Ring in the New Year: Amrapali, Angelina and me

It’s new years’ eve, I had a most fabulous 2010 and what more can a girl ask for to finish off a wonderful year but a new bestie from her bestie.  Yep, after 22 years together someone finally bought me a diamond. J

Today we went to Khan market.  It’s sort of like the Toorak of Delhi from what I gather (for non-Melbournites, that’s the posh end of town).  I had long lusted after a polki set something-or-other, except that I didn’t know that that’s what they were called.  I only knew them as those lovely enamelled 22k gold pieces of jewellery with big chunks of uncut stone in them.  I had read that Amrapali jewellers sold some fine pieces, so off we went.  Not much more to say really, will follow with a photo, but I spent about four hours in that jewellery heaven choosing it, it being a large uncut diamond in a brushed gold ring with very very dark blue enamelling. Amrapali has photos on the walls of Angelina Jolie, J.Lo and others wearing their jewellery so now I know I’m in good company and will look every bit as beautiful.

2010 was a very good year.
More about polki's here: http://www.blsmartbuy.com/?p=3963

A day in history: Hamuyan's tomb and the red fort

 Our first stop was the very beautiful Hamuyan’s tomb.  The gardens of this tomb house other mausoleum’s, some in their own cordoned off gardens.   I was foggy and cold, and I was still unwell but nevertheless the beauty of the place was enough to raise my enthusiasm for a walk through the grounds.  The photos tell it better than I can, but you need to add to the photos the strange (to my ears at least) chirruping of squirrels, the cawing of crows and the constant click, click, clicking of metal against rock from a group of about twenty men working on chiseling away little pieces from a large pile of slabs of red stone on the ground, I presume for maintenance work.  Everyone talks about the fact that it costs Rs10 for Indians and Rs250 for visitors.  Personally I totally don’t understand why anyone would mention it other than to say what a great idea it is.  And really, if as a Western tourist you can’t afford $5 for a site visit then I wonder how did you afford to get to India in the first place – I mean the visa is 40 times that cost to start with.

Second visit was the Red Fort.  The Fort didn’t do it for me quite as much as Hamuyan’s, at least not until I reached the very last building within the fort that was stunningly beautiful and originally part of a water garden.   Men seem to like forts though.  This evidenced by Jon’s sudden transformation into Laurence of Arabia and the length of the ‘men’s queue versus the ‘ladies’.   Yes they divide you up into two queues for a frisk down and bag search.  You have to pass through a metal detector too.  If all this has not managed to establish that you are a problem, never mind because the next thing you face is a machine gun firing squad behind a pile of sandbags.   Now I don’t blame the Indian people for this security, given recent terrorist attacks at crowded locations, it’s just that this was the first time I have actually faced a machine gun pointed at me and it does make you feel just a little bit uncomfortable.  I thanked God that I never got caught smuggling drugs into Indonesia.

Magical mystery day of contrasts

Delhi, Day Three

I can’t believe it, but today we spent about four hours in the one shop and Jon actually wanted to be there.  The Indian government craft emporium is six floors of shopping heaven.  It has everything made in India and all at fixed prices.   We could have spent tens of thousands of dollars there, seriously.  I mean the Kashmiri rugs were just gorgeous and their prices started at about $3,000.  Trouble is, I am no rug expert and the one I fell in love with, well who knows about knot counts and ‘Indian silk', …and for that matter whether they were made with child labour.   I also fell for a pair of sapphire earrings, but left without them although they might get a return visit yet.  We actually only bought a shawl each to keep us warm, and I can’t wait to see Jon wearing his tomorrow: he couldn’t find a jacket to fit, as usual.  

In a complete contrast to shopping heaven,  when we realised we only had about 1.5 hours of daylight left, we abandoned our previous plans of going to Hamayun’s tomb that day and instead went to Birla House, the site of Ghandi’s assassination.   I have long been an admirer of Ghandi and very interested in the period of colonial transition so I know the story so very well.  It was really strange to actually be there in Birla house, I can’t describe the feeling.  I had expected to cry, but I didn’t (I was already quite snotty enough anyway). It was a solumn place, even a beautiful place,  and I left feeling grateful that the world sometimes sees an individual such as he and that this one, astounding soul actually managed to achieve so much in his lifetime. One does feel so utterly meagre in comparison with such a person, unfit to tread his footsteps in any way at all.  As Einstien said in relation to Ghandi’s death (and I paraphrase as I am too lazy to look up the proper quote…I’m on holidays..)  ‘centuries later people will not believe that one such as this walked upon this earth’.

In another contrast in this day of them, the Ambassador car we caught back to the hotel was incredible, like something out of a Beatles trippy movie.  The inside was all padded with paisley velvet, I mean really puffily padded and quilted car with trims around the edge.  The driver was a Sikh with a turban to match his car lining and on his dashboard he had Jesus, one of the Sikh Gurus, and Sai Baba.  The car had a 'no smoking' sticker on the glove box but was redolent with the smell of good incense. I felt like it was compulsory to be stoned.  But no such luck, the best I could do was book him for tomorrow. Let’s see if we make it to Hamayan’s tomb then.

Delhi in the rain, with the flu

Delhi, Day Two

Did I mention that we checked into the Imperial Hotel?  It has long been my dream to stay here.  It’s on a par with Raffles etc., a colonial edifice (in fact it was part of Lutyens original plan for New Delhi, the only hotel that was), and it’s usually uber expensive.   I think we got it cheap (and I don’t mean really cheap, more like vaguely affordable) because we a: booked the cheapest possible room, and b: they are doing renovations so the gorgeous pool is shut.  It’s way too cold to swim anyway and there is noise from the pool renos which we can hear, but the noise stops at about 6:00 and I reckon we got a good deal, or at least I am just pathetically grateful to actually be here. Tick: another one off the bucket list.  Nevertheless if I ever have cause to stop in Delhi again I will stay here in high summer because the pool looks astoundingly decadent.  Speaking of decadence, this hotel is beyond luxurious and makes Raffles look like a backpacker dive.  Only photos can do justice, and I’ll post some soonish.   

Our first day in Delhi and I awoke after twelve  hours sleep feeling lousy, way too lousy for breakfast so I sent Jon off to bring me back some bananas from the breakfast buffet that is included in our price.  The breakfast room, the 1911 room, is gorgeous and the guests make it look messy.  Many are foreigners like us and are, like us, dressed in a strange mixture of very insalubrious Western clothing with Indian accoutrements, in fact they mostly look like they had no idea India could be so cold and that they have put on everything they have with them and then bought a shawl, just like us.  The first day I was here was about 19 degrees but there is a misty rain falling which continues to do so all day and makes it feel a lot colder.   Jon and I walked up to Connaught Place.  I probably shouldn’t have walked anywhere but wanted to get out and about.  One thing I noticed was that the stray dogs of Delhi have each appropriated one of the indentations at the bottom of the columns of Connaught place.  There they sleep, under the betel spit, each in his own territory.  The shops of Connaught place were probably the most boring I have ever encountered, and also repetitive, so you get a ‘Reebok’ shop in each block, a ‘Woodlands’ in each block, etc..  Perhaps it was that I was feeling lousy but I didn’t buy anything at all nor did I find anything that I would have been even vaguely interested in buying (see next day’s blog for complete reversal of this situation however).   Much more interesting were the itinerant food sellers, but I was feeling so ill I forgot to even take my camera so I must go back and get a snap of the guys selling roast sweet potatoes with lemons on skewers holding them in place over the hot coals.  Everyone is rugged up and I forgot, I told a lie before, I did buy a very ugly faux leopard skin hat for Rp 150, it does the job though keeping my head very warm and it’s so bad looking it’s almost good.

On the road again....Madurai to Delhi

Ok, everyone says you are gonna get sick in India but isn’t it supposed to be stomach ailments, not the bloody flu? Sure enough, I woke up in the middle of the night on the day we were to leave Madurai and felt terrible, involving headaches, nausea and sweats and a panic attack due to travel plans.  Anyway, once the panic subsided methinks that there is always a bright side: the fact that we were travelling independently meant that we could reschedule things. We had been meaning to go for a two day car adventure through Tamil Nadu, stopping at Karaikuddi for one night and then flying from Tritchy via Chennai (with a five hour stop over) to Delhi.  Decided I wasn’t up for that and we were able to change our flight to a direct flight to Delhi.  India’s budget airlines are way more flexible that Australia’s and so far I am very impressed with them.  I still felt totally foul flying for four hours but it was better than the previous plan.  So when I got to Delhi I collapsed in a heap, seriously only just managing to check in without fainting. I am now embarrassed that I was quite short with the check-in guy but couldn’t he see that I was sliding down the front of the desk onto the floor??? Also I would have been highly infectious that night so if I was him I would have wanted to get rid of me ASAP: the poor guy is probably sick by now.  Fortunately I travel with a comprehensive first aid kit, so I had some Tamiflu, decongestants and anti-nauseants (yes, while you’re thinking it, I probably am certified hypochondriac and am also amazed at the amount of drugs you can take through customs without anyone batting an eyelid). Anyway I took a handful of drugs and hit the sack by 8:30, an unheard of event for me.  Jon was also tired as hell as I had kept him awake all night the night before.  He said he admired me for travelling at all in that condition, for which I loved him quite a bit, as it had indeed taken some determination.

I was nearly too sick (but not quite) to smile about the fact that the first thing you see driving in from Delhi airport is a sign for the “Camel Squadron” of the Indian army, seriously.  You know you are somewhere different.
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Guys at the chemist shop



Boxing Day in Madurai

 

When reading some of the copious books I have read about India, I sort of found the concept of ‘brown outs’ – the electricity just going off – sort of quaint.  In reality, they’re a pain in the butt.  I was just uploading some stuff and entirely lost it.  Damn. 

Some reflections on being in Madurai:  it’s noisy, from really early in the morning.  Firs thing in the day the most incredibly strong speakers blare out music, could be movie music, doesn’t sound like Carnatic music much to me, based on what I’ve heard at Bharathanatyam concerts. Whatever it is it’s really loud.  Our hotel is in a compound quite removed from the main drag, but we still hear it.  I wonder how the people manage to get any sleep, I mean it’s really REALLY loud, and it’s everywhere too.

Today we had some R&R, didn’t do much, sat around the pool and read.  It was nice to relax.  At one stage we were sitting in the room reading  and I could feel someone’s eye’s on me, as you do.  There, looking in the window, was the ugly red wrinkly head of a humongous turkey!  The day after Christmas too, he was obviously feeling that he had braved the worst of it. He looked really funny, but as always happens in such situations I didn’t have the camera ready to snap him.

We are both quite excited about going to Delhi tomorrow, although we have heard that it’s going to be quite cold.  Being as we haven’t experienced a temperature lower than about 30 for six months, that is going to come as a shock.  I think we may have to buy some clothes too, but have read that you can get super cheap factory outlet stuff in Delhi so may buy and then leave for the poor, goodness knows there’s enough of them.

Madurai

Only three days in and already I’ve skipped a day in this blog, so I think I will follow Jon’s advice and write this journal about places as well as dates, because some days you just don’t do anything very interesting.  Yesterday however, was an incredibly interesting day – so interesting that I didn’t get time to write and was too exhausted by the time I got to consider it.

Madurai is the heart of Tamil culture and language and is one of South India’s great temple towns.  Situated on the banks of the Vaigai river, Madurai was around in Roman times at around 550 AD and is about 2500 years old.  It is home to one of India’s most celebrated temples: the Meenakshi temple.

Getting to the temple is an incredible experience.  I guess we exacerbated our culture shock experience by coming straight to a busy temple town in Tamil Nadu, instead of perhaps an easier introduction to India at some place like Goa or whatever.  The streets of Madurai are congested as hell; it’s really the archetypal Indian town scene, with cows everywhere, dusty roads, dirt, open sewers and amongst it all, this incredible temple. 

We started our first day in Madurai paying homage to Gandhi, at the Gandhi museum here.  It’s a sobering experience.  Like the museums to the ‘American war’ in Vietnam, the Gandhi museum does not mince words about the evils committed upon the Indian people by the British colonists.   The museum is, somewhat paradoxically, housed in a beautiful white colonial era building,  Like any museum, parts of it were boring and – in  this case -  all of it was dusty and in need of some serious conservation work. Most moving was the small room, painted entirely black, that houses the blood stained dhoti that the great man wore on the day he was assassinated.  After viewing the exhibition we bought a couple of 2011 diaries with a daily quote from Gandhi as gifts for friends and then plummeted back into the traffic of Madurai.

Next stop was the Meenakshi  Amman temple, dedicated to Shiva and his wife Parvati, in the form of Meenakshi.   This place just about defies words.  It’s huge,  carved throughout, the gigantic gopurum’s at the four entrances are very impressive, the tallest being 170 feet high.  All are entirely covered by intricate carvings, all symbolic in nature and freshly painted when we were there so the colours were riotous.  Once we were blessed by the elephant at the entrance to the temple, we entered the thousand pillar hall and preceded to walk around the entire structure in a clockwise direction. As foreigners, we were not allowed into the inner sanctum, and fair enough too I think as a holy site should not be a tourist attraction.  However many Indian people were queued up to enter the sanctum and pay darshan to the Gods.  And did they queue?  Forever!  The line snaked around and around inside the temple.  At this stage there was a lot of pushing and body odour and it was hot and stuffy, with overwhelming fragrances of vibuthi, sambrani and ghee in the background.  A great many man dressed only in black dhoti’s and a mala were there, we presumed on pilgrimage.  Everyone was friendly and lots of people waved to us and wanted their photos taken with us.  We were just wandering around without a guide or anything, and I must say we didn’t get hassled by anyone to guide us and saw no beggars or anything unpleasant as people warn.  The place was also secure and we went through a scanner and frisk prior to entering. 

Feeling very tired after our few hours investigating the temple, we staggered out the north gate – although we had done nothing at all compared with the people who were still in there queued up – and likely to be so for many hours yet.  We got back into our hire car only to get stuck for quite a long time behind a bus that should never have gone down such a narrow lane and had consequently become stuck.  About a million people had their hands on their car horn, and unfortunately our car got stuck over an open sewer which we realised when our driver got out to go and see what was going on.  Thank goodness for air-conditioning.

Returning to the hotel we were faced with something we hadn’t expected and didn’t want: the full Christmas thing with carol singers, a buffet meal and party hats.  We tried to look enthused but were just too tired, so I feigned a migraine and we hit the sack.  

Day two – Chennai to Madurai

Mental note to self: travel is exhausting, and flying these days really sucks.  We’ve basically lost two days just getting from A to B and it makes me wonder why trains and ships are called ‘slow travel’. Slow maybe, but I find them much more relaxing than flying, moreover flying is not as quick as it once seemed to be.  Get to airport hours early, queue for an eternity, have several anxiety attacks about being in the right place at the right time, get basically undressed to go through security. It tends to eat up most of a day each time when you’re at our age because by the time you’ve been through all that you’re good for nothing much more than a lie down and a handful of drugs.

So anyway we had to do that again today.  Chennai airport was more familiar this time.  The security is very high even- or perhaps especially- for domestic flights.   Or perhaps I should say security is intended to be thorough, but is in fact a bit random.  For Kingfisher Airlines, and Indian airport security, it was evidently pick-on-Jon day.   The first thing that is different about domestic flight security processes here is that everything must be tagged, that includes your handbag, your carry on bags, everything.   Then you go through a metal detector and undergo a relatively serious frisk search that is actually ‘hands on’.  There’s one lane for women and another for men.  I got through quickly and unscathed but emerged to see someone going the grope on Jonnie.  They then confiscated a bottle of water from his carry-on luggage.  Strangely however, my capacious gold shoulder bag went straight through with not one but two large bottles of water in it which I had not realised were banned on domestic flights.  I guess the guy must have looked away at the exact moment my bag went through the scanner, which was good for me at the time but in the long run that’s not too reassuring.  The reason every single bag must be tagged is that they stamp  it to say it has been through security.  Unfortunately, however, they forgot to stamp Jon’s daypack so when we got to the gate to board the plane they sent him back to security.  I waited around and they told me to get on the bus to board the plane, however I refused to leave without Jon so in the end we had a bus all to ourselves which took us out to the Kingfisher airlines plane sitting waiting on the tarmac. I was only slightly disconcerted about flying on airline named after a brand of beer.

The plane was a turboprop, something I haven’t flown on for quite a while, with the two propeller blades out to the sides in full view: kind of fun to board, slightly retro, slightly exciting.   The flight was calm and relatively uneventful, save for the antics of the worst behaved young Indian girls I have ever seen.  I was quite surprised at their loud and uncontrolled behaviour with mum sitting in the seat in front of them ensconced in a Bollywood magazine, oblivious to the noise, seat jumping and crawling about on the floor behind her. I have never seen Indian kids so badly behaved in Australia, they are usually angelic, at least in public. I  was also amused to see a huge advertisement on the bulkhead for “Black Dog” which I presume must be a type of whisky manufactured by Kingfisher,  rather than an advertisement of the ilk “Fly Kingfisher: get depressed”.

The flight banked out over Chennai’s beaches and hugged the coast before turning inland. From the window of the plane I could see the silted delta of what I presumed to be the Cauvery river.  ‘Silted delta’ is a hackneyed phrase but that’s what it was, and nothing describes it better. The long green  river, divided by obvious sandbars stretched below me, surrounded by paddy fields and coconut palms in various green hues.   Another interesting landform was the hills that recalled high school geography classes, being obviously areas where some sort of plates had, eons ago, been pushed upwards against each other revealing ridges of stone and giant boulders.

We landed at Madurai airport and I immediately liked Madurai.   A large bald rock hill, not unlike Uluru, provided an attractive backdrop to the airport and there was no rush and bustle as in Chennai.   The drive into Madurai was like being in a Kollywood movie: groups of schoolgirls with doubled up plaits, flat-bed wooden farm ‘trucks’ drawn by cows or buffalo with huge horns, women walking along the dusty streets in brightly coloured saris, poverty – lots of it, men peeing by the side of the road, and everywhere walls with Tamil script announcing who knows what in large colourful letters.   Eventually, after quite a circuitous route through dusty traffic-clogged streets, past perplexing traffic lights that flashed from yellow to red and back again in less than thirty seconds, and a policeman with an enormous gut attempting to direct traffic in the middle of a dustbowl-come- roundabout, we arrived at the Heritage Hotel Madurai.

The Heritage Madurai is a ‘boutique garden hotel’; lots of heavy teak, stone work and whitewash.  The hotel has a large swimming pool which is modelled on the tank of the Meenakshi temple which is the main drawcard to Madurai.   Our room is enormous, and has its own private plunge pool.  The food is Chettinad in persuasion although the head chef is Sri Lankan and once we got talking to him about food he offered to prepare a special, off the menu traditional Sri Lankan meal for just us.  Looking forward to that. But in the meantime the food is delicious and I had ghee thosai for breakfast.  Staff here are very helpful, without being obsequious but sometimes a little overwhelming in their desire to help.  However things happen quickly as a result and you certainly can’t complain about service that says ‘within one second I will be sending….’.

Day one, 22nd December, Penang to Chennai

Although I have been anticipating going to India for most of my life, I had very mixed feelings the night before leaving our fabulous time in Penang.  However I didn’t really have time to be maudlin because we had to be up at 5:00 a.m. .  Mr Khoo, our sapu (unlicensed taxi driver) was there to meet us, bang on time as always.  He greeted us with his usual, cheery ‘happy morning’.  Humpf, what’s happy at this hour of the day, I thought.  I sat in the back while Jon and Mr Khoo bantered and tried not to be too petulant.

The inauspiciousness of the day was confirmed when we got to Penang airport to find that the computers were down.  This is a regular occurrence in Penang, but not something that you want at 6:00 am when you are trying to just get your boarding pass and pass out on a plane.  We queued for two hours in a maelstrom of Indian people with even more luggage than us, all trying to get to the front of the queue at once. It was guerrilla queuing, and I polished my elbows with the best of them, not being at my cheery and benevolent best at any time that counts as ‘early’. So many of our fellow passengers had huge plasma or lcd tv’s on their trolleys, perhaps they are very expensive or unavailable in Chennai.

By the time we got out of that mess we were tired and grumpy, but the plane did eventually take off and only an hour late: given the queues I had expected worse and was pleased that it took off at all.  We had pre-booked front row seats which cost $10 extra on AirAsia and are worth every cent.  Because nobody else wanted to part with the extra ten bucks, I had three seats together and was able to sleep through most of the flight.   Indian people seem extraordinarily keen to get off a plane, they were jumping up out of their seats while the plane was definitely still taxiing on the runway and one of the flight attendants had to run down and wrestle one woman back into her seat.  Kids,I noticed, were entirely unrestrained.

Next queuing experience was Chennai airport. Another hour or so in the foreigner’s queue gave me plenty of time to people watch.  We were behind a bunch of studious looking Aussies- dressed in out of date, dorky attire which made me prepared to bet they were academics.  A European woman behind me evidently trying to be culturally appropriate or cool, preferably both, was wearing a pink cotton salwar kameez with chikan work but sadly the whole effect was somewhat negated by the fact that the kameez was transparent and she was wearing black skimpy underwear.

We got through immigration with no problem at all (for some reason I always feel like I have something to hide when facing officials) and then faced the phalanx of people at the entrance to the airport about which I had been warned.  At first I thought it wasn’t too bad, and what was all the fuss about, but that was inside the terminal.  Perhaps the drivers aren’t allowed into the terminal at all, but once you turned the corner into the parking area there were literally hundreds of people waiting, all squashed up against barriers on either side of the exit lane.  A lot of these people, at least 150 or so, were holding signs with people’s names on them.  Eventually I found our driver,  but finding the right card made me feel distinctly like I was on a challenge from ‘The Amazing Race’ TV show. Eventually we were spirited away to the Raintree hotel Anna Salai in a comfortable SUV style car, with cool drinks, which were very welcome.

On the drive in from the airport I noted only two cows, some slums, and totally out of control traffic.  I am wondering if I am so acclimatised to bad traffic now after six months in Penang, but it didn’t seem so bad.  No rules followed whatsoever, but not much different to Penang except for two things:  horns (which are rarely used in Penang, but in constant use here) and young men admiring themselves in their car mirrors and doing their hair while driving, whereas in Penang it is all about texting while driving.  The slums looked like slums, and somewhere that I am glad I was not born.  For some strange reason though I caught myself thinking that they didn’t look so bad as the ones I saw in Burma.  Relativity of poverty…. 

The hotel is new, and very comfortable.  Embarrassed to admit that we saw no more of Chennai than the trip in and the view from the rooftop.  Exhausted, fell into bed and slept other than a quick break for in-room pizza (how embarrassing).