Last post

Last posting from Gwalior - we arrived in Bhopal Mon night after 16 hour train journey - stayed in an ex-palace overlooking the lake. Since then we've been doing the sights of Madhya Pradesh, Buddhist stupas at Sanchi, the oldest stone buildings in India (built by Ashoka 3rd C BC) then 'exquisite' temple in Udayapur - but 4 hours on cart tracks to get there, and Orchha, palaces and other 17th C ruins in Hampi type village. Today drove through Holi celebrants, covered in mostly purple paint, that looks difficult to get off - fortunately just had some village kids spraying us with water not paint. Seen some Jain temples and 'sky-clad' ie naked colossi and are due in Delhi Mon eve for flight home Tuesday. Happy Easter/Holi - see you all soon.

Hyderabad

A busy sightseeing week since the last post - starting with Mysore Maharajah's palace - a bit like a glorified version of the Royal Pavilion in Brighton - we had a whistlestop tour of Bangalore between trains en route. We've seen tons of temples and a few forts , the most impressive site being Hampi - huge 16th century abandoned city stretching over miles of bare rocky hills. We stayed at the site itself - in a atmospheric guesthouse with roof views over the ruins. Hampi's full of newagey types, but was actually very pleasant, even for aging hippies, despite 1-2 hour powercuts every evening. One of our modes of transport round the site was a coracle ride across the river - with 3 motorbikes and 10 people. Now onto Muslim architecture - much more restrained but on a grander scale, in Bijapur and now Hyderabad. Continuing north on Monday to Bhopal. Sorry no pics - we're on emergency (Indian) batteries.

Kochi (Cochin)

We've been doing Kerala in the approved fashion - cruise and overnight stay on a houseboat (private - just us chickens and three servants in proper Raj style) on the backwaters (miles of rivers, lakes and channels not unlike the Norfolk Broads, though with rice paddies, palm trees and sun). Then we stayed in a wildlife park in the hills - lots of animals and birds including an encounter with an elephant which was rather too close for our guide's peace of mind - he had us running away pretty fast. But once again no tigers, though we saw some pug marks and scratch marks on trees.

We're now in Kochi, which is a lovely place, full of spice shops and warehouses and some Dutch and Jewish architecture. There used to be a Jewish kingdom here in the midle ages, oddly enough, though the Jewish community is now very small - only 60 or so. It's also full of so-called Chinese fishing nets - complicated Heath Robinson contraptions for fishing from shore or platforms.

We're heading north now - next stop Mysore in Karnataka on another interminable train ride, via Bangalore.

Kerala "God's Own Country"

according to the Keralans at least - we are now in Kovallam, a rather western dominated resort but beaches are clean and in our case interesting - watched fishermen hauling in fish in a huge net manouevred by about 50 Keralans and a few beefy German tourists.
Since the last post we've been out of Internet contact - firstly staying in a villa by a lake in the Palani Hills and actually going for real walks round the lake, into the hills and up to cave temples. We then went to Madurai - which has been described as the capital of kitsch but liked the temple though the 4 gateways were a little Disney-like. Then moved onto Trivandrum, capital of Kerala, in theory with reserved berths on a sleeper train - but from about 4am thousands (literally) of women carrying firewood and cooking equipment, poured in and several ended up joining us on our berths. When we finally got out of the station, they were lining the streets - each with cooking pot on bricks - then at a signal around 10.30 they all started cooking - it was the annual festival of Pongal. All the roads were closed to traffic and the women hung around by their pots most of the day until Brahmins came up from the temple with holy water in buckets which they sprinkled on the pots after which the women packed up and set off home - lots of numbers were quoted but there were at least 100,000. We've also been down to Cape Comorin, the most southerly point in INdia and seen some rather cosy looking Keralan palaces and also some Kathakali dancing - which I'm afraid we both found incomprehensible and a bit boring.
Off to backwaters and wildlife sanctuary next.

Pondicherry and beyond

hi from Tanjore
We went to Pondicherry last Saturday via temples at Kanchi and a fine hill-top fort at Gingee and spent a couple of days enjoying French food and sort of croissants and coffee, staying at a new-agey hotel (no shoes beyond the front door) . Pondi is a major new age centre, dominated by the cult of Sri Aurobindo and his disciple "The Mother" (French/Egyptian). They own the hotel we were at plus half the other businesses in Pondi, and they are developing a new international city just outside Pondi at Auroville. In fact, the city at present is no more than a few scattered ashrams between the many Tamil villages in the area plus a weird sphere at the centre, which looks like something out of Thunderbirds (for the more mature amongst you) or some 60s sci-fi movie (see above). The inhabitants of the ashrams are also mainly leftovers from the 60s - hippies who presumably found their souls and settled down here.

From Pondi we've been doing some more temple visiting - the Tamil temples are very different from those in Orissa, huge and generally brightly painted, though the older ones are very impressive. We got here (Tanjore) mainly by back roads where along with the usual challenges - cows, dogs, potholes etc the car had to negotiate the local system of threshing - leave a (rice) haystack in the middle of the road and the cars and buses driving over it will separate the rice from the stalks.

We're off to relax in the Cardamom Hills for a few days now, probably out of cyber-contact.

elephant carvings

These are on a huge rock in Mamallapuram covered with gods, animals and the like, called "Arjuna's penance".

This is (we hope) the Mukhtesvara temple in Bhubaneshwar, a classic of the Orissan style and rather different, as you can see, from the Buddhist ones. They're supposed to symbolise the resurgence of Hinduism over Buddhism in the 7th Century or so.

Sorry by the way for the odd method of posting, but it seems easier at this end. Hope it doesn't cause too many problems at your end.

Buddhist temple in Darjeeling

First pix

toy train to Darjeeling

Chennai and Mamallapuram

We're in the real south now after a long train journey in the comparative luxury of 2nd AC (air-conditioned - but not as comfortable as that sounds). Still, we got to Chennai in one piece and fortunately our hotel booking (which we'd cocked up by getting the dates wrong) was also OK despite the fact that all our attempts to change it had seemed unavailing. Chennai's not exactly a travellers' mecca but it was a tiny bit less polluted than Kolkata and a bit richer (less poor) looking. We're now in Mamallapuram, which is something of a travellers' mecca (or at least was) - lovely beaches, fantastic temples and rock carvings etc, but in fact now something of an overpriced dump because of all the travellers (and, according to the locals, all the North Indians who've moved in to do business with them). Off to Pondicherry next for a bit of French cuisine (maybe) and cheap beer (certainly) - we'll try to post some pix, but can't promise it will work.

Orissa - sun, sea and temples

We're in Orissa now, by the sea. The weather is warmer, which is nice (it's been snowing in Darjeeling), but internet access is even slower, which is not. They're blaming a broken cable in the Mediterranean for some reason. Nonetheless we're doing some serious temple viewing - Orissan temples are a style unto themselves, and include the Sri Jagannath temple here in Puri (after which the Juggernaut was named). In fact, Jagannath doesn't look all that frightening, more like a South Park cartoon, with big eyes and a sketchy face. All due to a silly chap who peeped prematurely at the deity so was punished by it remaining unfinished, as they all now are.

It's wedding season here and the streets are full of carts and processions gaily decorated but playing amazingly loud music and holding up all the traffic. Appropriately, perhaps, we went to an "adult" temple today with carvings of all the positions from the Kama Sutra which children aren't supposed to look at - includes girl on girl but not boy on boy action as far as we could see.

No pix still I'm afraid because of the broken cable problem. We're off on a 20 hour train journey to chennai on sunday, for some really warm weather.

Back from the sunderbans

Republic day greetings from a rather soggy Kolkata - back where we started and having a rest day before train to BHubaneshwar, Orissa to see the temples.
Came down from Darjeeling by jeep - quicker than toy train but still several hours on horrendous roads, via misty Mirik lake. Renewed our acquaintance with station rice plates (thalis) and sleeper class travel, then successful transfer to sunderban Tiger Camp bus with a couple of Germans and a dozen middle class Indians with loads of camera equipment. Afraid we didn't see one of the 287 man-eating tigers, but chugged round mangroves and saw wild boar, deer and two lovely river dolphins. Also treated to film explaining why Sunderban tigers like human flesh (at least 5 theories) and folk dances and interminable theatre production (an extra), but this is what we came for, I suppose...

M&P

Darjeeling

No pix, I'm afraid, because the cybercafe we're using won't allow them. But we're now in Darjeeling in the rather misty Himalayas - mountain views but only sporadically. We're staying at a very Raj style hotel called the Windamere (sic) , which serves aft ernoon tea, has coal fires and hot water bottles! Very welcome after a night on the sleeper from Kolkata, hours wait for the Toy train which takes you very slowly up to Darjeeling and in practice fell off the track half way up. No great problem though - they just got lifting equipment, put it back on and set off again and we got here eventually.

We spent today looking round Bu ddhist monasteries, which are likely to be in short supply later on our trip and generally feeling nostalgic about Nepal, which this a rea resembles - to the extent that the strongest political party round here (and the noisiest) is the Gurkha Liberation front. However, what really turns the Darjeelingites on is the Voice of India competition (a sort of sub-teenage Indian Pop Idol) in which they're rooting for the local girl, Prakriti Giri " dragon of the hills", who's about 10 years old.

about to go

Almost past the point of no-return and feeling slightly nervous about setting off again after 30+ years to 'do' the bits of India we missed last time. Visas and jabs acquired and flights arranged We have used an agent for the first bit - going to the Sunderban Tiger Reserve - the Rough Guide described a really complicated route involving several trains and ferries as well as permit requirements and other bureaucratic complications, which we weren't sure we were up to on arrival. Potential problem of groups (we are travelling round in a 'shared boat') being too noisy and frightening off the wild-life but we'll see how we get on and maybe try and get to the southern Indian reserves more independently. We've also booked the toytrain up to Darjeeling and a hotel described in the Rough Guide as living on its past glories - but hopefully with views of the Himalayas - we'll let you know.

So off at crack of dawn on Wednesday from London City airport via Frankfurt to Kolkata. Will try and do justice to this blog that Craig's set up for us.

Penny and Malcolm