abroad four times in 2014, not to mention sundry trips around Britain so I have nothing to complain about - indeed we are very fortunate to be able to travel as often and as far as we do - but that does not change the basic fact: some places get a better deal out of November than Staffordshire.

Here are some photos of several such places, none have appeared in the blog before, either for reasons of space or because they predate it.

Egypt

Lynne in the 'White Desert' Farafra Oasis, Egypt
The valley floor is covered with chalk - there is no water down there

In November 2009 we took a trip from Luxor through the oases of the New Valley, then west to Siwa near the Libyan border before turning east along the Mediterranean coast and through the delta to Cairo.



Siwa Oasis, Egypt

Northern Egypt had warm days, but the evenings could be a bit nippy. Further south it was balmy.

On a barchan dune, Kharga Oasis, Egypt
Blown by the wind, these crescent shaped dunes march slowly across the valley floor engulfing anything that stands in their way

China

In November 2010 Kunming, The City of Eternal Spring, failed to live up to its name but our journey through South West China warmed up as we travelled further south. We finished in Guilin with a warm if rather misty trip on the Li River.

On the Li River, Guilin

Even further south in Hong Kong the sun shone brightly and across the estuary in the former Portuguese colony of Macau the temperature was close to the boundary where warm becomes hot.

Portuguese remnants, Macau

Myanmar

November in Myanmar is the start of winter and communities club together to provide new warm cloaks for the monks. That is what they said, but it was no sort of winter we could recognise. Yangon was hot and tropical.

Yangon, hot and steamy (November 2012)

while in the higher lands around Lake Inle it was much cooler - like an English summer's day.

Yawana Village, Lake Inle, Myanmar

Thailand

In Bangkok the heat never lets up, though the few days we spent there in November 2012 were not exactly free from rain.

Lynne goes to visit the Emerald Buddha, Bangkok

Portugal

Even in Europe there are places where November is pleasant. October is a far better month in the Algarve, but I have swum in the Atlantic in November (once) and even on the cooler and windy west coast November is still tee-shirt time.

Praia de Odeceixe, November 2008

The Algarve (5): Lagos

Lagos, a Small Town in the Algarve, not the Nigerian Metropolis

Portugal

This year’s annual Algarve post is about a single town, a new departure, but I expect it will become standard. Lagos is not an out-and-out seaside resort, rather a small, pleasant coastal town,; we call in most years to visit the market, or drink coffee in the square. It is just the sort of place that deserves a post of its own, and now it has one.

Route finding in Lagos (October 2008)

So Where and What is Lagos?

The Algarve with Lagos ringed in red

Towards the western end of the Algarve’s south coast, just west of the city of Portimão, the little River Bensafrim reaches the sea on the leeward side of a small peninsula. It was an obvious site for a harbour and the last few hundred metres of the Bensafrim were canalised many years ago so that it enters the sea a much larger and more important waterway than would seem possible a kilometre or so inland. The canal provides access to the extensive harbour, once exclusively for fishing boats, but now also home to yachts and pleasure craft of all sizes and degrees of opulence.

The River Bensafrim reaches the sea, Lagos

Beside the river the long, palm-lined thoroughfare of the Avenida dos Descobrimentos (Avenue of Discoveries) defines one side of the old town,...

Avenida dos Descobrimentos, Lagos

...while the semi-circular city wall, still largely intact, defines the landward side. Lagos has long spread beyond its protective wall, but it remains a small town and the outer areas are sympathetic in style and tone.

Lagos city wall (October 2008)

The Praça da República

Henry the Navigator

Beside the Avenida dos Descobrimentos is the Praça da República with its statue of the Infante Dom Henrique, erected in 1960 to commemorate the five hundredth anniversary of his death. In front of Dom Henrique, (who almost disappears into the shadows on the right of the photo below) is a more recent fountain. Portugal is generally good at fountains, but this one needs attention, currently resembling a puddle beside a broken water main.

Praça da República, Lagos

Dom Henrique stares seriously across the puddle. He is better known as Henry the Navigator, but although he sent out Magellan. Vasco da Gama, and the other descobridors on their great voyages of discovery, he never personally navigated anything anywhere, but who would have remembered him if he was known as Henry the Facilitator?

Henry the Navigator, Praça da República, Lagos

The Old Customs House and the Slave Market

In the far corner of the Praça is the site of the old slave market which opened in 1444 and was Europe's first slave market since the Roman Empire. The local tourist authorities are quick to direct you to the slave market, and equally quick to point out that in 1750 Portugal was the first major power to abolish slavery. Visiting Korčula in 2012 we encountered the Statute of Korčula which outlawed slavery, if only on that one small Croatian island, in 1214.

They admit, in rather smaller print, that the old Customs House which now stands on the site had nothing to do with the slave market. Like most Algarve towns Lagos was destroyed in the earthquake and tsunami of 1755. The Customs House, though worth seeing in its own right, was built after the earthquake and long after trading in human beings had ceased.

The Old Customs House on the site of the even older Slave Market, Praça da República, Lagos

The Pedestrianised Main Street

From here we walked into the cobbled and pedestrianised main street of the old town.

A Pleasant, if Unplanned Meeting

This year's Algarve visit was marred by both a week of poor weather and the cold Lynne brought with her developing into flu like symptoms. Our fifteenth trip of this series and perhaps twenty-first in all was not our best. On the plus side we enjoyed two dinners with our friends (and landlords), Tessa and Malcolm (see Algarve 4), had lunch with my (admittedly distant) cousin Ricky and her husband Zeca (see Algarve 5), and, two days before visiting Lagos, entertained Mike and Alison - who appear on many of the walking posts on this blog – and their friends Steve and Jan to lunch. They were touring Spain and Portugal in their motor homes and were passing through the Algarve.

It was time for coffee and a pastel de nata, so we headed for the nearest café only to discover Mike, Alison, Steve and Jan there too.

Steve, Lynne, Jan, Alison, Mike
Coffee in the main street, Lagos

After our coffee, cake and chat (and this digression) we continued up the long narrow street. Lagos attracts many tourists and the town’s citizens do not want them to go hungry - almost every building is a restaurant. Most are Portuguese, but if you want a pizza or fancy the Indian or Chinese option, well that's available too.

Restaurants line the main street, Lagos

Praça Gil Eanes and O Desejado

The street ends in the Praça Gil Eanes. Lagos-born Eanes, a minor figure of the Age of Discovery, shares his surname with Portugal’s first democratically elected president after the Carnation Revolution ended forty years of dictatorship in 1974. The statue of Dom Sebastião by João Cutileiro dates from that revolutionary period and if the statue of Henry the Navigator, completed in the 28th year of the dictatorship of Antonio Salazar, is overly formal this, perhaps unsurprisingly, tends to the other extreme. Prince Sebastian looks like a skateboarder who has taken off his helmet to scratch his head.

Dom Sebastião, Praça Gil Eanes, Lagos

Dom Sebastião became 'King Sebastian I of Portugal and the Algarves' in 1554 at the age of 3. On reaching his majority he proved an active and able, if short-lived monarch. His popularity and his presence here are a reminder that the Portuguese, like the British, prefer glorious losers (Scott of the Antarctic, Henry Cooper, Sterling Moss) to out-and-out winners. Three hundred years after the last of the Moors had been kicked out of Portugal, Dom Sebastião got it into his head that he needed to conquer North Africa and convert the Moors to Christianity. He assembled an army of 18,000 (because you need an army to convert people to a religion of peace and love) and set sail from Lagos in 1578. His makeshift army encountered a far superior Moroccan force at Alcácer-Qibir and was annihilated. Much as I appreciate a hopeless quixotic gesture, taking 18,000 others to their deaths alongside you smacks of unhealthy self-absorption. Despite that he is known as O Desejado (The Desired One) and, like a Portuguese King Arthur, will one day return to save his country in its hour of greatest need.

Lagos Regional Musuem

Walking back down the street, we dropped into the Lagos Regional Museum, which is built round, and indeed contains, the Igreja de Santo António. St Anthony of Padua, the patron saint of those seeking for what they have lost, was a 13th century Portuguese Franciscan friar who devoted his life to the care of the poor. Born in Lisbon he spent the latter part of his short life in Italy and died in Padua. Immensely fussy gilded carvings cover every surface not devoted to paintings of the life of St Anthony. It is regarded as one of the most lavishly decorated churches in the Algarve, an area where decorative excess is the rule rather than the exception. The wood seems to hold the odour of incense, but it could do with some cleaning - a daunting job for anybody. I can't say the interior is really to my taste, but it is difficult not to admire it. Photography was not allowed but a 30 second YouTube video of the interior can be seen here.

Church of St Anthony, Lagos

The rest of the museum is an eclectic collection of stuff, most of it connected with or coming from Lagos. The hallway covers the period from the Stone Age to the Romans. There are some solid looking Neolithic tools, an impressive Bronze Age helmet, several reconstructed burials and a collection of oil lights and other pottery fragments. There are tableaux and some wonderful photographs depicting local life a century or more ago when the Algarve depended entirely on fishing and agricultural. There are models of all sorts, including a selection of sample pieces of furniture made and donated by a local master carpenter. There is a collection of banknotes and coins, old and new, a collection of religious artefacts and an art gallery containing local land and   seascapes.

With the exhibits captioned in English as well as Portuguese, there is something to interest everybody.

Ponta da Piedade

Ponta da Piedade (Oct 2008)

A short distance south of Lagos is the Ponta da Piedade, where the peninsula terminates in cliffs, caves and offshore stacks. You can wander the cliff paths and view the rocks from the angle of your choice.

Ponta da Piedade (October 2008)

The ponta can be windswept and the sea wild, but usually a gentle swell laps up against the rocks. A set of steps descends the cliff to where boatmen wait to take punters out to visit the caves.

Steps to the boats, Ponta da Piedade (October 2012)

A lot of people visit Lagos, some on large groups, whether on excursions from the major resorts to the east or from cruise ships docked in Portimão, but the small town manages to retain its charm and its sense of proportion. It is well worth dropping by if you are lucky enough to be in the area.

Algarve Posts

The Algarve: Delights and Depredations(2010)
Mexilhoeira Grande and a Long Lost Cousin (2013)
The West Coast (2013)
Lagos (2014)
Castro Marim and Vila Real do Santo António (2015)
The Boxes of Carvoeiro (2016)
Mertola and Alcoutim: Strongholds by the Guadiana River (2017) - Also under Alentejo
Silves, Former Capital of the Algarve (2018)
Drinking the Algarve (2022)
Eating the Algarve (2024)

The Gomateshvara Statue at Shravanabelgola and other Jain Temples

Jain Temples in Karnataka

An Unrealistically Brief introduction to the Jain Dharma

The origins of the Jainism, which has over 4 million adherents in India, are lost in the mists of time. Based on the teachings of the twenty-four Tīrthaṅkaras, humans who achieved liberation from the cycle of deah and rebirth and help others to do the same, Jains seek nirvana through personal wisdom and self-control. Mahavira, the 24th and last Tīrthaṅkar of the current half cycle was a historical figure who lived from 599-527 BCE.

The Symbol of Jainism (thanks Wikipedia)
The swastika was an eastern sign of peace long it was stolen and perverted in the mid-20th century

Jain philosophy emphasises non-violence to all living creatures, truthfulness and asceticism. Jains are vegetarians – many are vegans - who also eschew onions and garlic and sometimes all root vegetables. They give great importance to education - the literacy rate among Jains is above 95% compared with 74% for India as a whole.

Karnataka is in the south east, Gujarat and Rajasthan in the north east of India

[Update Jan 2020. I originally called this post 'Three Favourite Jain Temples', but in 2014 I hardly had three to choose from, All were in the southern state of Karnataka and all were visited in Feb 2010. We have now seen other Jain Temples including, in Rajasthan, the temples of Jaisalmer Fort and Ranakpur and in Gujarat Ahmedabad 's Hutheesing Temple and the magnificent Palitana Temple Complex. At least two of those would be contenders for anyone's top three, but I still think the best was our first, almost ten years ago now....

Shravanabelgola

Readers of the Times of India voted the statue of Gomateshvara at Shravanabelgola the ‘No. 1 Wonder of India’ - the Taj Mahal came third. I am not sure I entirely agree with their judgement, but the statue is undoubtedly a 'Wonder of India.'

The head of Gomateshavar at Shravanabelgola

We detoured to Shravanabelgola while travelling north from Mysore. Chandragupta the founder of the Mauryan Empire, the first empire to unite most of what is now India, abdicated in 298 BCE to become a Jain monk and died here shortly after.

The small town was full of pilgrims and as we pulled up, the car was surrounded by people trying to sell us socks.

As we walked to the base of the mountain the reason for the sock salesmen became obvious. In all Indian temples everyone is required to remove their shoes, but here you must then climb a set of steps cut into the rock face. We looked at the steps baking quietly in the hot morning sun and bought some socks.

Up the steps, Shravanabelgola

For the elderly and infirm there are sedan chairs, canvas seats slung between bamboo poles. Spotting a couple of (presumably) rich westerners they made straight for us. Sorry lads, we have already bought the socks.

Sedan chair, Shravanabelgola

We set off up the hill following a group of school children, two bus-loads of teenagers all dressed in 'English style' school uniforms, grey trousers or pleated skirts, white shirt with school tie and heavy woollen blazers. Predictably we had not gone far before encountering a prostrate thirteen year old girl, being looked after by a couple of concerned teachers. I assumed they knew what they were doing, but my advice would have started with 'take off your blazer and loosen your tie.'

‘Belagola’ meaning 'white pond' and as we climbed the hot rocks we could look back down to the pool that gives the town its name.

The White Pond, Shravanabelgola

Near the top we passed two women who insisted I take their photograph and were delighted when I showed them the picture on my camera. This happens surprisingly often and I usually delete the pictures, but I kept this one.

Two ladies, Shravanabelgola

Gomateshvara was the second of the hundred sons of the first Tīrthaṅkara. Arguing with his older brother, he hoisted him above his head and was about to dash him to the ground when he realised what he was doing. Placing his brother down gently he stayed where he was to meditate, standing so still for so long that the vines started to grow round his arms and legs.

Gomateshvara, Shravanabelgola

The temple is little more than a paved rectangle surrounded by a concrete wall. Gomateshvara stands by the back wall, ‘sky clad’ and 17m tall, with a benign half smile on his face as plants begin to twist themselves around his limbs.

Gomateshvara, Shravanabelgola

He is the largest monolithic statue in the world and has stood here since the tenth century. Every twelve years there is a major festival, scaffolding is placed round the statue so that monks can pour milk and ghee over his head and cover him with saffron and gold coins.

Refreshing coconuts, Shravanabelgola

We paid our respects to this symbol of peace and serenity and made our descent, rewarding ourselves with a refreshing coconut after our efforts in the hot sun.

The Badami Cave Temples

Three days later and a couple of hundred kilometres further north, though still in the state of Karnataka, is the small town of Badami, where the artificial Lake Agastya sits in a rocky canyon.

Lake Agastya, Badami

Its main function is to provide laundry facilities for local people…

Laundry in Lake Agastya, Badami

….but on one of the sandstone walls four cave temples have been hollowed out.

Badami Cave Temples

Few foreigners come this way, but there are plenty of Indian visitors….

Indian tourists, Badami Cave Temples

The lower three caves are Hindu, the fourth is Jain…

Jain Temple, Badami Cave Temples

….where, surrounded by carvings, Mahavira sits cross legged, serenely surveying the world he has left behind.

Mahavira, Badami Cave Temples

Karkala

About as far south as you can go down the coast of Karnataka before arriving in Kerala is the Hindu temple city of Udupi. Making an excursion to the north we reached the small town of Karkala. In the Hindu temple we received a long lecture about the ‘oneness of everything’ from an aged one-toothed priest whose thoughtful and gentle approach even impressed our driver Thomas, a devout Keralan Christian with a tendency to dismiss Hindus as idol worshippers.

The Jain Temple above the town was less interesting, being just a small copy of Shravanabelgola with a priest who seemed overly interested in obtaining a donation.

A much smaller Gomateshvara, Karkala

On the opposite hillside is the Chatamurkha Basadi, Karkala’s second Jain Temple. We did not visit, but it sits so spectacularly among the palm trees that I had to include a photograph.

Chaturmurkha Basadi, Karkala