Pondicherry to Kovalam

Pondicherry, 5 & 6 January

 It took us about three hours to drive from Chennai to Pondicherry, a former French Colony. Our hotel Maison Perumal was once the home of a wealthy merchant and has now been tastefully restored. 

 Pondicherry is divided into two parts with the French Quarter on one side of a canal (really an open sewer connected to the sea) and the Indian town on the other. The French Quarter is much nicer as it has a seafront promenade and the architecture is French. The Indian side is like many other mid-sized Indian towns.  We spent our first afternoon exploring the Indian part of town and particularly the very colorful and interesting market.

Next morning, we met our tour guide who took us on a walking tour of the French part of the town. 

Of course, besides coming to trade, the French came to convert the locals to Catholicism, so they built three churches, one for themselves, one for the high caste locals and one for the untouchables. 

Of course, there are lots of temples as well. This one is dedicated to Ganesh, the son of Shiva and Parvati born with an elephant's head. This temple has it's very own elephant, which sits outside the temple during the day, accepting offerings of food from the faithful.

We also visited a paper making factory where eveything is done by hand. Here cotton pulp is being strained in a large square strainer to make a kind of felt, which when pressed and dried, becomes paper.

That evening, we went to watch the sunset, only to discover that the sun sets in the west and we were on the east coast, so no sunset. However, there was plenty going on along the promenade.

 On our last day in Pondicherry, Hari our driver took us to a very strange town called Auroville about 10 miles north of the main city. The town was the vision of The Mother from Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry. She envisioned an international town where unity would be celebrated and all would have a spiritual vocation. There are now about 2,300 people living in Auroville - many are French and German.  The town is envisioned very much like a spiritual EPCOT with a center globe with the community radiating from it. However, after more than thirty years, only the Matrimandir, the central "sun" of the complex has been completed.

Tanjore (January 7)

After Pondicherry,our next stop for one night was Tanjore. On the way, we stopped at another impressive temple.

Just before we arrived at the hotel, we stopped to take a picture of these fish for sale.They were very fresh. Some of them there still moving and one of them was still jumping

 That evening, we went to see how bronze is cast. It can't have changed much in thousands of years. I think they were hoping we would buy something but bronze is very heavy and we were being eaten alive by mosquitos, so we didn't hang around for long.

Next morning, on our way out, we saw an ox cart being used to remove sand (illegally) from the river. Another image which seems quite timeless.

Chettinadu (January 9) 

On the way to Chettinadu, we stopped to watch and help a group of farmworkers who were threshing and bagging rice.

Harvested rice goes into the machine and with a little help, bags of rice come out at the other end.

The hotel in Chettinadu, The Vishalam,  was another Heritage property.  It was a private house (known as a Chettiar Bungalow) and has been converted into a hotel. It has a very impressive entrance. That's Hari, our driver, in front with our car, a Toyota Innova. The rooms were huge and the swimming pool was pretty impressive as well.

Chettinadu isn't really a tourist town, but Hari took us on a short tour of the old "palaces" - large private homes really, most of which are in a sad state of decay, but they remain impressive. This one was in better condition than most. It's owned by a member of the Chettiyar family, a very prosperous local family.

We also went for a demonstration of tile making at a tile factory. Everything is hand made and the tiles aren't fired like ceramic tiles. The process uses concrete and a special mix which sets like glass when pressed against a glass mould. Pretty clever stuff !

Madurai (January 10 & 11)

 We spent two nights in Madurai, with sightseeing on the second day. The three things to see in Madurai are a huge "tank", the inevitable temple and the Palace.

 Our last stop in Madurai was the  Puthu Mandapam Palace, built by a local king, Thirumalai Nyak, in the 17th century It was built by an Italian Architect and restored by the British in the 19th century.

 That evening, we went back to the Palace for a Son et Lumiere show, which told the story of the royal family which had built the palace, together with some of the politics and battles which had led to their eventual decline. Before the show started, a large cloud of choking insectide dust was sprayed all around the sides of the audience. I'm sure it killed the mosquitos - I just wonder what it did to us !

Kanyakumari January 12 

Kanyakumari is the southern most point on the Indian subcontinent and the meeting point of three oceans, the Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean. It's on the religious tour route taken by Hindu pilgrims and the place they all come to visit is Vivekananda Rock. On this rock is built a shrine to a wise man and scholar who meditated here at the end of the nineteenth century, before going to Chicago, of all places.  

The rock is reached using a very old and very rusty ferry. They made everyone wear a lifejacket, which wasn't encouraging. Anyway, it was only a short journey and we made it OK.

 From the island, we could see a very pretty white church, so we walked from the ferry terminal to see what it was. It was very impressive from the outside, but very plain inside. The altar was interesting because the Virgin Mary was wearing a sari, something we had seen in other churches.

We only stayed one night in Kanyakumari and the next morning we left for Kovalam.

 Kovalam (January 13, 14 & 15)

On the way to Kovalam, we stopped at an unusual palace called the Padmanabhaswany Palace. It's unusual because it was built by a Rajah from Kerala around 1601 but it's actually in Tamil Nadu. The land is still owned by the government of Tamil Nadu. The other reason it's interesting is because it's built mostly of wood, where most houses and palaces were built with granite.  

 As we waited to buy our tickets, we were besieged by a group of school children who were also visiting the palace. They seemed to think we were something of a novelty and would have waved to us and asked us our names all day if we hadn't escaped ! Now I know how the animals in the zoo feel ! 

We stayed for three nights at the Travancore Heritage Resort, which was located on the side of a cliff. Our room was actually located at beach level, but it took an elevator ride and a steep uphill climb to get to the lobby and the restaurant. 

Although we spent most of our time in the hotel, we did take a morning to go into nearby Trivandrum. The main tourist attraction there is the zoo, which had some impressive animals to see. The zoo was established in 1857 and occupies 55 acres.

But of course, the big animals are always the star attractions

In the same grounds as the zoo is the Napier Museum, which is more impressive on the outside than inside 

 So after three days in Kovalam, we set off, with a new car and driver, to Allepey, to start the next part of our tour in Kerala.