Friday 4 March 2016

To the Very Tip of India: India's Deep South Part 10

Going South Until There is no More South to Go

Cross-Country to the NH-44

Tamil Nadu

India

We left Rameswaram in the morning, crossed the Indira Gandhi Bridge back to the mainland and turned southwest.

Kanyakumari, at the southernmost tip of India, was 300km away and Thomas warned that the journey along minor roads across the coastal plain could take 5 or 6 hours. He had not travelled this way before and was not entirely convinced his satnav knew or cared about the roads of this poor, rural and remote region.

Today's journey, Rameswaram to Kanyakumari

Toddy Tapping

We caught occasional glimpses of the sea, but everywhere the flat land with its sandy soil clearly announced that this was where India petered out into the ocean.

We paused to watch a man tapping an Asian Palmyra Palm, generally known as a ‘toddy’ palm. The white cloudy liquid obtained ferments naturally to form the mildly alcoholic toddy or palm wine. It can also be fermented to make feni (as it is known in Goa, arrack in Sri Lanka) or boiled down to produce palm sugar as we saw on the Road to Mandalay in 2012.

Toddy tapping beside the road to Kanyakumari

The roads were better than expected and the traffic light so we made good progress, pausing for a cup of tea at the Happy Hotel shortly after 10. The word ‘hotel’ in India does not necessarily mean the same as in English; there was little possibility of booking a room at this roadside shack. They did, though, make a refreshing cup of tea in the local style, strong, milky, very sweet and frothy after being repeatedly poured from a great height.

A cup of tea at the Happy Hotel beside the road to Kanyakumari

Fetching Water, Herding Goats and Tidying the Roadside

Few rural Indians are blessed with running water in their homes and must daily fetch water from a well, spring or tank. Lightweight plastic water jars have made this task much easier, but it remains arduous and time consuming ….

Fetching the daily water, the road to Kanyakumari

…though sometimes it looks like a social occasion…

Companionable water carrying, the road to Kanyakumari

… unlike the more solitary life of a goatherd.

Goatherd on the road to Kanyakumari

Further along, we saw a group of women carrying sickles and other small gardening implements. The state will employ any woman with no other means of support (largely widows whose children are too young to work) to tidy the roadside. They pay 200 Rupees (£2.10) a day, a pittance, maybe, but enough for basic survival. The idea is good - though I wish they would (or could) pay more - but it would be even better if the workers concentrated on litter rather than weeds; India is drowning in a sea of discarded plastic bags.

Salt Pans

Near the ocean we passed an area of salt pans….

Salt pan beside the sea on the road to Kanyakumari

NH-44 The Longest Highway in India

…and as the coast swung further south we kept straight on to join National Highway 44. NH-44, the longest highway in India, links Kanyakumari in the south with Srinagar, 3,745Km away in Kashmir.

We made a fuel stop at a garage which doubled as a retirement home for petrol pumps.

Retired petrol pumps beside NH-44

The NH-44 has tolls….

Toll booth on the NH-44

…and the little truck carrying rice straw seen from behind in the photo above looked even more dramatic from the side.

Rice straw on the move, NH-44

We passed the last outbreak of the Western Ghats, the mountain range that runs down India’s western flank, and then a sizeable wind farm before arriving in Kanyakumari after only 4 hours driving.

The southernmost outbreak of the Western Ghats

Kanyakumari, India's Southernmost Town

Kanyakumari is a triangular town crammed into India’s triangular tip. Our hotel was on the northwest coast road a couple of hundred metres from the town centre. We checked in to our sea view room, had a light lunch (paneer pakora and a chicken 'cutlet') and hid for an hour from the heat of the sun.

Along the Prom, Kanyakumari

Later we strolled into town along a sort of promenade.

The Promenade, Kanyakumari

There was a seaside atmosphere with stop-me-and-buy-one ice-cream vendors on bicycles and rows of stalls selling tee shirts, souvenirs and snacks to the day trippers who arrive by bus in huge numbers from the cities up the coast. Lynne was negotiating for some cinnamon when the popcorn salesman arrived.

Popcorn salesman at a food stall in Kanyakumari

At the end of the road we stood with the Indian Ocean in front of us, the Bay of Bengal to our left and the Arabian Sea to the right. Off-shore were two islands, one with a temple, the other a statue. They will feature in the next post, so I will say no more here.

Two islands off the end of India

Visiting the 'Wine' Shop

I had broached the subject of our depleted supply of duty free with Thomas and he had promised to ask around among the drivers and locate the nearest ‘wine shop’. He was as good as his word and after our walk drove us to Kanyakumari’s one and only offie. It was just beyond the other end of the town, as though the city fathers did not want such a den of iniquity on their land. There was a small sign in Tamil and a heavy metal grid over a dark hole in a scruffy wall; no one would find it unless they knew it was there. Anyone would look furtive here, but in my shorts I look like a schoolboy (albeit a balding schoolboy) who knows he is misbehaving.

Looking guilty outside the 'Wine Shop', Kanyakumari

From the front, though, I think Thomas looked and felt more embarrassed. A brief negotiation produced a bottle of Old Monk Indian rum at a reasonable price. There was little choice, certainly no beer, and definitely no wine and it looked a place for people with a problem not social drinkers. Maybe the man who crept up beside us, wordlessly pushed 100 rupees through the bars and equally wordlessly received a half bottle of something brown was indeed a man with a problem.

I think Thomas looks slightly the more embarrassed.
'Wine Shop', Kanyakumari

A Failed Sunset, but a Good Dinner, Kanyakumari

Later we crossed the road from the hotel. Over the prom was a small park and we sat alone among the litter and watched the sun set in the sea, only it didn’t. As always seems to happen, it slid behind a bank of cloud several diameters above the horizon.

The sun fails to make it to the horizon, Kanyakumari

Back in the hotel we shared a biryani, prawn varuval (pepper fry), chana masala and rotis. It was all good, but the prawn varuval stood out, the heat and spices subtly enhancing the prawns’ flavour rather than obliterating it.

India's Deep South

Part 1: Bangalore to Mysore
Part 2: Mysore, Somnathpur and Srirangapatnam
Part 3: Kabini and the Nagarhole National Park
Part 4: The Road to Ooty
Part 5: The Nilgiri Blue Train to Coonoor
Part 6: Across the Palakkad Gap and up to Munnar
Part 7: Munnar - Tea, Dams and Elephants
Part 8: Madurai
Part 9: Rameswaram
Part 10: To the Very Tip of India
Part 11: The End of India and Beyond
Part 12: North to Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram) and Kollam
Part 13: Ants, Mollywood and Varkala
Part 14: The Backwaters of Kerala (and some Coir)
Part 15: Marari Beach, Rest, Recreation and Refuse
Part 16: Kochi, a Second Visit

THE END

Thursday 3 March 2016

Rameswaram: India's Deep South Part 9

A Sacred Island which a Pivotal Role in The Ramayana

Madurai to the Annai Indira Gandhi Bridge

Tamil Nadu

India

It took a while to disentangle ourselves from Madurai's urban sprawl. Once free, we drove southwest along a straight, flat road through palm fringed farmland with golden straw stacked in the harvested rice fields.

Lynne slept for a while, but woke at coconut time.

A refreshing morning coconut south of Madurai

Nothing is more refreshing than coconut water on a hot day but Indian coconut vendors can be frightening. In Sri Lanka they sensibly hold the coconut on a chopping block or tree stump and whack it with a machete, in India they hold the nut in their left hand, knife in their right and strike with all the vigour of their Sri Lankan neighbours. I habitually count the fingers of Indian coconut vendors; so far they have all had ten, but there must be some with fewer, and I really do not want to be the person who scrabbles in the dust to reclaim a severed digit or two.

Please mind those fingers

We continued through Paramakudi and Ramanathapuram.The scrub became more stunted and the palms more windblown as we headed out onto a sandy peninsula which eventually tapered to a point just beyond the small town of Mandapam.

Ramanathapuram, Tamil Nadu

Crossing the Annia Indira Gandhi Bridge to Pamban Island (Rameswaram)

The 2km Annai Indira Gandhi Bridge seems almost a natural extension of the land. Built in 1988 it crosses the Pamban Channel to Pamban Island, often called Rameswaram after its main town.

The start of the Annai Indira Gandhi Bridge to Pamban Island

From Pamban, Adams’s Bridge, a 50km string of limestone shoals leads to the Sri Lankan island of Mannar which is connected to its mainland by a causeway. Some of the shoals are above water, others a metre or two below. Temple records suggest it was possible to walk from India to Sri Lanka as recently as the fifteenth century but storms gradually deepened the channel and the reef was finally broken by a cyclone in 1480. The India-Sri Lanka border follows the median line through the strait, reputedly crossing an exposed part of the shoal. Those few metres form the world's shortest land border between two countries.

The name Adam's Bridge, which appears on most maps, is presumably of Muslim origin though it first appeared in print on a British naval chart of 1805. Hindus, the overwhelming majority in Rameswaram, call it Rama’s Bridge.

We head from Madurai to Rameswaram

Signs suggest drivers should not stop on the bridge but in India human nature always trumps official signs. A dozens cars and buses were parked at the windy spot where the view was best; the police hovered around, not moving anyone on, just ensuring everyone behaved.

A windy spot on the Annai Indira Gandhi Bridge to Pamdan Island

Some fishing boats bobbed at anchor off Pamban Island, which gave a good impression of a tropical paradise,…;

Fishing boats off the tip of Pamban Island

…while others fished beside the bridge.

Fishing beside the Annai Indira Gandhi Bridge to Pamdan Island

Alongside the road bridge is The Pamban Railway Bridge, built by the British and opened in 1914. From above it looks alarmingly close to the water, but although it is actually 12.5m above sea level a storm surge in 1964 did overturn a train killing all 150 passengers.

The Pamban Rail Bridge

Rameswaram town is in the far side of the island, but low density urban sprawl starts from the end of the bridge. Rameswaram is a holy place and a Hindu pilgrimage centre, but receives few western visitors – we saw no other Europeans on the island - and our accommodation on the town’s edge was not an international class hotel. The welcome, though, was warm and the room clean and comfortable so we forgave the television for working just long enough to prove it had no channels in any language we understood, and the WiFi for declining to connect.

Thali Lunch, Rameswarem

The hotel restaurant was the only lunch option; it described itself as 'Pure Veg' but in a temple town we expected to go without meat (and beer). Most Hindus are vegetarians; ‘non-veg’ food is available in international hotels and establishments run by Muslims or Christians - in practice Muslims, as few Christians own restaurants. We had not had a thali on this trip yet so that was what we ordered. A thali consists of a number, in this case 9, dishes of curried vegetables or condiments, a poppadum and unlimited rice. They served a particularly fine thali, though you cannot tell the quality by looking at it, nor by the price – that varies mainly with the restaurant décor. The vegetables themselves are secondary; a thali maker’s skill is in the spicing. Each bowl should be different but all should be complementary producing a tinkling arpeggio of spices, the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.

Lynne and a vegetarian thali, Rameswaram

The Ramanathaswamy Temple, Rameswaram

After lunch Thomas drove us to the Ramanathaswamy (or Ramalingeshwara) Temple, in the heart of the town.

The car park was some way from the temple. Leaving bags and cameras in the car, we walked with Thomas through the narrow streets, dropped our shoes off with a minder and finished the journey barefoot – not a particularly comfortable experience.

Rameswaram, rivals Varanasi as the most important pilgrimage site in India, partly because it features in the Sanskrit allegorical epic, the Ramayana. Rama, (an avatar of Vishnu) was married to Sita (an avatar of Lakshmi). Sita was kidnapped by the demon king Ravana and taken to the island of Lanka. Rama followed Ravana and with the aid of the monkey god Hanuman and his simian army built the Rama Bridge, crossed to Lanka, killed Ravana and rescued Sita.

On their way home Rama and Sita visited Rameswaram to worship Lord Shiva and seek forgiveness for killing a Brahmin during their battles with Ravana.

Unlike the Madurai gopuram those at Rameswaram are not gaudily painted.

One of the gopuram, Ramanathaswamy Temple, Rameswaram

European faces are so unusual here we soon attracted the attention of a white robed Brahmin who introduced himself as the Temple Secretary and offered to show us round.

The temple’s 16-18th century outer section - all that is officially open to non-Hindus – consist of 'a spacious closed ambulatory flanked… by continuous platforms with massive pillars’ (Rough Guide to South India). The corridors are 205m long and there are 1212 pillars all brightly painted and topped with yalis (mythical beasts). I had no camera, but later, in the streets, we found a stall selling laminated photographs of the ambulatory.

The ambulatory, Ramanathaswamy Temple, Rameswaram (commercial photograph)

As guests of the Temple Secretary we found ourselves ushered into the much older Hindus-only section. After visiting the shrine of Ganesh where the priest smeared ash on our foreheads we approached the first of the temple’s two most sacred Shiva lingams. People were queuing with their offerings by a lingam allegedly brought from the Himalayas by Hanuman. The priest held up the holy flame and, for a donation, devotees could pass their hands through it and take the blessing upon themselves. Nobody seemed to mind our presence though we were careful not to intrude.

The second lingam was fashioned from sand by Sita herself as Rama could not wait for Hanuman’s return from the north, and we saw it being bathed with milk in the inner sanctum. Lynne was given a piece of coconut as a blessing from Lord Shiva.

At another shrine a priest marked our foreheads with a red tilak and after being purified with a splash of holy water we were allowed to touch the base of the main gopura.

Outside we paid off the Temple Secretary. His fee was steep and he was reluctant to bargain - whether or not he donated the money to the temple I have no idea.

Rameswaram Town, Pilgrims and Seasiders

Thomas returned to the car to fetch bags and cameras while we watched two men building a temple chariot for a forthcoming procession.

Building a temple chariot, Rameswaram

Thomas is a devout Christian, like a quarter of all Keralans he is a member of a church that claims to have been founded in the first century by the apostle St Thomas. We felt privileged and honoured to have been allowed into the very heart of the temple, but Thomas was less comfortable inside the inner sanctum. No great fan of the way Hinduism is practised, he dislikes seeing poor people giving money to priests that would be better spent feeding their families. People rely too much on the gods, he said, and make too little effort to help themselves. He might describe himself as a 'Catholic' but he has a robust understanding of the ‘protestant work ethic’.

When he returned we strolled towards the sea following a distinctive group of brightly clad pilgrims.

Pilgrims, Rameswaram

The beach is marked by a decorative archway populated by the usual array of calves and goats.

Archway by the beach, Rameswaram

By now our group of pilgrims might have been thinking we were stalking them.

Are we stalking them? Rameswaram

We watched people bathing – the women as always inching carefully into the water while fully dressed…

Bathing, Rameswaram

…photographed a cute kid….

Cute kid, Rameswaram

…and had a paddle in the luke warm sea…

Paddling in the warm water, Rameswaram

…by which time the saffron robed pilgrim was stalking us.

Now is he stalking us? Rameswaram

The Footprints of Rama, Rameswaram

The Gandhamadana Parvatam, 2km north of the temple and just outside the town, was built around the footprint Rama made when he landed on his return from Lanka.

It sits on a low sandy hill, the approach surrounded by stalls. The stallholders might be cheerfully optimistic….

The approach to the Gandhamadana Parvatam, Rameswaram

…but the shrine itself looked sad and neglected.

Gandhamadana Parvatam, Rameswaram

We climbing the stairs….

Gandhamadana Parvatam, Rameswaram

…and then onto the roof to look down onto the footprint. No photos were permitted, but I can report it was as convincing as Buddha’s footprint at Wat Phabat Phonsan in Laos, which was not at all. The temple gopuram looked good from here, though…

Looking back at the Ramanathaswamy Temple from Gandhamadana Parvatam

….as did the north end of Pamban Island so here are pictures of them instead.

The north end of Pamban Island from the Gandhamadana Parvatam

Rama's Resting Place on the Way to Lanka

Driving back towards our hotel we stopped at the temple and tank of Rama Tirtham Gandamadana. Tanks, as they are always called, are important to Hindus, providing both spiritual and physical cleansing. It was here that Rama rested on his journey to Lanka and it looked particularly attractive in the rays of a sun that was beginning to set.

The Tank at Rama Tirtham Gandamadana

Back at the hotel Lynne ordered vegetable soup and rotis claiming she did not really want to eat, but that did not stop her sharing my vegetable biryani and aloo gobi.

Later we had a nightcap from our diminishing stock of Dubai airport duty free. We will need to seek replenishment tomorrow, or at least before we return to semi-dry Kerala.

We would leave Rameswaram in the morning, it may have been a short stay but it had undoubtedly been a highlight.

Tourism Kills the Things it Loves, Some Reflections

I have enjoyed visiting places like the Taj Mahal and Angkor Wat, but you know that on the day you will be one of several thousand tourists.

But there are places still within the ‘tourist envelope’ where you are not one of thousands. In a post on Kashgar, the city, nearer to Beirut than Beijing at China’s extreme western tip I wrote ‘Surrounded by Uigher buildings and several hundred people, none of whom were in western dress, we felt that we had finally arrived somewhere foreign and very alien to our normal experience.’ and elsewhere ‘any European who can stand in Kashgar’s Id Kah Square and not feel the thrill of being somewhere totally foreign and utterly remote should probably have stayed at home.’

Madurai, whilst not as remote as Kashgar, provided the same thrill. Rameswaram, however, is a step beyond, an island outside the tourist envelope and it was spine-tingling just to be there.

I felt the same in the market at Upal a village 50km outside Kashgar, but it is bittersweet tingle. Of that experience I wrote ‘Tourism is forever doomed to kill the things it loves: the fishing village in a secluded cove becomes a five mile stretch of high rise hotels as slices of paradise are packaged, denatured and sanitised to suit the tastes of the rich. Kashgar is hardly Benidorm, but we were not the only foreigners at the Sunday market and it sits inside the horizon of tourism. At Upal we had slipped over that horizon, but human beings, like sub-atomic particles, are changed merely by being observed. Mixed with the exhilaration of just being there was the fear that we were the latest link in a chain of foreigners relentlessly dragging that horizon behind us.’

Madurai is in much the same category as Kashgar and Rameswaram is like Upal.

My apologies for the preachy bit (and for quoting my own stuff), but thank you for reading to the end.

Wednesday 2 March 2016

Madurai: India's Deep South Part 8

A Gandhi Museum, the Nayak's Palace and the Finest Hindu Temple in India

From Munnar to Madurai

Descending the Kannon Devan Hills

India

Omelette, sambar and fruit made a good breakfast after which we set out with Thomas on the long morning’s drive to Madurai. The tanker drivers’ strike, he told us, had been settled last night, which was good news and meant we would not have to push the car any time soon.

Tea plantations in the Kannan Devan Hills, Kerala

Descending the Kannan Devan Hills from Munnar to the plain was no great distance, but it took some time, partly because the road twisted and turned and partly because the countryside demanded a series of picture stops.

Tea Plantations in the Kannan Devan Hills, Kerala

I shall not reproduce them all here but the view of tessellated tea bushes with wind breaks of silver oak and stands of eucalyptus trees surrounded by rugged hills was endlessly changing and fascinating.

Tea Plantations in the Kannan Devan Hills, Kerala
The silver oak is not a true oak. Native to Australia it has adapted well to the local conditions

Lower down a small lake nestled among the tea bushes...

A lake among the tea bushes, Kannan Dean Hills

....and further down again the tea gave way to forest. I am never quite sure where the Cardamom Hills are, the name seems to be applied to various southern parts of the Western Ghats, but with cardamom dominating the underbrush this area had as good a claim as any.

Cardamom growing beneath the trees on the lower slopes of the Kannan Devan Hills

Somewhere on the lower slopes we crossed from Kerala back into Tamil Nadu.

In this post we travel from Munnar to Madurai

The demarcation between the hills and plain was sharp and as we approached the flat land a turn in the road gave us one last look at the enchanted hills.

A last look at the Kannan Devan Hills

Across the Tamil Nadu Plain to Madurai

Tamil Nadu

The temperature had increased steadily as we had descended from the pleasant warmth of Munnar to the furnace of the plain, but cocooned in the air conditioned car we hardly noticed as we sped along on the wider and straighter road.

On the way we encountered a water jar salesman - most rural Indians collect their water daily from a well, tank or stream and the arrival of the lightweight plastic jar has made life much easier.

Travelling water jar salesman, Tamil Nadu

We passed through small towns and villages...

Shop in a small town, Tamil Nadu

... and nearing Madurai we passed this family heading into townfor a day out.

Family day out, near Madurai, Tamil Nadu

Madurai

Madurai is surprisingly little known outside India but it has been a major religious and commercial centre for over 2,000 years and is now, with 1.5 million inhabitants, the third biggest city in Tamil Nadu.

Lunch and the Gandhi Museum, Madurai

We checked in to our hotel, an upmarket glass and marble affair beside a busy road. With no shops or other restaurants nearby, the hotel was the only option for lunch and at great expense (by local standards) I enjoyed sambar with chapattis while Lynne ate a chicken sandwich with chutney. ‘Better to eat local,’ I said sagely but she did not listen.

When the fierceness of the heat had subsided a local guide arrived and we set off for the Gandhi Museum. Opened in 1959, the museum is housed in the Tamukkam Palace, built for Rani Mangammal, wife of a Nayak ruler and Queen Regent after his death in 1684. Following the fall of the Nayaks the house endured a chequered history and was, at one time, the residence of the British Collector of Madurai. On independence it passed to the Tamil Nadu government who donated it for use as a museum.

Gandhi Museum, Tamukkam Place, Madurai

The museum tells the Gandhi story from his birth in 1868, through his training as a barrister in London, and years in South Africa to the struggle for Indian independence. As one of the five Gandhi Sanghralayas it exhibits a part of the bloodied clothing he was wearing when shot down in 1948 by a Hindu nationalist.

Gandhi walking, Pondicherry 2009
The statue of Gandhi walking seen rather distantly outside the museum is repeated all over India

It is not an easy museum to visit if you are British; we are very much the villains of the piece. On the whole that is fair enough (no one could try to excuse, for example, the 1919 Amritsar massacre) and Gandhi’s consistent commitment to non-violent resistance is inspirational, but the attack does feel relentless. A 'what have the Romans ever done for us' moment might have provided balance – so I am supplying one myself.

Gandhi walking with followers, Hassan, Karnataka, 2010

When the British arrived India was a patchwork of often warring states ruled by hereditary despots, when they left it was a united country committed to nurturing its new democracy, an ideal espoused by Gandhi and those who struggled for independence alongside him – a happy consequence of their British educations. The creation of an all-India consciousness – even if only in opposition to us - was a remarkable achievement. On this journey we travelled through Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, three states with a combined population of over 170m (the same as the UK, France and Spain combined) with three different official languages each written in a different alphabet. Neighbours among India’s 29 states and 7 territories often differ from each other far more than do any of the 50 states of the USA, yet each is as committed to its Indian identity as Texas and Vermont are to being American.

I am not defending colonialism, merely suggesting we should not judge 19th century people by 21st century standards and now the dust has settled both countries have reasons to be grateful to each other – we gave them cricket and they gave us curry, gifts whose importance should not be underestimated.

The Nayak Palace

We visited Madurai in 2009 on our first trip to India and had returned primarily to revisit the huge Meenakshi Amman Temple, maybe the world's finest Hindu Temple, that dominates the city centre. Inn 2009 its 14 richly decorated gopuram (gateway towers) were covered in scaffolding for repainting and the scaffolding was hung with banana leaves to protect the painters from the sun. We saw only the bare outlines. Before returning we had checked that no repainting was scheduled, but now it was already half past four and the local guide wanted to take us to the Nayak’s Palace, I began to fret that we would only see the temple in the dark.

One of the scaffolding and banana leaf covered gopuram, Madurai 2009

After some discussion we went along with his plan. We also saw the palace in 2009, but since then more has been restored and it was worth re-visiting. The Nayak dynasty ruled a region similar to modern Tamil Nadu from 1529 to 1736 and the Thirumalai Palace was built in 1636 by King Thirumalai (who else?). We saw the King’s Hall….

King's Hall, Nayak's Palace, Madurai

…the pillars and corridors that connect the ceremonial rooms….

Pillars and corridors, Nayak's Palace, Madurai

…the decorated ceilings….

Decorated ceiling, Nayak's Palace. Masurai

…and the auditorium with a display of statues from Nayak times and from the earlier Pandyan Kingdom.

Royal auditorium, Nayak's Palace, Madurai

Impressive though the rooms are, what remains is only a quarter of the royal complex once occupying this site.

Markets and Brahmins on the Way to the Meenakshi Amman Temple

Leaving the palace we drove the 2km to the temple first passing through the wholesale vegetable market. Each street is dedicated to a single vegetable and our route took us down onion road….

Just a few of the onions, Madurai

…and then past a rather poverty stricken retail market.

Retail fruit and veg, Madurai

We parked and walked to the temple through the posher streets occupied by Brahmins – for all Gandhi’s efforts to modernise India and destroy the caste system, it still hangs on.

Brahmin dwellings around the Meenakshi Amman Temple, Madurai

The Meenakshi Amman Temple, Madurai

And then we emerged beside the temple. There was still plenty of light to see the gopuram, but the narrow streets meant we were too close to get an overall view…

North gopura, Meenakshi Amman Temple, Madurai

…though parts of the north gopura are impressive enough in close-up.

North gopura, Meenakshi Amman Temple, Madurai

Originating in the 6th century BC, the current Meenakshi Amman Temple was mostly constructed in the 17th century. It is dedicated to Meenakshi, also known as Parvati and it was here she married Sundareswarar (Shiva) to whom it is secondarily dedicated. In 2009 in Kanchipuram near Chennai we saw the mango tree beneath which Parvati and Shiva were married - fortunately gods can easily remarry as different avatars.

To enter the temple we had to deposit our bags, shoes and cameras, which would have been mildly annoying had they not allowed camera phones to be taken in – and even sold a permit to use them – which made it very annoying.

I have no photos of the interior from this visit, but I do have some from 2009 when the rules were more relaxed – and the paint was very fresh.

Lynne at Meenakshi Amman Temple, Madurai, Feb 2009

We spent over an hour in the temple, partly because it is huge and there is always something to see in a Hindu temple, partly because it is exciting just being among the shrines and stone pillars but mostly because we were waiting for the procession.

Meenakshi Amman Temple, Madurai, Feb 2009

Every evening Meenakshi is taken to her husband. Screened by gold curtains and sitting on a decorated plinth she is carried on bamboo poles by six priests behind a white ox, an elephant and a group of musicians.

Painter at work, Meenakshi Amman Temple, Madurai, Feb 2010

We found the elephant in a stone recess swaying ominously. Elephants are large (and hairy) even more so when seen close up in a confined space and this one seemed restless. The ox was nearby, standing placidly with a drum strapped to his back and a vacant expression on his face.

Meenakshi Amman Temple, Madurai, Feb 2010

The procession formed up with the ox and drummer at the front then the elephant and lastly the musicians. After a short wait the goddess arrived, the drum was struck and the musicians blew, very hard, down their …. let’s call them ‘pipes’ and with the ear splitting sound echoing round the stone chamber they set off at a smart lick. I think of processions as being slow and dignified but here everybody walked as though they were frightened of missing a train and the priests at the back, shouldering their bamboo poles, struggled to keep up.

They walked several times round the interior and although there was a crowd, it was easy to slip between the pillars and catch them two or three times on each circuit. I am sure I would have some excellent pictures if I had a camera phone. Eventually they disappeared into a sanctuary where only Hindus could follow.

Left alone, we caught our breath, adjusted to the ringing in our ears and went to reclaim our shoes, bag and cameras.

Outside the light was beginning to fade...

Gopura
Meenakshi Amman Temple, Madurai

....and we were shown up to the roof of an antiques shop with a view over the whole site.

The Meenakshi Amman Temple, Madurai

Lynne was unwell when we returned to the hotel. We retreated to the bar for a kill or cure but they had no gin so she drank rum, which may be equally efficacious. Afterwards she came to the dining room to watch me eat and toyed with some noodles. She was ill for the rest of the evening and first part of the night – I warned her about that chicken sandwich!

Top of a gopura at dusk
Meenakshi Amman Temple, Madurai

03/03/2016

Leaving Madurai

Lynne felt better in the morning and we set off for Rameswaram.

Madurai's morning traffic

The Vandiyur Mariamman Temple Pond, Madurai

Our first stop was still in Madurai, only 2km south of the temple at the Vandiyur Mariamman Temple pond. The hole created when material was excavated to make the bricks for the Thirumalai Palace is kept full of water by its connection to the nearby Vagai River. 305m long by 290m wide it is the largest temple tank in Tamil Nadu and is the scene of a major float festival in the tenth or twelfth month of the Tamil calendar (depending on which source you read) when the Goddess Meenakshi and Lord Sundareshwarar are brought from the temple to oversee proceedings. Unfortunately we were a fortnight too late (or too early).

Vandiyur Mariamman Temple pond, Madurai

Beside the tank some men were stringing out long lines of dyed cotton. I think they were drying it, or maybe something else – who knows?

Busy doing something, Vandiyur Mariamman Temple pond, Madurai

We drove on towards Rameswaram.