Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu (in the foreground a sunrise/sunset viewing platform)Well, it looks like I am now in North India, or at least this is where the guidebook for southern India stops. To get here I have traveled along the coast of India to the southern most tip and then up along the coast on the opposite (eastern) side.
After leaving
Kovalam, I headed straight to
Kanyakumari, which is the town at the southern most point on the Indian Subcontinent. It was a short ride from
Kovalam, and I got there early in the morning. Just in time to watch the thousands of tourists coming back from the various viewpoints where they caught the sunrise. As I was so early I just took a couple of pictures and continued on. The town itself is a major stopping point for Indian tourists and pilgrims. It is a very significant spiritual place for the Hindus. As such there is a major Hindu temple at the very tip as well as memorial building to Gandhi and a huge statue of
Thiruvalluvar a Tamil poet, which is India's "Statue of Liberty" (says so in the Lonely Planet!). One of the major surprises was once I was headed north I started to go through areas full of wind turbines, something which for some strange reason looked completely out of place, but on hindsight, made perfect sense, it is after all a very windy area.
Rameswaram (Ramanathaswamy Temple), Tamil NaduThe roads had gotten pretty bad nearly the moment I got into Tamil
Nadu so the going was slow, but I decided to head to
Rameswaram, which I thought looked like a pretty cool place on my map. Getting there on the back roads was an adventure in itself. The advantages of which were that there was little traffic, and you got to go through a lot of little villages where no-one had ever seen any tourists. Plenty of little very colorful temples and plenty of fields, rice, sugarcane and the like. I had hoped to get more of a glimpse of the ocean, but no luck. Basically the same as in most of India, the area along the coast isn't really accessible and certainly not developed.
Indira Gandhi bridge, Rameswaram, Tamil NaduMy reasoning for coming here was simply to see what there was here. On the map it looks like there is a road which almost makes it to
Sri Lanka. An area noted as Adams Bridge. But to get here, I first had to cross one of India's engineering marvels the Indira Gandhi bridge which connects the
Rameswaram Island to the mainland. The town itself is another pilgrim site with a very important Hindu temple in the middle of town. I really enjoyed
Rameswaram, there is basically nothing there other than this temple, a small fishing harbour and water all around. No tourist (western), and plenty of opportunities to enjoy some excellent South Indian cuisine for a pittance.
Masala Dosa anyone?
Fishermen in Dhanushkodi (Rameswaram), Tamil NaduI set up in a "cosy" hotel in the middle of town, with a great little garage to keep my bike under wraps and walked around the temple twice, watching the pilgrims. The following day I rode the bike to the end of the road. Unfortunately the road ends 4km or so before the "end of the road", so I had to turn around. I wasn't up for a long hike in the sand, and my bike hates sand. So instead I spent the morning watching the local fishermen/women pulling in the days catch. After 3 and a half hours they had gotten the net in and in the end carried 70 loads of fish (see picture above).
Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu (note the red kepi (cap) on the policeman!)The following day I rode to
Pondy (
Pondicherry), and ex French colony on the east coast of India. Cecilia had been here a couple of weeks previously and had told me that it was really a great place. She was right. I really enjoyed it. It might have something to do with the fact that there was a Pizza Hut in town! The town is a cross between New Orleans French Quarter and the run of the mill Indian hustle and bustle. The old French part of town is clean and orderly and has very beautiful historic buildings, and street names and signs in French. The "Indian" part of town is where all the commerce and action is. There is a nice sea front with a large statue to Gandhi, but unfortunately no beach.
Since Cecilia had just informed me that she was ordering tires for the bikes I agreed to join her in
Puri so that we would only have to do a single order. Unfortunately, I neglected to pay attention to exactly how far away that was, and my tires were not in very good shape. I had originally planned to do it here. But since it was just as easy to order 4 as 2 tires I opted for a quick ride north, hoping that the tires would hold.
Two days later I was in
Puri, just in time for the
Holi festival. The ride north was uneventful, other than I hit a bus and a rickshaw hit me. No damage to me in either case. The bus didn't notice, and the rickshaw scratched and dented part of his front quarter. I didn't bother stopping and continued, as it was in the middle of traffic going into Chennai, and wasn't my fault anyway. The first day after
Pondy I stopped in Vijayawada a middle size town, with a huge Krishna river flowing nearby. I did a little sightseeing around town, nothing particularly exiting to report, just a busy town. Apparently there are a number of temples around, but as usual, I missed them. Early the following morning I took off, and rather than stopping I decided to go ahead and do the whole ride (840km). Well, it looked like a good idea at the time! The roads north of Chennai were excellent, and with the exception of 50km or so at and after the border to
Orissa the roads were fine. There isn't much scenic value, just plenty of towns (small and large), broken up with fields, lots of traffic, heat and dust. So I was very glad to get the
Puri. My tires had held, and I had no additional run-ins with the locals.
The Jagannath Mandir temple, Puri, OrissaPuri turns out to be a major tourist magnet. There is a very important temple here for the Hindus, there is a beach for Indian tourist from
Kolkata and western tourists from everywhere. Also, nearby is the Sun Temple at
Konark, which is world Heritage site. The Indians, take advantage of the beach and the temple to combine their
spiritual duties with a bodily holiday. When I got here the first thing I noticed was that there are a lot of religious "types" running around, and I am not talking about the normal Hindu pilgrims which for the most part are indistinguishable from normal tourists. What I am
referring to are westerners seeking religious enlightenment or
exercising some kind of religious duties here. I am loath to call them "Hare
Krishnas", but basically a lot of people dressed in some kind of Indian clothing (something like a pyjamas gone crazy; one day I will find out what these things are called) carrying a bag on their right had containing prayer beads, and lots of chanting. Did I mention most have their hair shaved. What exactly they are doing here escapes me. And to be honest I am not all that interested. But here they are.
The local tourist stay at one end of the beach, the western tourists at the other, and rickshaw drivers take everyone to the center of town where the temple is. At one end of the beach there is a boardwalk (at least and Indian version of it).
As a quick side note. On the day I got here an America tourist had entered the inner temple. This is a major breach of temple protocol. The result of which, the days food had to be destroyed (they buried it), as it had been "defiled" by the entrance of a non-Hindu into the temple. Additionally, the American was fined 209rs for a purifying ritual (around 5$). The event was followed by a number of articles in the local papers, regarding that there should be more signs, better security, he should have been fined more money, etc. etc. What got me was that apparently a temple priest had helped him gain entrance, as had been captured by video cameras. They are still arguing about what kind of punishment the priest should be subjected to. Something which the temple administration has to do since there is nothing illegal about what happened. So the non-Hindus go to take pictures from the roof tops of adjacent buildings, and have a look at the Hindu pilgrims.
The result of Holi festivitiesI got here late on Friday and Saturday I relaxed, on Sunday then I decided to have a look at the
Holi festival. My view of it was basically a number of young men, on foot, on bicycles or moped, dousing anyone in their path with colors, and giving them a hug and wishing them a "Happy
Holi". Another variation of it was mixing the color with water and spraying it on anyone who passes by, yelling Happy
Holi. I didn't have to go far to enjoy the celebration, just outside the hotel was a major
Holi spot. Some tourist would take a rickshaw and ply the strip and get colored from all sides (the driver or peddler also). To my surprise a lot of tourists were holed up in the hotel, fearing the revelers in the street. The excuses were that the paints used would take up to 3 days to go away, to that some of the paints were "toxic". Also very noticeable was the large police presence. Apparently, according to the newspaper the next day, they were there to insure that the revelers would not paint any tourists who did not agree to it. The festivities came to an abrupt end at 13:00 and life went back to normal. The stains on the street are still visible a week later, and in my case the paint came off with a single wash. Although to be fair, I must note that in a couple of cases reported in Delhi, there were in fact some victims of "toxic" paint. Causing scarring and some "disfigurement". In the past apparently this used to be a major problem, as they were using, real paint, mixed with mud,
turpentine, or other agents, some which took very long to fade. Many of which caused skin problems or worse. But the trend in recent years has been to go with water soluble and natural dyes which cause no problems. So maybe some of the tourists were justified in their worries.
Sand sculptures, Puri, Orissa
