An Indian Odyssey Trip November 2014

India has the world’s second largest population, B1.2, with the country broken up into 29 states with each state having its own language but all tied together with an English thread. The population consists of Moslems, Hindus, Sics, and Christians.

We decided this time to travel to Sydney by train and stay the night at an airport hotel so that we may be fresh for the seven and half hour flight to Singapore, two hour stop-over and then another four and half hour flight to Chennai.

Our plane was delayed for 15 minutes on the tarmac before takeoff into a cool and overcast sky. Departure time was 12.30pm then a seven and half hour flight, bordering on boredom, but we were upstairs on the A380 which gives a little more leg room than on the conventional seating.

On arrival at Singapore we circled the airport for 20 minutes before finally landing into a hot and humid Singapore. We had also picked up another three hours to add onto our already long day. We have over two hours to fill in at the airport so Dianne lined up at one of their counters where on the presentation of your passport, boarding pass and E-ticket one can pick up $40 Singapore dollars to be spent within the airport. She also had my ticket etc and so was able to acquire $80. In the queue for the money were about 30 persons, 29 of them Asians and one half Aussie/Pommie (Dianne).

On receipt of the $80 Dianne had a mad hour to do her shopping as I did not need anything so I waited at the terminal gate while she raced around the various shops. She made the gate with minutes to spare and so we soon departed for Chennai, another four and half hour flight. By the time we reached Chennai we had been offered up to six meals on the aircrafts as well as adding a further two and half hours on to our day making it a 29-1/2 hour day. When we finally arrived at our hotel, one hours drive from the city, it was 5.30am Sydney time and midnight local time, a very long day.

We had an early morning call, breakfast and ready for a 9am departure. The weather was hot and humid and we were reminded that it was their first day of winter!

Our first visit was to a Hindu temple (shoes off) then to a catholic church (again shoes off) I declined this church for it is a difficult job to take off and put on shoes in a standing position. Following the church visits it was time to visit the local fish market (?) The vision that comes to mind is a very clean shop with air conditioning and fish displayed with ice but no, we are in India and the local fish market is on the side of a street and only metres from the ocean, on the Bay of Bengal.

It certainly was different; the fish were on low tables or on tarp lying on the ground. There were many varieties of fish, prawns, crabs and other unnameable items. There must have been many hundreds of fish covered by thousands of flies, dust and anything else in the air plus hundreds of crows. The few customers that were around were locals getting the calories for their midday or night meal.

As a backdrop to the fish market are dozens of small fishing vessels as well as dozens of humpies where the locals live and the hovering crows that clean up where and whenever they can. There were also a number of goats (4 legs) eating out, from the many piles of rubbish.

As well as the fresh (?) fish there are dozens of tarps covered with hundreds of fish being dried in the sun, none of us had fish dishes that night, needless to say. The rest of the afternoon we stayed in the hotel.

The meals in the restaurants of the hotels are great with many varieties of curried dishes, soups and sweets on offer.

I mention here that the streets are awash with litter and no doubt I will be mentioning the litter as we go further into the tour. That successfully completes day one of this tour.

Today the itinerary says Kanchipuram and Mamallapuram, and visit a silk house then on to the 7^th century port city of Mamallapuram (the guide has no trouble saying these cities names) where we see rock cut temples and more temples before we return to Chennai at 8.30pm.

At each temple and church it is mandatory to remove shoes so I declined all temples/churches from here on in. I stayed on the coach. The scenery today was very uninteresting but we did see plastic bags of rubbish strewn all along the sides of the roads.

Another interesting thing (?) is that when a car/truck/3 wheeler/motor bike breaks down or is no longer useable it is just discarded where it finished its life. We must have seen hundreds of them along the highways and one particular scene was a car that had run into a tree causing quite a lot of damage and obviously the owner/driver just left it there. It was covered in dust and dirt and looked like it had been there for months. Funny people.

The national highway is usually two lanes each way but at times it is not unusual to see five lots of vehicles coming towards you at a time. On arrival at toll gates the two lanes open up into five lanes just for collection then back into the two official lanes.

A note here is that, like many Asian countries, India has white lines marking the divisions and also pedestrian lines but these are only for show, I am sure. DO NOT expect to amble across the pedestrian crossing unless there is not a vehicle to be seen in either direction.

It is said that the Government is concerned that 8,000 (I cannot understand how they get such a definite figure) are killed on the roads while I, on the other hand, find it difficult to believe that only 8,000 are killed.

It has been told to me that there is not a regular garbage collection within the cities hence the filth on the sides of the roads.

Indian traffic is the same for the twenty-four hours only difference is that one is in the daylight the other is in night.

Sunday 4am a wakeup call and at 4.50am we have bags out and on the coach for the local railway station to catch the 6.10am train to Bangalore, a five hour trip.

We fight our way into the station passing hundreds of locals with at lease 100 asleep on the ground, floor, seats, under tarps or wherever they can find. And I noticed two mosquito netting tents having been erected and people sleeping in them.

The train, we are told, is The Pride of India, and it is air conditioned and meals on wheels, that is the name on the T shirts worn by the vendors. As far as trains go it is not as nice as the bone-rattler that we use between Newcastle and Sydney. It is a booked train and all seats seem to be taken.

There was much confusion with the handling of our cases, we were told they were to travel with us and that porters would be bringing our cases aboard, they were then packed, like sardines, into the racks overhead. There were about 75 persons per carriage, fortunately nothing fell while the train was in motion.

The trip was reasonable however there was a very heavy fog and little could be seen from the train. What could be seen was mostly wasteland with every so often oil palm plantations.

On arrival at Bangalore there was much confusion with everyone wanting to get out at once as there was only a ten minute stop here but we had to get our cases down from the overhead racks and try to manoeuvre them out onto the platform.

With bags packed into the coach we, once again, head off to visit another temple before booking into the hotel and have our lunch. (Priorities right, temple then eat)

This hotel, though miles from the city, is new and I give it full marks. Nice bed room, shower, beds, restaurant, in fact when the manager at the counter asked what I thought I replied “My only complaint is that I have nothing to complain about” which made him quite pleased.

Bangalore is one of the better classes of cities with curb and guttering, which is lacking in so many of their cities. It also does not have so much litter around, however having said that we did not spend any time in the city proper and only had one night at the hotel. A note here about the main street name in most cities of India, it is called M.G. street, that is Mahatma Ghandi street.

Mid afternoon we departed the hotel for a Sic temple, the botanical gardens and a stop at a silk house before

our appearance at a roof top restaurant which supplied wonderful meals. Finally arriving back at the hotel by 9pm when “madam” decided on her “pommie” bath.

A sign I noticed today tickled my fancy, it read “For Sale, House fully furnished with ocean” now I ask you what more could you want in a house?

Another big day ahead its bags out at 7am and depart 8am for a 200 kilometre drive, we wait in wonder.

The roads around Bangalore are chaotic with all vehicles vying for position, coming and going in all directions. After travelling for one hour the traffic has lessened but the countryside not very impressive. The guide was repeating just how pretty it was; don’t know if it was to convince us or to convince himself. He is a very nice person with heaps of knowledge of India but lacks the polish of a good guide.

The scenery is mainly low scrubby bush with every so often a cocoanut plantation however as we proceed further we come into some very nice cultivated fields, mainly maize and rice growing. Roadwork was taking place in many sections and the roads at time were very bumpy.

Stopped at another temple site, this with 647 steps, equivalent to a 20 story building, cut out of rock, about half dozen of our group went up while the rest of us meandered around the small shopping village.

We head now for the city of Hassan, a provincial capital, and were welcomed by an approximate one acre of filthy rubbish on one side of the road and on the other side a mountain of it. The dogs, goats and cattle, as well as the crows are feeding on it.

I was far from pleased with this city (population 1 million) and my initial thoughts was it needs completely dozed down and rebuilt, it is a very dirty shoddy city, fortunately this time we were again billeted many miles out of town.

After a very late lunch (2pm) Dianne and I decided to sit out this afternoons trek and so stayed in the hotel.

Yet another big day ahead of us as we head off to Mysore. Its 8.30am the sky is very overcast but today we pass through some very nice undulating countryside where rice, sugar and cocoanuts are produced. Lots of cocoanuts are eaten by the locals and it not uncommon to see up to a dozen stalls within a one kilometre section. The empty husks and shells are left in a pile at the side of the road.

The roads are very bad again this morning, as are the drivers but we have had an interesting few stops today. First at a rice polishing factory (?) but it was not working but we were invited in to see what was there but there was precious little. While there one chap asked if we had a pen to give him, this is normal in these countries, but I said I had some pencils on the coach and when I returned with a dozen I have about 15 people around me, they seemed to come out of the woodwork asking for pencils.

We followed this up with a visit to a country school where we donated three dozen pencils but this time I gave them to the headmaster for distribution, a lesson learned from the previous lot.

It was 11am on the 11^th of the 11month, while we were at the school where we saw the children doing their class room activities and watched the cooks cooking the meals for the children at lunch time. This was a very pleasant hour that we spent here at the school. We took numerous photographs of the children and have promised to post them over when they are developed.

Our next visit, yes, you guessed, another temple, again I sat in the shade. This temple was followed by another temple but this time I had company, six of the Brits stayed behind with me.

We head back to the hotel for a 2.30pm lunch and following lunch a further coach trip for a few hours. Di and I stayed behind and rested to prepare for the following day, I also had to take medication to relieve the swollen legs and ankles.

The guide asked me to be at the restaurant at 7.30pm, Dianne not being well decided not to have dinner tonight. I sat and waited until 8.30pm before the coach returned for dinner and it was 10pm when we finally finished dinner.

Next day and what a day, we left the hotel at 8.30am and we had a total of 180 kilometres to go and you would guess 2 to 3 hours but no, a minimum of 8 hours. I thought my hearing was wrong when he said 180K for 8 hours; little was I to know it ended up being 12 hours on the coach this day.

The road to the highway through Mysore was bumper to bumper until we hit the highway, number 76. Here we have a highway with one lane each way and the highway was in a bad state of disrepair and no shoulders so once again up to 4 lanes in 1 lane highway. Added to this every kilometre or so there are speed bumps, speed bumps that you would not believe, some with a single bump others with two and even three bumps and they are high so the speed is down to less that 1 kilometre as you go over, first the front and then the back.

We travelled through many towns and cities on this day and all had the speed bumps at beginning and end plus a few in the middle. To add to this is that the road is in bad repair, washaways, herds of sheep and goats to contend with as well as the 2 and 3 wheelers which pass on either side of the coach and duck and weave through the traffic. To compound things we were approaching the jungle and had to contend with many monkeys on the roads, quite harrowing.

Our next problem was that we heard on the BBC that a cyclone was coming in from the Bay of Bengal bringing heavy rains, just what we needed going through the mountains. It was reported that it would hit Chennai and then in a southerly direction heading for where we were.

We started off in sun and light cloud then into heavier cloud and then into light rain. By this time we were at Ooty, about three quarters of the way and on arrival at Coonoor rain had been replaced by heavy cloud and mist with poor visibility and the temperature plunged down to 20 degrees.

Further on the National Highway we climbed from near sea level to 2100 m and some road it is. All the above conditions plus “S” bends continually up the mountainside and then down the other side but tonight we are at 1850 metres. We drove through one of the jungles and saw spotted deer and many more monkeys but other animals, tigers and elephants, were unable to be seen.

The mountain climb did not have many 2 and 3 wheelers but trucks and busses passing became quite a nightmare and at times there were lots of backing and froing to pass.

Litter is still everywhere and in one spot a mountain of litter is directly opposite a large garbage bin. Many bins have been gone through with rubbish being left outside the bins.

This drive through the mountains had some very nice views with thousands of tea plantations right up the mountain side, some as steep as 60 degrees. How the land was prepared for planting is beyond me, probably by hand. As we topped the mountain (the Western Ghats) and started downwards the terrain changed yet again and we were able to see many market gardens growing cabbage, collies, carrots and like type vegetables.

Tonight our stay is at Coonoor which is located high up on the mountainside with beaut views while the bedrooms of the hotel are magnificent.

As we walk into the room we have a large alcove, then into the extra large bed/T.V. room and on through to a baggage room and down stairs to a very large bathroom with tub, shower, toilet and double hand basin, very nice. Probably another “bath” night! It could be a bit risky at night as the steps and the floor are covered in the same colour tiles but no hand rail.

It is a very heavy fog this morning and heavily overcast and it looks like rain has been falling. A weather shock again, been too hot to sleep and with high humidity but last night too cool and today is to be cool.

We are now into the start of our second week and we wake this morning to heavy fog and light rain which continued most of the morning. At 9.15am we head to the Coonoor railway station for a short rail ride to Ooty, Ooty is a shortened version of the original name, a trip of one and half hours but to me was quite uninspiring as the heavy fog prevented seeing “what was out there”.

On arrival at Ooty, noon, two thirds of the tourists went to the botanical gardens while the rest of us wandered around the township of Ooty, dodging goats, cars, potholes etc. in doing so.

Dianne made her first purchase today, a new backpack, but saw nothing else that she fancied. We were picked up by our coach and transferred (2pm) to a restaurant for our lunch before returning to the hotel at Coonoor. It was only a 20Klm trip but it seemed to take forever as the fog closed in and visibility was only about 20 metres.

Because of the inclement weather the rooms had a very musty smell and so have asked for the fire in our room to be lit to warm the room and try to dry the room as well. We have travelled 44 kilometres from sea level to a hight of 2100 metres and tomorrow we go down the other side of this mountain, with still more mountains yet to climb. At this stage of the journey my breathing was being affected by the high altitude but no doubt I will survive.

Departing at 8.30am we commence the downward grade which has 14 hairpin bends and the rest of the road is completely full of “S” bends. We had rain all night and this morning is foggy, damp and cold. It is impossible to see the countryside but as we progressed down the mountain the fog lifted but the drizzle continued. We saw many waterfalls thundering down the mountainside.

Our driver was great having to manuver the bus as well as watching for oncoming traffic and also watching for the overtaking traffic, which can become quite hair-raising. Many of the Indian drivers seem to have a “death-wish” or is it a “suicide-tendency”? the way they overtake, weave in and out and behave as though they have the right of way. Most drivers are very placid on the roads (we saw no road-rage) and stop and back off the road when the roads are very narrow, this is particularly noticeable when two trucks or busses pass.

As we get further on the rain eases and as we get almost down we have to move over into the other oncoming lane as a cow is lying right in the middle of our lane, it had no intentions of moving. Another unusual sight was a motor bike rider and pillion passenger passing the bus with an umbrella up, it was not long after passing us that the umbrella turned inside out, not surprisingly.

We are driving through another national park with tigers, elephants etc but again nothing is spotted but a few spotted deer and many monkeys. Though this is a national road running through a national park the road is closed between the hours of 9pm and 6am as too many animals were being killed by the through traffic.

On the hillside we see many more tea plantations, and used as sun cover are rows upon rows of the Australian silky oaks planted in straight lines and all with the tops cut off so that they throw out lateral branches for the shade cover. As we approach the bottom of the hills the rain has eased off and many more vegetable gardens are seen

We travel through many small and large villages before stopping for a “pitstop” around 11.30am, first one since starting out. Our lunch today is a picnic box from the hotel which we eat on the coach while travelling, the driver has no stop other that the toilet stop.

We start climbing up another of the mountains and travel through another of their national park jungles, which I might add here have been taken over by the lantana which is a curse in India too. As we pass through the gates of the N P I saw a gathering of 5 peahens/cocks and the usual tribe of monkeys along the side of the road. It is said “do not feed animals” but it is obvious to all that the monkeys have been feed and know that if they stay on the side of the road they will get some good pickings.

I would like to add here that there are many Australian gum trees in India and I have never seen so many straight trunked trees as there are here, some of them go up 60ft without throwing out a branch and the story told to us is that the seeds of the gum were smuggled into India in the stockings of the Governor of India’s wife.

Travelling through the park the guide saw an elephant on the road in front of us and quickly grabbed his phone, got into the cab of the coach and photographed the elephant while the rest of the group took a good “shot” of his, the guide’s” rump, so much for good guides.

At 3pm one of the ladies approached the guide and asked that he stop at a toilet stop, I might add the first since the 11.30am stop, his response was “can you wait another 45 minutes”? I suggested that that was not fair but continuing on we go.

Climbing further up the mountainside we had just negotiated a hairpin bend when in front of us some 50 feet is another hairpin bend with a large truck stuck, couldn’t go forward because of a drop and couldn’t get traction to go back. As we had nowhere to go we just sat in the coach, except for the toilet lady and three others who left the bus and went toilet at the side of the road. This must have been very embarrassing and humiliating for them but when one has to go one has to go. After one hour the truck was finally released and so we continued on to finally take a toilet stop at 5pm.

Following on from the toilet stop we drove through some heavy rain, heaviest we’ve travelled through, also heavy fog and the dark had set in. I was sitting in the front passenger seat and it was impossible to see further than a few feet and at times I could not see the road. We are up to about 1800 metres by this time.

Please have pity for our driver for he has been driving from 8,30am and just slightly further on, the guide asleep, the driver took a wrong turn and 45 minutes later we were back on the road again. Our original E.T.A. was given as 5.30pm but we finally arrived at 8.15pm just minutes short of a 12 hour coach trip. A complete day wasted for all we saw of India was through the window of the coach.

Tired and weary from the long day and the continual “on the bus” I had the best nights sleep so far but Dianne on the other hand had her worst as she was not well and was up for most of the night.

A nine o’clock start and we are off to a tea museum where we saw machinery of old and an explanation of how the tea leaf is processed. Di and I left the main body of tourists and got talking to one of the guards who showed Di and I through parts of the complex that was not usually shown to tourists.

A short distance further on we visited a working place for physically and mentally disabled persons who prepare packages for the distribution of tea. Another section of the workshop they do beautiful handwork saris and many other saleable things, this was not on the itinerary but it was very nice to be able to talk with and share with these people. It also contains a crèche where the children of the workers are cared for. They range in age from 5 months to six years of age. I took my shoes off (a condition of entry) and went in and had half an hour with the children, another good experience.

Our next stop is lunch and in this State it is remarkable the change in the preparation and variety of food. Following lunch and we are in the coach heading down through mountains again and there are many more hundreds of tea plantations.

Another oddity that I noticed, it was elderly women with huge bundles on the head or back and also bundles left at the sides of the roads and on questioning the guide I found out that they were leaves, dead gum leaves, my next question was “why”, and was told they collect the dead leaves, take them home and boil them extracting the eucalyptus oil, which they bottle. I thought that green leaves would be better but then I realised that they were 50 feet above their heads.

Today started with the sun shining and a gentle breeze blowing and not a cloud to be seen but by 3pm the clouds appeared and rain had fallen but it was before we passed through and by 5pm the sun was shining again.

The road through this section is virtually a single lane highway, very narrow but the road surface is very good and much better than many roads we have been on.

On arrival at Thekkady and having booked in our group went to see a martial art show, but I found out later that there were no one wanting to go so our trip to there was cancelled. Dianne is still not well so we stayed in our room. Prior to dinner tonight was an Indian dance group so we went and watched that before I went to dinner, again Dianne declined dinner.

Today is a two hour walk through the jungle however Dianne and I declined but by all accounts we only missed out by being attacked by leaches. I walked into the village and made a few purchases.

There is a tour of the spice farm where we see many different types of spice trees such as cinnamon, pepper, etc and where I purchased a packet of ginger tea, not tried it yet but must do so soon. I also learned today that allspice is not a mixture of various spices but a tree that produces that spice.

Driving on from Thekkady to Nedumudy we are now down on the low country and we soon arrive at our destination, the river houseboat, where we have our lunch and into one of the three bedrooms on the boat. It is pleasant to sit on the boat and feel the cooling breezes pass us, much better than being cooped up on the coach for days on end.

We are on a 200 square kilometre lake which has many natural channels and also many man-made channels where the locals have set up homes at the waters edge. There are up to 1000 house boats and various other craft of all types that use the river-ways. It also doubles for the locals bathing, washing, cleaning teeth and other domestic activities. We also witnessed about 1000 ducks that were being herded to the rice fields where they devour insects and other things that attach the rice.

It was peaceful and refreshing to be off the coach for a few hours but alas it is only a short break as next morning after breakfast we head back to shore to once again board the coach for our ongoing journey. The group were split up onto five boats. We continue on to a coir factory where cocoanut husks are turned into coir matting and what a sight, it must be the way things were done in the 1800’s so primitive was the equipment used.

Our next port of call is Kochi and starts with a visit to St Francis church and the Santa Cruz Basilica then off to visit a Jewish synagogue, which a few of us declined. We then went to the local markets and visited the cantilevered Chinese fishing nets.

Kochi is a very modern and busy city on the western coast of India though like most places in India it is very dirty with litter strewn around the town and country. Some say “that is the way they live” but they don’t have to live that way.

We leave Kochi and head for Kovalem where we leave at 7.30am and travel all day arriving at our new hotel, very beautiful, our guide said, but it did not rate well with many fellow guests.

The drive today just shows how dirty and lazy the people are with cars, trucks, 3 wheelers and the occasional bus just dumped on the sides of the roads where they broke down. The litter also increased and even swampy pools outside the residences, and this the capital of the state of Kerala. In this state the Communist Party is very strong, aided by the local young men who think labouring is below them and they have no jobs. The CPI red flags are displayed along all the roadways in the state.

Still yet another temple, is there not anything worth seeing in this country?, Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple and the zoological gardens and museum, the Napier museum and the Sri Chitta Art gallery to be followed later by a visit to the Kanakakunal Shastri Purthi memorial, or alternatively stay around the hotel which, again, is miles from the city.

While at the hotel we wandered down to the beach to see the locals fishing in the Arabian Sea. This where a boat takes out a very long net then men, up to a dozen, on the beach drag the net in. It takes hours for this to happen and then in the net we saw there was one large butterfish and many kilos of sardines. They would have probably made as much as AU$20 for the lot. The butterfish which must have weighed 6 kilos was sold for 500 rupees, about $5.

This is the hotel where I requested they look into the hot water, we did not have hot water for showering for the three days/two nights stay although I had contacted three different hotel staff.

The last day was at leisure, but again nowhere to go and not a lot to do so we cooled our heels until 6pm where we were transported to a restaurant for our final meal before going onward to the airport via a restaurant for our first leg of the flight home.

This airport is one newly completed at Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of the state Kerala, a huge building and is the only place in India that we found room to move. I asked an airport worker where the queue was and he pointed to a dozen people waiting at a gate. Getting through quarantine and customs check was the easiest yet.

I would like now to add a few different aspects of the country.

The people, on the whole, were very friendly and clean people and the ladies in their sari looked like a Christmas present, yet to be opened. The staff in the hospitality industry was very friendly and obliging. And we only saw a hand-full of beggars, mainly at the temples and tourist places.

Traffic is chaotic in most parts of India but most drivers appear to be tolerant and helpful. Perhaps the writings on some of the vehicles may help them “Anything is possible with Jesus” and like type phrases. We also noticed that they have “sleeper” buses where the top deck is converted to bed space. Most vehicles on the roads and of the more modern types, one car was pointed out to us and from the show room it can be purchased for USD$2,000, believe me, I’ve seen it.

Roads, I feel that I have covered the road system in the above story.

Hotel, the ones we stayed in were excellent but for the last couple who fell short on a couple of things. It would have probably been better to have stayed close in to the cities.

Of North and South India I am of the opinion that the north has more to offer than the south, in so far as the tourist is concerned, their cities are not as dirty as in the south.

Caste system is still alive and well, we heard of the parents killing their daughter because she married out of caste. And another story I read about was a young mother who sold her wedding gold head dress to have a toilet erected in the house. Her husband said that she should use the field where the other women went. She came from a family that has a toilet and she wanted one for her and her daughter. The husband and his family were not impressed however the local mayor was so pleased that it was brought to the attention of others and she was presented with a new gold headdress.

There were nineteen people on the tour and, probably, some of them would have a different version of the

tour but this is my interpretation of what I saw and how I felt about the trip.