We left Bangalore as early as we could manage on Friday Sept. 18 and road east toward Chennai. Bangalore is spread out over a huge area, so it took awhile to get out of the city environs. There is also a lot of road construction around Bangalore. Joseph, our driver, was generally happy to make the trip because we pay him extra for being away from home- as well as working Sunday's and Holidays. Almost as soon as we crossed the border from Karnataka state to Tamil Nadu state the roads got better. Joseph says that the roads in Tamil Nadu and Kerala state (the other southern - most state) are good compared to Karnataka. His statement seems the be true from our observations too.
The ride toward Chennai was on pretty good roads most of the way. The scenery was not all that exciting, but still interesting to see. Most of the terrain was flat, but with some stone peaks poking up all around. Bangalore is at about 3000 feet elevation, while much of TN is closer to sea level... and hot.
We drove all the way to the city of Vellore on the highway. We went there first to see the "Golden Temple" which Joseph heard about from friends, but we had not heard or read anything about it. It took awhile to reach outside of town and there were a lot of people around- partly because it was a holiday weekend and partly because it is a popular place. We drove into the parking area and looked around to see lines of people standing to get tickets to go inside (no temple in sight), then we saw that the people had to stand in LONG lines INSIDE a fenced CAGE in order to see the temple. The people were literally completely enclosed inside what appeared to be a cage with only a way in at one end and a way out at the other and a LONG wait in between. We said NO! to this idea. There is nothing worse than feeling trapped within a mass of people- we learned that from our first journey to Srirangapatnam and Brindavin Gardens last Dec. end. So, we did not see the temple, but we did catch a glimpse of some gold as we left the area on the road back to Vellore. We stopped at a hotel for a little food and drink and bathrooms before visiting the fort in this town.
The fort dates from the 1400- 1500's period and has an older temple inside as well. It was hot, but we drove in and parked and walked to the temple. The temple outside has lots of interesting stone carvings- not as intricate as the older temples at Halebid and Belur and Somnathpur, but lots of carvings- and big too! It is not colorful like many temples are painted. We started down the stairs to the temples
but were chased back by someone leaving who said somethings we did not understand, but eventually we realized he was pointing at our shoes. It is customary to remove shoes and there is normally a stand close to the Holy places where you leave shoes for a small fee (they often try to get a lot more from foreigners). Here it turned out that the shoe place was behind us, far from the level of the temple which was down a long flight of stairs. We decided not to leave the shoes and make the long walk inside the temple areas- it is a BIG temple. We looked around outside, took a few pictures and then went to the fort ramparts to look around. The fort is described as "well preserved" in our guide books and this appeared to be generally true- the moat is still present and much of the stone, so it was an interesting stop on the way to the coast.
We rely on Joseph to find the way most of the time, but, like most Indians, he does not really understand maps. Most of the people in the world don't understand maps. The maps of India are not all that great either. We have just a general atlas of India and it gave some guidance on how to get to the area of the coast where we wanted to go, but it is not a good guide- and there were NO SIGNS! We found that signs are either poor or non-existent in much of the parts of TN we were in, so people have to ask directions A LOT. Joesph, who speaks several Indian languages said that if he did not ask for directions in Tamil, they might very well give him the wrong directions! He said this is not unusual to happen. Of course, it is also the case that people do not know the right directions and will give SOME directions rather than say they are not sure! In any case, armed with poor maps, no signs, and a driver who speaks Tamil, we made our way into Chennai rather than go around it. We also had poor information from our hotel on where it is located south of Chennai- their information implied it was close to the southern edge of the city when it was quite a bit further away. As we made our way into Chennai we stopped to ask directions. Our atls did have fairly good maps of the big citties, so, between Jim's map reading skills and Joseph's Tamil direction asking skills, we maanged to find our way out of the city on the right road. The road is called the ECR - East Coast Road.
We read about a couple interesting places to stop along this road and found one of them near the city - Chola Arts community which is a modern art sort of commune and gallery. It was hot, and only mildly interesting so we did not stay long before heading off toward our hotel which they told Joseph is "nearby". We drove on for quite awhile and passed the other place we would visit the next day before ending up at the Taj Hotel at Fisherman's Cove. We were happy to check in and get to our A/C'd room at this point and we settled in for the night after a good dinner. The hotel has a number of individual bungalows or cottages that are quite nice- especially with A/C! It is located on the ground of a Dutch Fort from the early 1700's but little of the fort remains above ground now.
On Sat. the 19th we had a nice breakfast and headed out to "Tiger Cave". This is a little south of the hotel. The road is nice and not far from the water. The area was hit somewhat hard in 2004 by the Tsunami that hit from Indonesia. The monument
s in the area were not damaged much, but a few people were killed and many homes and businesses were damaged or destroyed. We did not see pictures of before and after, so it is hard to say what happened, but we noticed a lot of clear areas which seem atypical of India! We also saw many young trees- we were told that many were planted since 2004 to act as a sort of breakwater against future tsunamis."Tiger Cave" is a misnomer for a feature carve out of a giant boulder. It is dated from around 700AD- probably a bit earlier. The main feature is an indentation carved in the rock surrounded by "Yali" heads. Yali are lion-like mythical creatures that also look a little like tigers. There were practically no other people here when we arrived! Of course, someone offered his guide services for about $2 which we accepted, knowing that we probably could have paid less than $1. After the Tsunami the government spent a little money putting a nice fence and lawn around the area which also inludes an old temple carved from another boulder just to the north of the tiger cave.
Ther are some other ruins still further north that were uncovered partly by the tsunami- those are being excavated now and we did not stop there, though we probably should have.
We proceed next to Mamallapuram or Mahabilipuram which is a well known tourist town. We first went to the "Shore Temple" and paid the entry fee which is also good for the other major site the "Five Rathas" at the southern end of town. Of course guides are all around wanting to be paid a lot to show us everything, but we said we just wanted someone for the shore temple in case we did not like the guy or decided not to see other places. The guide DO provide a useful service because most of the sites are mysterious to us. However, they can also provide much wrong information - like "Shiva is the preserver and Vishnu is the destroyer God" (its the other way around). It was REALLY Hot AND Humid, so it wa difficult to be enthusiastic about what we were seeing!. The guide told us that there were once other temples near the shore, but they were washed away in a typhoon about 500 years ago and only this one remains from about 1300years ago. We read that some other ruins were uncovered by the tsunami just south of the shore temple, but we did not see those either. There is a reclining Vishnu statue in this temple that is supposed to be older than the temple itself. The salt water and wind and such have rounded all of the temple carvings so it is interesting to see, but not that exciting- especially in the hot humid air. We were happy to make our way back to our A/C'd car!
We next road through town and went to the Five Rathas site. We read that this site was found in the early 1800's by the British after being buried in the sand for a very
long time. There are 5 temples carved out of granite boulders along with a Yali, a large elephant and a bull. All are nicely done, but, apparently, never completed! We did not stay long because of the heat.We visted some of the stone carving shops nearby. This has, apparently, remained a stone carving center for more than 1000 years. There is a lot of very nice work from small tourist trinkets to huge religious and decorative sculptures here that may be shipped any where in the world. We looked around and decided we would return the next day after pondering what we saw. We drove by some very large carvings on what is essentially a small mountain at the center of town. The most famous is called "Arjuna's Penance" (but apparently there are some who think the name is incorrect). This has an amazing variety of figures
from full size elephants to people, cats, rats, and Gods over an area aabou 38 feet high by 95 feet long. We did not stay long and came back the next day. We made a couple quick stops in shops in the town, but the heat had made us tired, so we left.We stopped at "Dakshina Chitra" north of our hotel to pay a quick visit. It started to rain around 4PM just before we arrived. This was well worth a visit. We had to hurry due to short time and many exhibits were not active or closed because it was late and there were few people around. They have taken homes and other
buildings from other parts of India and re-constructed them here. Generally these are nicer homes and interesting to see. They also have craft demonstrations. We watched a silk weaver making what will be a beautiful fabric when finished. We only saw the inside of about half the buildings and missed the outside of a few too. We returned to the hotel to cool off and have dinner.
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