NO RASH DRIVING

"No rash driving" is one of the helpful signs along the roads of Tamil Nadu, along with "Avoid Honking" and "Don't Overspeed."   Ha!  No actually, drivers in South India have to be exceptionally good and careful drivers, because every 2 lane road can suddenly be a four lane road (your lane is the shoulder, all the others are coming at you fast) and speeds of traffic range from Oxcart pulling load of building sand to Supersonic.  Honk, honk!  We have become very used to this noise, which no longer makes us scared or think someone is mad at us or particularly cares what we do, except avoid them. And we spent the last 2 days with a very nice driver "Steven Raj" in a very comfy sedan with great shock absorbers.  The local countryside has been pretty, rice fields, rivers, bullock carts, bicycles, and towns which rarely get tourists stopping in them based on the excitement when Craig and I stopped at a coffee stand.  And I bought a pack of Maria cookies and made the mistake of offering cash in my LEFT hand.  shocked the recipient terribly. Since we don't have this custom it's SO easy to make a left handed mistake.

One of the great pleasures of the last two days is we unexpectedly stumbled into ceremonies at the temples we have been visiting.  Steven Raj took us to the temples we wanted to see, the incredible Darasuram which was deserted and lovely in early morning, and he added/suggested a few others that are especially venerated here, like the one in Swamimalai (which we sought out for its bronze casting).  Swamimalai  includes a very special temple on 3 levels up a hill. Quite lovely quite different

AND, the Swamimalaie has an unexpected bonus, just inside the temple there is a stand, it's Poompuhar, the state arts and crafts shop, selling really quality costume jewelry, at the entrance! Clearly not directed at us foreign tourists, and, I'm not quite sure why a woman Indian tourist would want to buy costume jewelry in the temple, but this was a great shop. And cheaper than the one in Tanjavur!  SO, I loaded up. fake rubies, fake emeralds and lots of "gold". Gold bangles, gold necklaces. The cost of true gold has gone so high, due to the economic crisis, that indian women who already have gold must be twice as rich. Everyone seems to know exactly today's spot price for gold! So, fake gold for me.

The last night we were in Thanjavur, we went again to one of the most beautiful temples there is, the Brihadishwara temple, where there was a large crowd and the priests were bathing the 30 foot high Nandi (the sacred bull that is part of Shiva, the lord of creation) in water, ghee and milk, over and over, with chanting and prayers, followed by some dancing by a male dancer in honor of Shiva and then some dancing by what I would call the 'keiki hula' - several troupes of local schoolage girls with lovely costumes and hair decorated with shiny ribbon rosettes and lots and lots of fragrant white and orange flower garlands.  And the day after, as we drove up to our final destination Mahaballipuram, Stevenraj took us to the country temple of Ganga...cholapuram, all that's left of the capital of the Chola empire after they had expanded all the way up to the river Ganges (!) (a REALLY long way), and there was an elaborate cleaning of the Lingam of this temple, and there was a wedding!

One of the cool things is seeing the blend of old and new.  Every temple that has a sacred object in the innermost sanctum that gets bathed in ghee or milk or water or all, has a drain that comes out the lower side of the temple, into a special tank.  Even though in many temples non Hindus can't see this, the tourist may suddenly see slightly orange buttery fluid coming down. Well this day in Ganga...cholapuram, they were cleaning the temple thoroughly for a major festival the next day, so, they had threaded a modern hose back UP the drain into the temple so that they could do a great precleaning! These temples are about as old as Chartres cathedral and have statuary as lovely as renaissance ones, and so to see a bright green hose suddenly alongside all the old stuff, is kinda funny!

For whatever reason, the wedding was one, the upcoming festival another, and people going to the city (we went through Pondichery which is a big town), we saw a LOT of lovely gold bordered saris on the women today,  one woman wore a midnight blue sari spangled with small gold stars and then the broad gold border, it looked like the night sky. it was Beautiful! and she was seated side saddle on the back of the motorcycle, holding on to her tiny baby.

During this trip, I have almost entirely been wearing Indian clothes, the Salwar kameez, which is a loose blousy tunic over loose trousers and with a scarf (dupatta) worn around the neck. Let me tell you the outfit's great but the scarf, TORTURE at times! yet not a single woman over the age of 15 ever, ever wears this without the scarf part.  In the car I'd whip it off but going into temples I had to quickly put it back on.  You can make it just a little less torture by spreading it out one layer thin... Anyway most of the time we've seen virtually no tourists and I've met another european woman who also wore the salwar, but, as we got to places more frequented by tourists, I'd see the women in their sleeveless tanks and shorts with white flabby legs, and it looked so creepy!  I totally recommend to try to wear the salwar kameez while traveling, I do think it got us nice reception, I think many times priests would invite us in to get a blessing partly for the kindness and partly for the expected donation but also because we were dressed right.  But now, we are in the first real 'backpacker tourist' town we have been in, and I am finally wearing khaki pants again! and little light tops with no dupatta!

While I've really liked trying out local clothes, it has made me VERY aware of its restrictiveness.  The men can wear light western style cotton shirts, and shorts; the women are really limited by the yards they wear and I feel 10 lbs lighter now that I'm out of it. On holiday, the upper class women tourists we met at the homestays quickly switched into jeans and shirts!   But in public, it was SO rare to see this.  So it was interesting to know how many of them wore both, and in relaxation mode, preferred the western stuff.  I hated trying to use the restroom, keeping all these blousy pants and long trailing dupattas and long tunics from getting wet in that already wet environment. it's truly an art to wear these clothes.  I need a tutor!


Mamallipuram:

We are living for 600 rupees a night ($13.50) in a great little hotel/restaurant in Mahaballipuram, a seaside town, it's a 2 story open air restaurant and we have one of two small rooms on the upper level, two twin beds, a fan and bathroom.  Warm! our first nights w/o A/C.  But we are so happy to have the sound of the waves in our ears at night and we get fresh fish and prawns twice daily for about $20 for a very large prawn meal.  Not super cheap but super fresh!!!

I quite like the sculptures at Mahaballipuram, they are spread out slightly as the town has a small granite hill, and several granite hillocks, and each of the solid granite hillocks that seemed appropriate for it, got carved into a temple, in AD 600.  And sides of the granite hills got carved INTO, to make manmade temple shaped carves, LARGE ones, with pillars all of which have carved animals in them (like lions, mostly).  And some of the large stones are carved into lifesize elephants, and larger than lifesize Nandi bulls.  Craig will I'm sure be posting stock photos of these.  The hillsides sometimes also have been carved into bas relief murals and they are so human. although they show mythical figures, they are in fluid motion and show family type scenes sometimes.  And one of the murals is about the way a hero figure did 'penance' which means doing a sort of torture in order to win special privileges to the gods... and in one corner of this, a CAT is smugly doing the same type of penance, in front of a group of admiring rodents! I presume the cat is seeking the power of overcoming its food easily.

Speaking of food.... our last day of Indian food for a while.  Craig has loved it, I've liked it. To me a disappointment has been that most dishes we've gotten have been basically potatoes, rarely cauliflower, and some green bean/carrot combinations. This is disappointing because in the markets I see okra, eggplant, chayote squash, and other vegetables for sale, and I have NO idea how to ask for these in meals.  And, here in Mahaballipuram, our restaurant which focuses on fish,  mainly has delightful french fried potatoes and can give me some curd (yoghurt) with cucumbers and spices, the local raita.  But I know that Tamil food includes other dishes and someday I hope to find them. I know Shubha's made them for us.

We have enjoyed lots of the food though, and especially some Chettinad dishes which are Tamil Nadu but contain meat.  Craig has loved everything, I think. I am just a bit overwhelmed by bread and potatoes, after having worked so hard to get my 20lbs off eating leaner food and lower carbs and fresh veggies.  So when we get back I am hoping to have some large recognizeable vegetables!  Artichokes, tiny green beans, and whatever is in my garden. And lettuce.

Today we have a few more ruins to see, as soon as it hopefully gets cooler, and may take a walk up the beach further than the current part which is a little stinky smelling, and have one more fish dinner and then, to the airport.

And, we are wandering around town, admiring the thousands of stone sculptures made here.  Those little lacy stone globes and eggs that show up in Berkeley that look chinese?  From Mahabalipuram!  Along with millions of delicately carved deities in black basalty stone, a green olivine stone and some smoother pale marbley limestony rock.  And, every other store is run by Kashmiris, who generally have their wives and kids still in Kashmir, and are here to sell you the local specialties as well as rugs, pashmina scarves, silk scarves, and 'it might be' silk scarves.   We met one of the Kashmiri patriarchs, a cool guy who sold Craig a great antique or maybe antique lapis ring.

Well this is already Friday, October 22nd, and it will be our last posting day because tonight, at 2 am, we start home!  for a full 24 hours we will be flying, and yet when we arrive in San Francisco, it will still be Saturday afternoon!

SOOOO sad to be leaving. We have loved this trip to India.  A whirl of color ful events and people, lots of very varied experiences, really lovely sculptural art, welcoming homestays with very cool people, a few surprise festivals and parades, and a great experience of this vibrant country which is so proud of its economic success and the place of respect it has now among the other nations. People love to hear that we like it and it's clear they are very proud of their technological boom and their educational opportunities and it's been really fun to have so many strangers approach us to get our opinion of their country.