This gallery contains 20 photos.
Arrived in Kochi, ancient spice port and host to the first Portugese colonial presence in India. Spread over islands and amidst backwaters. Wander through crumbling colonial buildings: greens and clubhouses, churches and graveyards, warehouses and bungalows. Amongst traditional Hindu, and … Continue reading
In Alappuzha after a few days at a Sivananda ashram learning a little yoga, which the heavy emphasis on satsangs led me to cut it short. It felt good to arrive here and I was excitied to see a big festival breaking out as the bus finshished off the last of my vertebrae. In the countryside groups of women and girls in different costume were gathering and rows of oil lamps were being lit along the approaches to temples as dusk fell.
Alappuzha (formerly Allepey) is built between the sea and a huge lake, from which backwaters and canals stretch for many miles. Boat trips amongst these are the star attraction of the region. Lord Curzon proclaimed it the venice of the east a century ago, haha. The world must have been a beautiful place then.
The local temple were playing deafeningly loud trad-pop music until 12am last night and this morning started up again at 4am, to the otherwise quiet, sleeping streets around. A point the guesthouse neglected to mention as I booked in. Surely this can’t be defended on the grounds of centuries old tradition.. Damn the twentieth century! I have a feeling the playlist’s on a loop. This is a quiet residential area! I was up before 6 yesterday! Maybe it’s time to flee this crazy country.
Resting up in Varkala a few days, in a peaceful guesthouse by the coast.
Zoroastrianism was the religion of the Iranian peoples before Islam came with the Invasion from Arabia. Some, especially around Yazd, have held to it. Much of it’s tradition was adopted by later religions. It brought on a radical change in attitude that saw Cyrus I write what is seen as the first declaration of human rights, the Cyrus Cylinder, and follow policies of tolerance and respect to many peoples once he’d conquered them. There aren’t records of that happening before in the ancient world.
Chak Chak is the most holy of the mountain shrines. Tradition has it that pilgrims are to stop the moment they see the sight of the temple and continue their journey on foot the rest of the way. Our driver impatiently beeped them out of the way as he drove us up as close as he could possibly get to the shrine, in his beat up car with it’s cracked wind screen and dead dashboard. He smiled and shrugged to the protesting old man along the way, relaying the incident with evident surprise to our guide, who arrived later. Men and women are meant to cover their heads inside the shrine, but foreigners and guides seemed exempt. There was some more shrugging and garrulous grinning aimed at the shrine caretaker, I couldn’t understand the precise details of the exchange, but that was the upshot.
After 6 weeks on the road I found my tropical beach, at Kovalam.
The 16th international film festival of Kerala just started, got a delegate pass, so I’m staying a few days :).
After a second day of 5-7hr bus journeys I reached Kanyakumari, the southern tip of India, from Kodaikanal, in the Western Ghats (hills, at 2000m). Civil disturbances over the Mullapperiyar dam issue between Tamil Nadu and Kerala had closed roads and prevented a trek across the border to Munnar. Keralans are worried the 100yr old dam might burst and cause disaster, as helpfully dramatised by a current movie “Dam 999”, whilst Tamils depend on the water from the dam for much of their supply, and fear terrible drought if it is to be rebuilt.
My room in the state run TTDC hotel has several lizards in. The sea view is serene, but it’s humid. I head to the typically dingy a/c bar and get a beer, served with several complimentary tapas, as customary. It’s a Sandpiper, better than the ubiquitous Kingfisher, or super strength 10,000 bar staff seem eager for me to take. Bars are a totally male preserve, other than tourists, nearly always in basements with no natural light. Sometimes they have quirky themes, like ‘Wild West’ or ‘Apollo 6’, and often more staff than customers, though service is still slow. But after 7hrs hurtling down the country in a suspension-less bus it’s worth it for a cold beer.
Kanyakumari is full of groups of male pilgrims in orange or black dhotis (loin cloths, as Gandhi wore) and holiday makers. The streets are lined with market stalls. An island with a colossal statue is just off shore, sun too bright to make out any detail, Indian tourists swim and play in the sea, some make devotions. It’s very hot, despite being winter. There’s an ancient pillared granite sun shelter, though during summer the rock must get too hot to touch. I check out and catch the 1030 train to Trivandrum, capital of Kerala.
Once capital of Persia and seat of the Safavid dynasty from 1598, which peaked early under Shah Abbas before falling to alcohol and lazy harem dwelling ways. The last Safavid Shah, Hosein, decreed “taverns, coffee houses and brothels to be closed, banned prostitution, opium, ‘colouful herbs’, sodomy, public music, dancing, gambling and kite flying, and women from mixing with men that were not relatives.”(1) But he went on to become alcoholic, and to collect hundreds of women from across the empire into his harem, before falling from power.
Isfahan soon had a resurgance, to became a city greater than Londonm with 550,000 populationm under Nader Shah, who banned the abduction of women for the harem and concentrated on military conquest. He defeated the Mughals, the Ottomans and others in numerous battles and raised the largest army in the world, of 375,000 soldiers. But he also fell to alcoholism and madness, after ordering his son be blinded for a suspected plot. These days Iran is again a dry state, and upholds nearly all Hossein’s decrees, but for that against kite flying (2).
Isfahan’s population shrank to less than 50,000 amidst the brutal chaos that followed Nader’s death, falling to seige and Afghan occupation. It’s inhabitants had suffered before: In 1387 Isfahan surrendered to the Turko-Mongol warlord Timur (Tamburlaine), who ordered the massacre of city residents, his soldiers killing 70,000 citizens and constructing more than 28 towers, each of 1,500 heads.
A beautiful city, the most beautiful I’ve seen so far.
(1)Axworthy: Iran, Empire of the Mind
(2) http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070910082938.0nbc8ddu&show_article=1
Lightning lit the clouds as we descended into Chennai airport, a week or so ago. The guy who booked me a taxi explained there was heavy flooding in Tamil Nadu and a cyclone was on it’s way. Mixed with heavily potholed roads and crazy traffic of all kinds, animal, mineral and vegetable, it made for a memorable ride the 60km to Mamallapuram, with dawn breaking as we arrived. The cyclone never hit, as such, but it feels to me I’ve been in it’s eye since arriving, just now coming out the other side, still spinning but remembering what it’s like to have my balance.
Along the way have been the wonderful people, some (not all..) wonderful food and rarely a moment away from the din of traffic, a cacophony of horns, conductor’s whistles, engines, music, yells and more besides. So, I started with a really cheap room and have worked my way up to mid-range places that appear as I’d imagine ex-luxury hotels in socialist states like cuba or venezuela. From about 400 rupees (£5, still twice the very cheapest) to 2500 rupees at the present place, in incremental steps.
Fantastic sights: tropical scenery, colourful built environment, fashion and amazingly diverse vehicles, cottage industries of all sorts, mammals of various types all over the place. And quite bizarre, to my untrained ear, music, as well as the more familiar indian pop which buses tend to supply as a soundtrack. Marred by poverty, plastic waste, sewage. Touting and begging has not been as overwhelming as I feared it may be, so far, but still takes some getting to grips with.
Now, having had to stay an extra night to get the first available train reservation to Madurai (my second, mostly I’ve used buses), I’m on my way – via this city – into the countryside: the 2000m hill station of Kodaikanal. Back to a nice cheap hostel and less extraordinarily bustling environment, in what all locals who I’ve mentioned it to believe to be one of the most beautiful parts of the region. Maybe I can trek to Munnai in Kerala from there, if I’m lucky enough to find a group to join, but by whatever means this more rural state will be my next destination.