Summary day 03

Monday 20 January

Chennai – Bengaluru

Today we continue our journey from the east coast to the south west, from Bengaluru through Mysuru to stay for two nights in a nature reserve (hopefully to see monkeys, elephants and even tigers!) in Wellington, between Ooty and Coonoor. About 180 miles/4 hours driving. But first, Matthew wanted to see the garden festival in Bengaluru.

After breakfast Vaishakh was waiting for us and we drove to Lalbagh Botanical Garden to look at the flower show in the glasshouse (which really reminded me of a miniature Covent Garden market building). The park was lovely – very obviously designed by the British colonialists. The garden show was nice – not too busy and as well as the formal displays there were stall selling food, gardening paraphernalia and food.

Breakfast at the Raddisson Blue was served from 0730 and we were up, packed and ready to eat so we could get away early. Our room was lovely and included a pod coffee machine – we had some soya milk in little pots, so we could have coffee as soon as we were awake.

Vaishakh had been on his phone quite a bit and he said that he had a surprise for us – I thought that he’d set up a video call with Bharath and Shubhi back in the UK. Anyway, while I was preoccupied reading about some of the mythical stories that inspired the flower display, Vaishakh tapped me on the shoulder and said “I want you to meet someone.” I turned around and there was Shubhi! I was amazed!! I knew that Shubhi’s family lived in Bengaluru and I knew that she was coming to to India, but we were talking she’d said she was returning to the UK on 15 January, so we thought that we’d miss each other. Last night when we were driving to the market and Bugle Rock Park, Vaishakh had said that we were in the area that it was where Shubhi lived – I asked him if he’d seen her when she was here in India a few weeks ago. He said “No, I didn’t know that she was here.“ I was a little mystified by this, but didn’t pursue it. I just him that she had been here, but that I thought that she’d gone back to the UK last week. Now we know that this was all a big fib and that Shubhi had decided to stay on in India and they’d been plotting for this moment all along – the pair of scamps!

It was such a wonderful surprise to see Shubhi – she looked so beautiful in her blue Sari and we talked about Bengaluru and the flower show and what she’d been doing in India. We had some delicious street food: fresh mango with salt and a little curry powder, some popped rice with onion and tomatoes; we also tried gooseberry tea (yuk). We talked about Barath and his work. We visited some of the stalls. We saw some more monkeys in the park and we watched some of the park rangers capturing a big snake that was in the grass and putting it in a white bag. Shubhi assured me that the rangers would take the snake to the woods, away from people and release it – not kill it. This was such a wonderful, lovely surprise – I didn’t want this part of the day to end. However, we had a long drive ahead – so we said our goodbyes and set off to Mysuru.

Vaishakh lives in Mysuru with his wife Sindoo and one-year old son. We’d been very kindly invited to his house for lunch and we were also going to leave the fabric that Matthew bought for Janet’s kurti with Vaishakh’s cousin who’s a tailor and will sew it for us.

Shortly after leaving Bengaluru we were on much quieter roads and surrounded by palm trees, forests and fields full of sugar cane. We passed lots of trucks piled high with sugar cane and we stopped to buy coconut from a stall.

Summary day 03
Monday 20 January

We left Chennai today and headed west to Bengaluru – about 200 mile drive. Vaishakh’s mother lives in Bengaluru. One of our friends, Shubhi, who has helped us enormously with the plan for this trip is also from Bengaluru (but she’s back in the UK now).

We set off at 07:00 after a poor night’s sleep – we’ve not yet adjusted to the time change/jet lag I think. First stop Kanchipuram – the town is one of the most visited inland tourist destinations in southern India – famed for its ‘thousand’- very numerous at least, ancient Hindu temples – some with spectacularly high towers. Vaishakh took us on a tour of a Hindu temple – our first ever – the Sri Kanchi Kamakshi Amman temple – enormous and beautiful. We had to leave our shoes outside walk through a trough of flowing water to cleanse our feet and then could see the vast step well and walk around the stone columned halls. I wasn’t comfortable taking pictures around the devotees. The place was crowded with worshipers and garlanded monuments – a wonderful sight. As we left some women asked us for help – Vaishakh said they were transvestites … I thought about how incredibly tough their lives are all over the world – it’s absolutely awful how harmless differences are magnified and problematised by so many people.

Kanchipuram is a traditional centre of silk and handloom weaving and so we went to an enormous and famous fabric store called Prakash. Prakash is arranged over 4 massive floors with walls lined with thousands of bolts of fabric, saris, shirts and scarfs. The lights are bright – and there’s hundreds of them, and there are huge mirrors everywhere. The store employs over 800 people and shoppers come from miles around to choose the finest cloths and outfits. Matthew’s aunt Janet would like an Indian long tunic, it’s called a kurta, I think, so Matthew bought some fabric and we’ll look for a tailor to make it up into a kurta. Again it was shoes off time and we were escorted upstairs to sit on chairs in front of an army of sales assistants (who sat cross-legged on the floor or stood to one side) and who brought more and more packets of beautiful scarfs and fabrics for us to look at. It took a long time to choose – there was so much beauty there. Elsewhere in the store, it was very busy as wedding season ramps up and there were women with family and friends choosing incredibly beautiful saris.

Then we visited another temple – Ekambareswarar Temple – dedicated to the god Shiva. Ekambareswarar Temple is the largest temple in the city with three enormous towers – or gopurams – stepped, tall, pyramid towers with statues on a series of levels. The tallest tower has 11 stories and is almost 60m high. The towers are among the tallest temple towers in India and are currently being renovated. Building the temple began in the ninth century. We were able to walk around and talk to Vaishakh about the various gods on display and religious practices. We were privileged to get very close to the Sacred Mango Tree in the centre of the temple complex (it’s said to be the oldest mango tree in India). We saw part of a wedding ceremony and we took a moment to congratulated the groom and the bride – inevitably, we were dragged into some of their wedding photos! Outside some young men also wanted to be photographed with us for some reason!

As we left Kanchipuram we saw a group of men outside a house beating large drums – the drumming was loud and Vaishakh said that it was someone’s funeral. As we drove past I could see a body wrapped in a white shroud in a glass case on a stand in front of the house. It was somewhat strange – a wedding and a funeral in the space of a few minutes.

Then on to Bengaluru for dinner with Vaishakh’s Amma. She made a fantastic spread for us, rice with tamarind and spices, chutney, freshly prepared vegetables, preserved lemon, and a French bean curry followed by jageree – with a mix of puffed rice, mango pieces and split peas – lovely.

We’d wondered about taking a gift and I regretted not bringing anything She very kindly gave us a present of a stainless steel cup.

After dinner we detoured to the lively street market in Bengaluru and on to Bugle Rock Park where Matthew and Vaishakh discussed the trees.

We saw some big bats (big like the size of a cat!) hanging upside down from the trees – some were waking up and preening themselves and some were even flying about … it was beginning of dusk, so I wonder if they were waking up.

In the south west corner of the park on a hill was Bull Temple, our third Hindu temple of the day, and in many respects the best – it was so quiet and peaceful and we were able to get up close to the shrine – a huge black granite bull. It’s wonderful how many gods take animal form and that therefore there is a respect and value for many animals.

On our way back to the car, we passed a lovely old music shop full of stringed instruments – I think called a veena – and neat little house, one of the few original houses left in Bengaluru.

We went to wrong Raddisson Blue – there are two in Bengaluru. Our room on the seventh floor has amazing views over lake Ulsoor and the Gurudwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha – the largest Sikh shrine in Bengaluru all lit up.