Visit to South India Part II

There is so much really to discover in India. It is big country, so much of variety of cultures, traditions, people that you are always learning something new.

After our pilgrimage(?) to temples in south India near Kumbakonam, we went to Pondicherry for a day. Pondicherry is some 30 kms from Cuddalore. We reached Cuddalore in the night and decided to stay there and go to Pondicherry next day. There are plenty of buses plying every 15 minutes or so between these two places. In Pondicherry, we went to Botanical garden first. It is a huge garden but on our own, we could not really figure out the variety of flora there. I also felt the garden could have been better maintained. We hired an auto till evening. We went to Auroville village which is on the outskirts of the city. It took almost half an hour from the city center to go there. Auroville is spread over a huge area. They run  electric vehicles from the entrance to the center. It is a very quiet place. Lot of people had come to visit the place. The most noticable thing about Auroville is its architecture. Everything, from main building, meditation hall, the gardens, the restrooms, everything speaks of simplicity and beauty. There are so few such examples of such marvellous architecture that I have come across. Especially, all the new buildings are glass houses and so similar to one another that it is quite boring to watch the cities growing like this.  All the construction was merging with the surroundings just perfectly. Simple and yet perfect. Everything had a very earthy touch. The boutique also had some of the finest design stuff. The meditation hall which is a little away is another masterpiece. At this time, it was under renovation. There is a huge banyan tree near the meditation hall. It reminded me of the banyan tree in the JK foundation in Chennai. Banyan tree in Indian Mythology has always been associated with spiritualism. Gautama Buddha had also attained moksha under a Banyan tree. It looks and it is so protective, it can take everyone under its shadow and birds prefer it most for making the nests. It pains when I remember how many banyan trees were sacrificed in Pune for the road widening projects. Walking is not that pleasant now on those roads !! Auroville is the place one should spend lot of time at. It is full of positive energy and one should take advantage of this aspect by spending sufficient time in its lap. The beach near the Auroville is not that clean but definitely welcome.

We left for Chennai at around 8 pm. We took the bus from Cuddalore as we had to vacate the hotel. One can also take from Pondicherry as it is on the route and there are plenty of options from Pondicherry as well. The bus goes on the ECR route. The road is superb. Two by two road, not much traffic and the ride was really smooth. Only negative point was that we reached pretty late in the night and it was a little inconvenient for our friends. We sat talking for quite some time into the night and did not realize that we will spending the whole of next day relaxing at home only. Our friends’ kid Madhu and her cousin were wondering why are we sleeping so much. They were so eager to meet us as they were sleeping when we came in and it was difficult for them to realize why we did not get up in time . Maybe we were the first guests they had come across sleeping shamelessly through the day.

We planned to go to Mahabalipuram and nearby places next day. June is not the right time to be in Madras. The heat makes you very uncomfortable. We left very early in the morning to avoid traveling in the heat. Got to see the first sun rise at the beach. Till now, we had witnessed only sunset at the beaches. Then we proceeded towards Mahabalipuram. It is some 50 kms only on the ECR route. By the time the sun was in its full glory. We visited the temple, the beach and had a hearty breakfast in the hotel there. Mahabalipuram is famous for its rock carvings. Huge monolithic stones are converted into beautiful carvings. The carvings show the stories from Indian mythology. Though some of them are damaged, most of them are intact and simply superb. A huge elephant in the center of the place carved out of stone gets one’ attention first. We had real good time with Madhu posing for some beautiful photographs and also sometimes refusing to let us photograph her.

We left Mahabalipuram towards Chennai. On the way we planned to go to Croc park and Dakshin Yatra, a beautiful place for getting an indepth idea of culture of southern India. Croc park is place for crocodiles. Croc park is one of its kind in India and is spread over a large area. Got to see a large variety of crocodiles in the park. There was also a huge aquarium, which had some different types of tortoises.

When we reached Dakshin Yatra, it was late in the afternoon. There is a facility for lunch inside, it was buffet lunch. There was so much variety of food, we all ate a hearty meal. The place is set in a very big area. India’ southern states Karnataka, Kerala, Tamilnadu and Andhra Pradesh are depicted in a very great detail. The cultures of these places, the traditional houses, granaries, the art, the food and many other details. It was first time we got to see these details. Every state in turn has lot of cultures specific to places there like Chettinad in TamilNadu. All these were very beautifully depicted at this place. This activity takes one full day, we did not do full justice by spending only few hours. One can take part in sessions organised throughout the day at specific timings. We got to see only the puppet show.

Chennai has lot to offer for the tourists. Next day we went to Mylapore temple which is a very ancient temple. Our friend insisted that we see this place. This temple reminded us of Kumbakonam as there was a huge water tank near the temple. The tank had lot of fishes and fishing was not allowed here. People would feed the fishes and it was a beautiful sight of a huge group of fishes coming together to get the share of the feed. Mylapore has its own charm. We went to a book shop specializing in Indology, and we found a great wealth of books there. It was a one stop shop for books on philosophy, religion and similar stuff. In the afternoon, after a hearty meal at home, we left back for Pune. Chennai was a good break, with a lot still to discover in the city. Here are some pictures of the visit to Pondicherry and Madras.

Go Goa

Call to Goa is always welcome. I love going for shorter duration each time and discovering some part of the city. Last year, we went to south Goa, Paloleum beach, not very crowded and beautiful clean beachline. It was wonderful, very rustic setting, very few people. It was off season also. The first impression was the simplicity of people. We hired a two wheeler from a family who also runs a hotel there, they didn’t even ask for any identity proof or any other document. They handed over their brand new Honda Activa to us. A good start. We leisurely spent time moving around in vehicle and on the beach.

This time, it was official cum pleasure trip. Till friday, we stayed in Panaji, in the center of the city. In the weekend we moved to an ancestral home converted into hotel. The owner is friend of one of the colleague in the office. The house is huge, very high ceiling, old style, with mother of pearl decorations on the windows and antique furniture. It had a very big garden with flowering plants, mango plantations, pineapple plants and many other variety. It was a favourite with birds also, specially sunbirds moving around the flowers. The caretaker of the house took all care to make us feel at home. The place was little inside, not many houses. Lot of fields around, and also some ponds nearby. In the morning, we spotted lot of water birds and kingfishers near the pond.

This place was very near to Calangute beach. We stayed there for two days. Daytime we spent on the beach, basking in the sun. In the afternoon, the parasailing activity starts. It was quite interesting to watch, 2 minutes of fun high up. We enjoyed good pakoras and hot tea in the evening. Not the thing people go for in Goa, but luckily tea was available at all the small shacks selling eatables.

It was saturday and we discovered that near Baga beach, which was some 20km from the place where we were staying, every saturday night, the flea market which is very popular among the tourists, is open. When we reached around 8 pm, it was already jam packed with hardly any place to park the vehicle. Driving in Goa on two wheeler is best part. One can rent out the vehicle at most places in city. With vehicle, half your problems are solved. With a good map, one can navigate easily. I wish many other cities have this concept. In the flea market, there were shops selling indian handicrafts and there was music and dance performed by a musical group mainly consisting of foreigners. Happened to see a belly dance live for the first time. The only negative part was the smoking crowd. Almost everyone there was smoking and on food stalls, getting vegetarian food was very difficult, they hardly had anything for people like us. It was a different experience to be in the midst of high spirited crowd. We normally do not frequent pubs or dance clubs, maybe that is why we were having this kind of feeling. We had a hired two wheeler, so we left before it was midnight, to avoid any problems of late night. It was a memorable event. On sunday, we wanted to leave by afternoon. We were surprised to find that all the markets are closed on Sunday so we could not do our cashewnut and mango shopping. Felt sad that we are not taking back anything. Next time we will do the cashew shopping the first thing. Goa is also famous for its teracota wares. We left that also for the next trip.

Some more pictures of this trip are Here.