Chennai, Mamallapuram and all things poopy

Here is the palace that I did not see (was too busy barfing in the bathroom), Nate said it was incredible inside...especially the inlaid ivory designs in the doors.





The market in Mysore was great.




We strolled around looking at stall after stall of spices, oils, incense fruits and vegetables. When the 2 girls we were with and I stopped at the bangles stall, Nate had had enough and headed to the INTERNET cafe. We bought bangles and ankle bracelets and learned that a married Indian woman always wears toe rings. So I bought one, just to keep the men at bay! I get stared at a lot, and am endlessly being asked if people can take their picture with me. I feel like a bit of a minor celebrity actually. Women kiss my hand and cheek, men fall all over themselves taking my picture. At the beach I had a line up of men taking video film of me. A bit creepy actually.


Anyway, we left for the night train at 7pm by autorickshaw (a scooter with a buggy attached to carry people in - better known as a tuk tuk in other countries). The train was surprisingly clean and there were no babies in bed with me in the morning! I guess we were in first class.Let me pause here to talk a it about caste - so that some of the things I allude to are kept in context. Most Indians are Hindu, and in that faith there are several "castes" of people. The highest caste are the priests and teachers. Below that come doctors and engineers (government type jobs are held by this caste), then come the "slaves" to the two highest castes...people who work in the service industry. At the bottom are the untouchables. No one will hire them. They live on the streets, and beg. The caste system is still well entrenched in India - regardless of what many people will tell you, however, it is improving, and now even some untouchables have decent jobs.

The train arrived in Chennai in the morning, and as we drove along the seashore, I expressed an interest in stopping briefly at the beach. This beach was not on our itinerary,, and I quickly learned why. We walked across a huge brown sandy beach - much like Daytona or Miami beach towards the water...there was garbage everywhere of course, so that did not seem too weird. I got to the waters edge and kicked off my shoes and stomped in up to my knees. It was so warm...but the water was really murky. When I turned around and looked back at the edge of the water where it meets the shore, I saw a line of what I thought was brown seaweed. Taking a closer look, I realized it was piles and piles of human feces - washed ashore - like seaweed might! Interestingly, they were all well formed stools and I am thinking the Indians have an easier time with the spicy food than those in our tour who are living on Imodium!






Back to the van we headed (rather quickly), deciding a day at the beach was not so good of an idea. In the sand on the walk back was lying the carcus of a dead sheep - eyes eaten out, bloated and covered in flies. As we drove along the road that runs along the sea there were rows of huts and shacks - clearly a slum, and it became obvious the sea was the slums toilet. The next day I actually read an article in the Chennai newspaper titled DEADLY BACTERIA OUTBREAK AT CHENNAI BEACH...something about deadly levels of fecal coliform in the water (no shit Sherlock!!)

The next town we stayed in for 2 days AND IT HAD A POOL!!! Oh my God we were happy. We spent the entire afternoon in the pool - all of us except Nathan of course who was in the room with the air conditioner at full blast reading Japanese Mangas on the computer (Sigh). This was a very lovely seaside town called Mamallapuram. We took a bike riding tour here of four different styles of temples. They were all lovely, but I must confess, the guide lost me about 1 minute into his talk at the first temple as I was beginning to melt into a puddle of soft flesh...I swear it was 1000 degrees, and his words about the ancient way of carving stone into elephants kept sounding like "must have water or will die!" Then came the line up of Indian tourists wanting to take my picture. At one point two Indian women were holding my hands, kissing my cheeks, and calling my "baby" and telling me they loved me. It was very weird. As I was leaving the temple compound I felt the urge to do the Queen Elizabeth wave to the adoring crowd...

We also had lots of time here to shop - and so I went to the tailor and had three tops made for my saris back home. I had brought the fabric with me, knowing i could get them done cheap and quick here. I also bought the most amazing bedspread from Kashmir...all hand quilted and beaded with tiny sea shell. It is a stunning work of art! (Sorry forgot to take a picture before I had it shipped). However, I did take the guys card if you ever see mine and decide you must have one of your own! We also went to the beach there - which was surprisingly clean (relatively), and Nate and I frolicked a bit creating quite a stir. We would never have gone in the water had we known about the bacteria problem (which also affected the beaches in this area).

Speaking of shopping, I have noticed a similar thing here as I did on Ghana. Everyone seems to sell the same thing. It is like each town has its own "industry." Baskets, cloth, pots, carvings, furniture, jewelery, oil etc...anyway, as we were touring on our bikes (more on this later), we would be approached by sellers of course, flogging their wears - here it was small rock carvings made of soapstone. I would be polite and tell the sellers that I had no room in my suitcase. The clever ones would suddenly pull out a box full of miniature carvings. I was impressed, however, I still did not want to buy...seemed like something you would just loose within days. This one little boy was relentless though, he followed me from place to place, insisting that I buy one. I started to get frustrated because I was so bloody hot and thirsty and finally, I lost it...my loud speech to the street sellers went something like this: "Why are you all trying to sell me rocks? I am dying of thirst! I am melting. Why don't you buy those cheap battery operated fans from China? I would pay $20 for one of those right now! How about a cold beer? I am melting for God's sake - do I really look like I want to carry a load of rocks?!!

The young boy who had followed me around,just stared at me and responded with "this rock real cheap...only 100 rupees! I was impressed by his stamina (especially in this heat), and I noticed he had one of the small carvings tied around his neck on a small black string....then it hit me...I cannot lose it when it is around my neck. So I told him...if you want to sell more stones, put them on strings...people will buy them...and I promise, you will sell 10 times as many as the other boys. So he ran off, and 20 minutes later he was back with a box full of small carvings and a handful of string. I was his first customer, and I have a lovely soapstone Ohm tied around my neck!

Something else I have bought is oils. At the markets here you will find all manner of essential oils at incredible prices. I would brink back a gallon of must if I could! I got chatting with one of the sellers of oil, and before you know it, Julie, one of my travelling mates from Switzerland, and I are in the back of his shop and he is giving us a private demonstration on how incense is made. He made us each a stick while we were there and gave it to us as a gift. He was a young man - maybe late twenties, and spoke about a dozen languages. He knew the names of all the big cities in practically every country we talked about (along with the language). he said people from Europe come and buy litres of his oil for perfume making.


I have to go now...another tour to another temple (in the blistering heat - again). I will post more when we return, as well as upload some pics both onto this post and the previous post - so be sure to go back and take a look.