INDIA & BANGLADESH 2014: 18 From Bengaluru to Madurai, India

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Today's tour had a massive amount of bus travel – about 5 hours, leaving some of us wondering if we are on a bus tour with the same small hotel room each night!

Breakfast on board at 8 AM was great, served under the attentive eye of maitre'd, Rathone. Our room steward, Swami (yes, those are real names), went to purchased a morning newspaper for me, and continued to do so every morning of the trip. I read in the lounge next to our cabin until boarding the bus at 10 AM. We drove 3 hours from the Chennai RR Station to visit 16 th century San Thome Basilica, built by the Portuguese, to see the church and museum. Marilynn and I were there on a previous trip, so we knew this tour missed all lot of points of interest. The bus drove beside the wide sandy beach where dozens of stalls sell fresh fish,where we walked for an hour last time.

Another long bus ride was to a resort for an excellent lunch buffet. This is 3 hour stop so we could "rest" after lunch. The resort is on the beach, but no swimming due to currents, so we sat in the lobby. No one was happy about that!

A drive from the resort brought us to Mahabalipuram, where there are a number of interesting sites. We first stopped at Shore Temple, named for its location on a point with beaches on both sides. It was built between 700 & 728, dedicated to Lords Vichnu and Shiva It is one of the oldest stone block temples in South India, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

A short drive took us to Pancha Rathas, a group of 5 temples plus a life sized carved elephant all cut from one huge rock in the late 7th century. The temple columns, carvings and roofs are all part of a single rock. It is also a world heritage site.

Another few minutes drive brought us to Arjuna's Penance,, a huge carved rock face done in the 6th to 8th century, with a live goat on top, right beside the road. The massive area covered by carvings tell mythological stories, but experts can't agree on exactly what the story is about. There is a small temple near the caved rocks, and another near a lighthouse on the hill above. Nearby is Krishna's Butter Ball, a 5 meter (16.5 ft) diameter boulder sitting at a 45 degree angle on a smooth rocky slope. It has been there for centuries, and legend says it cannot be moved..

It was getting dark by the time we reached this site, making photography difficult or impossible. The day ended with an agonizing 3 hour bus trip back to the train, arriving about 9 PM. The train sat in the station all night. A frequent question is, why were we sitting around the hotel all that time?

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

The first long bus trip was from the train to the Auroville multi-religious ashram and yoga centre for artists and others who do handicraft type work. Amazingly, the massive centre, buildings and house constructions are sponsored by the UN, which seems to me to be a blatant misuse of funds. They plan to have 50,000 people living in their town, some with subsidized living, others who will build their own houses on land owned by the ashram.. I neglected to do the 1 km walk to the huge gold dome at the heart of the complex, instead returning to the bus to do some writing. After all the wasted hours on the bus yesterday, today I brought my laptop.

Next stop was a downtown five star hotel near the beach in Puducherry for another great buffet. After lunch Marilynn and I walked among the stalls on the sandy beach to a huge statue of Ghandi, who looks in the direction of a big statue of Nehru (Indian's first prime minister) who is looking back. Back at the hotel we joined a walking tour of the well preserved French Quarter, known to the French as "White Town" while Indians lived in "Black Town". Many of the group visited another ashram and temple, but we were satisfied to just see at the outside.

Puducherry, population 1,250,000, dates from the first century AD when it was trading with the Romans. It became part of a long chain of empires and kingdoms until the French took it over in 1674. It became part of India in 1954.

Marilynn & I walked to the massive market area, where there are dozens of blocks of shops that Marilynn popped in and out of, making purchases here and there. I desperately searched for a pub to sit out the shopping, but alas, it was not to be. We took a tuk tuk back to endure another two hour drive back to the train, getting there at 8 PM.

The train travelled to Tranjavur railway station between 10:30 PM and 2:30 AM, over some of the worst tracks yet. Toward the end I wondered if we were really on the tracks still! Apparently the loud crashes are caused by switching from one set of tracks to another. Once stopped things were quite, so we got some sleep.

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Tranjavur is a small city of 250,000. This area was part of the Chola Empire, which included South India and Sri Lanka, from 850 to 1675, when the Marathas took over. It went to the British in 1799.

It was a short drive to the fabulous Brihadeeswarar Temple to Shiva, a World Heritage Site. There are several temples inside the defensive walls and now dry moat, all in good condition, where troops were once stationed. According to the guide the planning for the temples took 16 years, construction was from 1003 to 1010. The enormous main temple stands 61 meters (200 ft) tall and is topped by a circular stone ball weighing over 81 tonnes. The main walls are 13 meter (43 ft) high. It is elaborately carved from top to bottom. In the 1500s another smaller temple to Ganesha was added to the site.

Most of us had thoroughly explored the temple in an hour and a half, but we were there for 2 ½ hours. I'm getting used to their schedule and the downside of group travel, so once again had my computer to work on while I waited on the bus.

The next stop was Tanjavur Maratha Palace, a not at all imposing building from the outside, but with a beautifully ornate courtyard with a towering temple inside. Part is now a museum - the area we visited was filled with bronze work and other statues. Apparently one of the Maratha family still lives in a section of the sprawling palace and the family still own it. There are other areas to visit in the palace, but our program had compulsory shopping at a government store. Not being good at compulsory or shopping, I hid out on the bus with Dante, the 10 year old lad who is travelling with us.

Another drive took us to an isolated resort for what I considered a mediocre lunch – it certainly didn't hold a candle to the previous lunches. Again it was a two hour stop, so I read two newspapers in the lobby.

After our "rest" we drove two hours to get to Srirangam Temples in Trichy, the largest temple complex in India. Trichy is a city of 800,000 that dates from the 2nd century BC. It went through many hands until the British took it in 1752. We were late getting there as the bus got lost on the way.

The Sri Ranganathaswamy temple to Lord Vishnu is a major pilgrimage destination for Hindus. It is apparently the largest functioning Hindu Temple in the world, covering 631,000 M2 (6,790,000 sq ft) with a perimeter of 4 km (2.5 mi). It is reputed to be the tallest in Asia at 72 meters (236 ft). When we got there it was dark, so only the barest outline of the temples were visible. They are undergoing cleaning that the guide says is done every 12 years, so were covered with scaffolding and netting. We followed our knowledgeable but extremely boring guide through dark corridors while he droned on in excruciating detail. It was another late return to the train.

Friday, November 21, 2014

The train started rolling at 5 AM to take us to Madurai and its fabulous temple complex. Madurai, population 1.5 million, is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world, with proven records of Roman and Greek trading from 370 BC. It too went through a lot of hands before being taken by the British in 1801.

It was only about 20 minutes from the train by bus to the Meenakshi Amman Temples, built between 1159 and 1164 in the centre of the city. Streets go from the temple in a concentric quadrangle. The original Shiva temple on the site was built about 2,500 years ago, but destroyed in 1310 by Muslim invaders. There are four entrances, each with a wide, high tower – the highest is the southern gate at 51.5 meters (170 ft). All towers are covered with colourful carvings and sculptures from bottom to top of the four sides. There are an estimated 33,000 sculptures in the temple – it was in the top 30 list for the "New Seven Wonders of the World".

It was back to the train for lunch, where we passed the rest of the day on the train in the station until 6 PM when we went to the Thirumalai Navakar Palace for a sound and light show. He was the ruler of Madurai in the 17th century; a sponsor of art and architecture. Only a quarter of the original palace remains, as his son took most of it to Trichy to build a palace, but he never did. We were back at the train by 8 PM for dinner.