Temples, palaces and reprimands

You could easily spend all your time in India visiting temples and palaces - there are plenty to choose from.  When we were planning our trip, my niece asked me how many we wanted to see, and I opted for one or two of each.  So in Bangalore we visited Tipu Sultan's Summer Palace and the Big Bull Temple, and on our Mysore trip we visited Mysore Palace and SomanathapuraTemple.

The day we visited the Big Bull Temple and Tipu Sultan's Summer Palace was notable because it was the first day we went out without S - our niece and guide on this tour - and we got told off three times! The first time was in the Bull Temple itself, where we got told off for taking photos.  I was confused by this, as the place was full of Indian visitors taking pictures on their i-phones, but it may have been something to do with it being seen as disrespectful to take a picture of the image of the god.

Next to the Bull Temple is a park which is well-known for its fruit bats, who roost there during the day and can be seen flying out over the city in search of fruit in the evening, and returning early in the morning.  We were keen to see the roosting bats, but couldn't get into the park from the entrance next to the temple as it was locked.  We walked down the path beside the park and found another entrance.  But as we went in, a man came running down from a building nearby, shouting to us and doing an excellent example of the disapproving Indian head wobble.  Clearly there was a reason why we weren't supposed to be there, so we apologised - thinking perhaps it was some private part of the gardens attached to the temple - and this was accepted with a more conciliatory head wobble.  Eventually we found another gate with a notice, and discovered the park was shut until the evening.

Later on that day we visited Tipu Sultan's Summer Palace, and received our third telling off - this time totally unjustified.

As is quite often the case, there were different entrance fees for Indian and foreign visitors listed at the entrance, and the sign also indicated a fee of 25 rupees for using a video camera.  When we paid our entrance J asked for a video ticket as well, and was told this was included in the foreigners' ticket price.  But as she approached the palace, video camera in hand, another guard challenged her and asked to see her video ticket.  After some debate we sent him to check with the man on the gate, who confirmed that we didn't have to pay more.  This resulted in a VERY sulky face from him!

I liked this palace very much - it was small, and cool, and had a very beautiful garden.

Mysore palace, in contrast, is the biggest palace in India, and is very grand, rich and ornate.

You're not allowed to take photos inside (with or without a ticket).  It was amazing - paintings, gold, glass, solid silver doors... oddly much of it made in the UK!  It was a real spectacle, and well worth a visit.

The other temple we visited was also amazing.  Somanathapura temple is built from soapstone.  The whole of it is covered in tiny and intricate carvings of people, gods and animals.

Ganesh Chaturthi

A blog about India would hardly be complete without a post about gods and festivals.  Religion is never far away - practically every car we travelled in had a god on the dashboard - usually Ganesha the elephant god, the remover of obstacles - highly appropriate in Indian traffic! ( In Christian Kerala this was often replaced by a rosary hanging from the rear-view mirror - the driver who took us from Kochi to Periyar clutched his from time to time in a way I did not find very reassuring!).

We were visiting in the time leading up to and during the festival of Ganesh Chaturthi.  This culminates in people parading images of Ganesha through the street and then immersing them in the nearest lake.  It used to be that the images were made of local clay (some still are clay) and so were effectively being returned to the earth from which they had been formed.  But these days many are made of Plaster of Paris, which has quite a serious environmental impact.  Bangalore has dealt with this by setting up a separate tank next to the lake and encouraging people to immerse their Ganesha images there instead.

When we were driving around in the first week of our visit we saw quite a few of the commercially produced Ganesha images, wrapped in plastic and waiting to be sold by the side of the road.

And on the last day of our visit, we saw them in action.  Earlier in the day my sister and I had seen a lorry with a group of young boys in the back, playing drums.  When my niece took us out to visit the site of the Ganesha immersions we encountered several similar lorries on the way, each bearing a Ganesha surrounded by boys and men, drumming, dancing and shouting.  Many of the temples along the way were lit up with fairy lights, and as we came to the lake there were enormous flashing images of Ganesha and other gods.

At the entrance to the lake area people stopped and unloaded their Ganeshas.  There were families and groups of co-workers decorating the images with garlands and lighting candles.

When they had finished their puja they carried the images ceremoniously into the lake area and handed them over the fence to the volunteers waiting to do the immersions.  As the Ganeshas were immersed three times and then launched into the water a shout would go up, and the volunteer would  bring back water to splash on the waiting devotees.

Around the edge of the area were the remains of last night's immersed Ganeshas, which had been trawled out of the lake again, and left to await disposal.  They were eerily grotesque, and added to the scene of devastation - the pool itself was filled with debris.  It was a strange contrast with the devotional nature of what was going on.

"One photo please"

I didn't expect that we would be such a novelty - Bangalore is a big city, and even when we travelled around, we didn't go anywhere remote or off the the tourist track. But several times people came up to us and asked to have a photo taken with us.   I don't know if it was just being white, or being a group of white women of varying ages - but it happened several times.

In the botanical gardens in Bangalore it was a couple of young female students, and later some giggling little girls; at Bheemeshwari a young couple with a baby boy; on the beach at Kochi Fort a whole family.  Perhaps the weirdest occasion for me was when we went to watch the fruit bats fly out from the park by the Big Bull Temple in Bangalore.  There were several young men in their twenties hanging around and staring at us in a way that I initially found quite intimidating.  I assumed they were interested in my two nieces - only a few years older than them - but it turned out they were equally interested in having their pictures taken with three women in their fifties.  Bizarre!

Usually they had a phone and a friend to take the photo for them, but in one or two cases they actually just wanted us to take a photo of them with our cameras.  So in my collection of photos I have a number of images of members of my family standing next to total strangers.  I wonder if they think about it, and wonder what people back in England think about them.  I certainly wonder where those photos of me and my family are now, and how people view us - friendly strangers or foreign oddities?

Holy cow!

Say "cow" to an English person and we probably all think of green fields, and herds of grazing Friesians - maybe Jerseys with big brown eyes - scenes of pastoral peace.   It's simple enough - cows live on farms and provide us with milk and beef.

When I came here I knew that cows are sacred in the Hindu religion, but I hadn't really given any thought to what that means, other than that roast beef was off the menu.  To be honest I'm still not sure what the significance is.  But what is clear to me is that cows here live very different lives from their English relatives.

There are cows that live outside temples, and cows with their horns painted red and yellow in celebration of a festival.  In the cities cows graze on the grass verges and on piles of rubbish at the side of the road.  They seem to be unattended and untethered, but apparently they are collected and taken home in the evening.

 They wander randomly in the traffic - woe betide if you should hit one with your car - best to lock the doors, wind up the windows and drive to the nearest police station rather than wait for a crowd to gather.

Generally, whether in the city or the country we saw cows in ones and twos rather than the herds we are used to at home.  In the country we also saw people walking the cow.  It appears to be a fairly low-status job, usually done by women, boys or old men. I'm guessing it's function is to seek out the nearest patch of reasonable grazing rather than exercise!

Some cows work - in the city you see them in the thick of  the traffic pulling carts; in the country they pull ploughs in the rice fields.

There are several varieties of cows in India these days.  Friesians are apparently popular because of their high milk yield.   The working cows are the traditional Indian horned variety.  All varieties wander freely through daily life.

But as for the sacred thing, I'm still rather mystified. 

Chicken!

Indian traffic is an experience you can't ignore whether you're a pedestrian or a passenger - let alone a driver.  We arrived in Bangalore at 4 in the morning so traffic was relatively light driving into the city.  Even so I couldn't fail to notice how close we were to other vehicles - which were whizzing past us on both sides  - and the constant hooting from our driver and others.

The first impression is of utter and terrifying chaos.  But after several days of being driven around in cars and autos, and crossing roads on foot, a pattern starts to emerge.  There are rules after all it seems.

First of all you need to decide what you want to do, and then you must apply all your determination to doing it.  If you are a pedestrian crossing the road this means walking into the road at a steady pace whether there is traffic driving towards you from all directions or not.  It is permissible to join forces with others with a common purpose.  The fainthearted and novices may wish to tag along with more experienced pedestrians.

Pretty much the same rule applies to drivers of cars, autos and two wheelers. Decide where you're going and keep going till you get there, or until someone outmanoeuvres you.  Indicate your intention - and your presence - by frequently sounding your horn.  And always be aware of other vehicles, pedestrians, cows, dogs and potholes.

What I find really interesting about this is that despite the honking, the ruthless cutting up and the terrifying proximity of other road users, there is an almost total lack of aggression.  If you drove like this in London someone would get out of their car and thump you within minutes.  But here people seem to accept being outmanoeuvred with a shrug and move on to the next battle of wills with equanimity.  The constant sounding of horns is functional rather than a protest - it tells people you are there, and that you're coming, ready or not.  It feels like a constant and gigantic game of chicken, involving all other road users.

I think I would have to be here for a while before I would have the nerve to drive myself.

Tiny lady - big massage

The first knock came ten minutes before my massage was due.  It was the underlings coming to prepare, carrying a massage table and an assortment of towels.  They set up on the balcony and carefully lowered the bamboo blind to preserve my modesty - probably already compromised by the fact I had changed into a robe before they arrived.

Once all was ready they departed with the words " ready, coming soon" and I sat down on the bed intrigued to see who would appear. It was a full ten minutes later when the second knock came - "massage madam".  I opened the door to find one of the hotel employees and a tiny woman in a sari, who swept through the room and onto the balcony.  I followed meekly.

Earlier on we had had the whole " how much to you take off" debate, and in the absence of instructions I had kept on my knickers under my robe.  She looked me up and down and gestured for me to take off the robe and sit down to have my head and shoulders massaged.  I did what I was told.

It felt slightly incongruous sitting on the balcony in my knickers with only a bamboo blind between me and the squawking birds and honking horns of Kochi Fort.  But after a couple of minutes of her ministrations I probably wouldn't have noticed if I'd been naked in the high street.

I noticed a rhythm to what she did.  Every stroke was repeated seven times, and each pattern of strokes was mirrored on the other side of my body.  She used loads of oil - a strongly perfumed almost medicinal blend.

Once she had finished my head and neck she waved me to lie face up on the table and started slapping copious amounts of oil onto my stomach and the front of my legs.  It was time to resolve the knicker dilemma.  "On or off?" I asked. She waved imperiously towards the chair so I threw my modesty - and my knickers- to the wind.

Years ago I went to a massage class, and used to practise on friends.  One of the books I used to refer to emphasised the importance, when massaging a woman, of not "patronising" her breasts by ignoring them, or massaging around them.  This was the source of some amusement to me and my friends over the years.  Suffice it to say this lady did not patronise any part of my body, but dealt with me in a way that was not only thorough but also what one of my friends would call "matter of fact" - by which she means verging on brutal.  I'm made of sterner stuff though.

At the end of an hour practically every inch of me was dripping with oil and had been pummelled into shape.  My arms and legs had been bent and rotated in all directions, and the soles of my feet slapped.

For someone so tiny she gave a mean massage!

Looking for tigers

We have been to two wildlife reserves during our time here - Bheemeshwari Nature Camp and Periyar Tiger Reserve.  I suppose one of the attractions of coming to India was the possibility of seeing different wildlife - and tigers were definitely top of my list with elephants a close second.

But- as the guide at Periyar pointed out as we set off into the park in our Jeep - it's not a television programme.  Most of the time is spent peering into the trees hoping to catch a glimpse of something; the wildlife doesn't rush to jump out in front of you.  At least only the naughty monkeys that live around humans anyway.  And to put it in context, one of our guides had worked at Periyar for 14 years and the other for 7, and each of them had only seen a tiger a couple of times.

So I  haven't seen a tiger.

 But I have seen:
Macaques
Black monkeys
Spotted deer
Malabar giant squirrels
Bulbul
Two elephants - a long way away, but definitely there
Tree pies
Sunbirds
Gaur
A mongoose
A kingfisher
An assortment of beetles and spiders including the very lovely red velvet beetle
Fish eagles
Egrets
Ibises
And my personal favourite - the Malabar whistling thrush.

Our trip to Periyar included a trek through the forest.  It was a misty day so the beautiful views were hidden by clouds, and some interesting creatures that emerged from the mist turned out to be domestic cows!  Suddenly the relative silence of the forest was broken by an eerie whistling.  It was as if some creepy man was hanging around in the forest waiting to get you, and whistling to let you know he was there.  But it was my new favourite bird.

So I could spend my time lamenting that I only saw two distant elephants' bottoms, and not so much as a tiger's whisker, but actually I am happy instead to celebrate the beauty of the red velvet beetle and the weirdness of the Malabar whistling thrush.

Monsoon

The Buddha and his disciples used to spend the rainy season meditating in a bamboo grove.  I have a picture in my head of little huts woven from bamboo; monks meditating to the sound of rain falling and the wind rattling the bamboo stalks.  Several times on retreat I've found myself in a meditation room with rain beating down on the roof or windows and imagined those monks.  I love the sound of rain.

We are in India during the monsoon.  The first night we were here the rain woke me up even through the ear plugs I was wearing to block out the other noises of a Bangalore night: dogs barking, motor bike horns, snoring.  It was an amazing rushing sound, interspersed with thunder.

Since then we have watched lightning flicker around the sky (and tried unsuccessfully to capture it on camera) in the city and while staying out in the country; the rain has pounded on the roof of the car and brought traffic to a standstill; we have watched it while drinking tea in a glorified tent by the river at Bheemeshwari.

We wondered if it would stop our scheduled boat trip that time but it passed quite quickly, leaving us slightly damp (some more than others) but cooler and fresher.  It hasn't actually stopped us from doing anything. And I still love the sound...

Wear helmet and be safe

Apparently there's been quite a drive to improve traffic safety here recently.  This sign is part of it:

It's the law now for drivers of motor bikes - or two wheelers as they are known here- to wear a helmet, and in Bangalore mostly they do.  The further out of town you go the less that is the case.  We didn't see any at all when we were in the country.

  I don't think I have yet seen a passenger wearing one.  And the majority of people are passengers - it's rare to see a bike with only one person on it.  Women in saris, small children balanced in front of the driver or wedged between two adult passengers, babes in arms.  I think the most we've seen on one bike is five people.  And few have succumbed to the motor bike shop's alluring advertising:

We did see one unexpected convert in the botanical gardens:

It's not just the number of passengers though - the motorbike (and it's close relative the auto (of which more later)  is the Indian beast of burden.  We've seen single riders wedged in between two piles of boxes or sacks, and bikes festooned with bundles of buckets or cooking pans to the degree that the driver was invisible from behind.  I saw a family of at least three carrying a bicycle wedged horizontally across the bike between them, and a passenger holding a window, complete with glass, between him and the driver.  T has seen someone riding with a ladder, with his head through between two rungs.  

I'm not sure the proposed law making helmets compulsory for passengers is quite enough!

Kites, bats and motorbikes

I like to start the day slowly.  At home this involves several cups of coffee and time spent gazing out into the back garden.  There's plenty of life out there to see - a whole colony of sparrows in the hedge, poking their heads out to see what the neighbours are doing, and gathering on the grass below to peck up insects.  At the moment there are young blackbirds too - speckled and hesitant and still going round together -  a pair of robins, and a quiet family of dunnocks almost unnoticed under the hedge.  The only noisy ones are the starlings, currently busy with the pears which are just beginning to ripen.

This morning I woke at 7 o'clock and went to sit on the balcony. No one else was stirring in the flat, as most of us are still acclimatising to Indian time.  It was an altogether different view from my usual one.  Apart from crows and kites I don't recognise the birds here.  The crows are like hoodies rather than carrion crows.  They're so bold they sit on the railings of the balcony.  And the kites circle everywhere.  I'm not used to seeing them in the city - I associate them with motorways and countryside.  J was videoing one sitting on the roof yesterday, and we saw them splendidly silhouetted against the sunset from the bar at the top of Barton Tower last night.  (And after the sun went down giant fruit bats took their place) .

I haven't actually seen many other birds from the balcony, but you can hear some.  There's something that sounds like a rusty saw, and another strange whooping cry.  We heard them really clearly the morning we arrived at around 5 a.m.  This morning they were almost drowned out by the gradually growing sounds of car and motor bike horns, barking dogs and someone playing music in the next building along.

Namaste!

For me, an essential part of preparing to travel is learning a few key phrases in the language of the country I'm going to visit.  So over the last week or two I have been grappling with the complexities of Kannada - the language spoken in Bangalore.

I'm only going for a couple of weeks and most people will probably speak English, so my aim is really just to learn enough to be able to be polite:  good morning, good afternoon; my name is Anne, what's your name? pleased to meet you - that sort of thing.  In my experience a little can get you a long way.  For example, when I visited Istanbul for the first time one phrase "memnun oldum"  (pleased to meet you) made people smile wherever we went.  It even saved me from unpleasantness when I turned down an unwanted invitation for dinner from a man in the street.  Long explanations of how our friends were waiting at home for us had no impact on him, but "memnun oldum" and a firm shake of the hand sent him away smiling.

Kannada is proving to be quite a challenge though.  Everything seems to be rather long.  How can it take a phrase as long as "hogi banni athavā hogi bartēra?" to say goodbye?  And why the question mark?  Am I really learning to say "When will fate bring us together again?" or "Will you remember me in twenty years?"

My niece, who I'm visiting in Bangalore, had suggested that a few words of Hindi might come in useful too, for when we travel in other areas.  Given the trouble I'm having with the few phrases of Kannada I've set myself to learn, I turned to the Hindi page on omniglot with a rather heavy heart.  Imagine my joy then when I discovered that "Namaste" - a word I'm already familiar with from yoga classes - can be used for saying hello and goodbye, and at any time of day or night.  That'll do for me!