Trip to Pondicherry

Two weeks ago (March 21 - 22) Melanie, Abdul (only Saturday), Jeannie (only Sunday) and me went to Pondicherry. This little town is a former French colony situated 120km to the south of Chennai and a favourite tourist destination. It still retains much evidence of its French history especially in the French Quarter called White Town (second part of town, Indian quarter, is called Black Town...I wonder why ;o)). You can find here small, calm, clean streets with nice little houses and you definitely don't feel like in India ;o)

Pondicherry is sought-after by Indian and non-Indian tourists especially because of its calm, nice beach promenade and cheap alcohol ;o) What do you think was the purpose of our visit? NOOO, it's not alcohol!!! It was a desire to get out ouf crowded noisy Chennai and relax a little bit with a glass of good vine (how naive we were ;o))

Our first goal was to find a cheap guest house. We didn't book any beforehand because we were sure there were many and we would be able to find one room. Ehm ehm, how naive again ;o) We spent more than one hour walking in terrible heat and looking for a free room. We stopped in a resto for lunch. It was tooo good! For Rs. 35 we got a whole meal with a lot of rice and many kinds of gravy. Moreover served on banana leaf, using only right hand...typical Indian lunch ;o)















Completely Indianized ;o)

With happilly full stomachs we set out for searching our hostel again. We found one for Rs. 650 with TV but without shower which I just couldn't accept. I was trying to bargain looking into the bath-room and switching disappointed and disgusted faces. However, with Melanie at my side it was not easy at all. She was like: "Come on, Petra, I don't mind there's no shower! 650 is a good price!" I was trying to explain here that this is not the best way of thinking in India. You have to bargain otherwise Indian shopkeepers and hotelkeepers will just eat you alive!!! Finally I convinced here to go and try to find another one. She must have hated me because we spent one more hour looking for it. Finally we found one hotel. It was quite expensive, but the guy told us that they had another one on the opposite side of town and that we could get a double room for 600 there. He even called an auto for us so we didn't have to bargain and get a very low price ;o) However, when we reached the place, the hotelkeeper was staring at us: "What, 600?!?! Are you people crazy?!?! That's what you find in those bloody guides, don't you?! You can't have a room for 600 in Pondicherry!!!" Abdul tried to bargain in tamil but the guy was quite stubborn so we left. And guess what happened? As soon as we left the hotel, a guy rushed out and was crying: "OK, OK, 600 for room!!!" Hooray! Mission accomplished ;o) So we got this nice room with TV and shower and I was happy. Just Melanie drived me crazy with her: "Oh, it's too nice, we should have paied more for it, I feel guilty." COMME ON!!! The hotel was completely empty! They could have been happy to have us there for 600!

So, we had a place to sleep and could finally start our Pondicherry exploration. First we went to a hand-made paper factory. It was really nice! We had a guided tour and saw all steps of paper fabrication. I have never seen so many different types of paper before! And what wonderful things these people are able to make from this paper using only natural materials and their hands!!! Well, unfortunatelly, we were not allowed to make pictures, so I can't show you. But you can trust me: it was really nice ;o)

Then we want to beach promenade and just relaxed.















Whow, this is very uncommon in India!

Two great thinkers! However, they didn't come up with that much ;o)















Road by the beach.















The beach




















Mahatma Gandhi monument

In the evening, Abdul went back to Chennai and Jeannie arrived. When we went together for a dinner, we met a wedding procession. Weddings here are always so colourful!















The next day we just wandered around the town, visited a church, mosque and temple. It was a nice relaxing day. No more word are needed, just look at some pictures.















Beautiful house, though in quite a bad condition.















I wouldn't mind living in house like this ;o)















Even catholic churches are colourful (inside it was even "worse") here















Little mosque where we had a guided tour.




















Very serious young ladies ;o)




















And our favourite temple elephant

New friends, new places, new experiences...

Well, well, well, here I am again after almost 3 weeks! In fact not that much happened during those three weeks (at least no suicidal trips to the holiest and most crowded places of Tamil Nadu or new fantastic adventures with elephants and monkeys ;o)). But still I feel like I should give you some updated information about my stay in Chennai, right?

Hm, where to start...You can see already in the title that I have met some new people together with whom I've been to some new places and have new experiences.

First there was an IndiaMike meetup. IndiaMike is a website where Indians, expats living in India or people travelling in India discuss a lot of stuff...btw, this website helped me to solve almost all my worries before I came to India. From time to time some of people who are discussing on the website meet in a pub or restaurant to chat in person as well. This was the first (and so far last as well) time I joined them and it was really good. Firstly, it was in a great restaurant called Barbeque Nation which is quite an expensive but very nice place where you first prepare your own little barbeque on your table (they have special tables for this purpose) and then there is a buffet mostly with Indian meals but pasta, salads and sweets as well. And since it's "all you can eat", you can imagine how much I ate ;o) Secondly, I met Jeannie (Indonesia) and Melanie (France) there.















Griled banana...yummy yummy ;o)

Melanie and Jeannie are really nice and we hope we will travel together a little bit, especially with Melanie (but I'll tell you more about this later). Girls have introduced me to their friends: Anna (UK) and Indian guys Kavitha, Adit, Deepak, Chaitali etc. They're all very nice. We went for a movie (not an Indian one, it was an Lebanese movie given by French institute) together and then to a restaurant. It was a rooftop of one hotel and it was just gorgeous!!! Meat there was like a heaven (especially mutton) and so once again (although this time it was not "all you can eat") I ate A LOT ;o) Moreofer, these people are very talkative and sparkling with wit so we laughed a lot and had a wonderful evening.















Anna, Jeannie, Kavitha enjoying the lovely food

Thanks to these people I was also able to see the luxurious face of Chennai for the first time. Anna and Chaitali are working at a big NGO Banyan. There is one guy (he's a big boss in Hindustan newspaper) volunteering at this NGO for many years and since it was his B-day, the directrice of Banyan organized a posh B-day party for this guy in her house. I even wasn't sure how it happened that I was invited to the party (I hardly knew Anna and Chaitali and didn't know neither the guy nor the Bayan directrice) but I didn't care that much ;o) And the party was just awesome! The house is in a residential area not far away from my place. You just turn from the main road full of beggars sleeping on sidewalks and suddenly you're in a paradise. All these huge white houses with big cars parked in front of them and uniformed guards standing at the entrance gates. The interior was even more breathtaking! Huge, wonderful appartment with a big terrace where the party was held. There was a bar with uniformed servant ready to make us drinks (I had French red vine and it was soooo goooood!!!) and other servants were serving starters (barbecued chicken, cheese, vegetables). And then the dinner itself started. It was a buffet with all possible Indian dishes and it was soooo goooood again ;o) Well, although for me it was rather a culinar and cultural experience (or better shock ;o)) than a social event (almost all guests were frineds and colleagues from Banyan and thus were mostly discussing their activities), I really enjoyed it because it was for the first time that I met people from higher class and experienced the Indian diversity.

Another important person I met in Chennai is Vimarshan. As a member of IndiaMike this guy helped me a lot already before I came to India (especially when some people were telling me that 17500 rupees was not enough for a white girl to survive in Chennai). Now he's mostly helping me to plan my crazy trips, chill out after stressing and irritating trainings and arguments with my colleague, and discover new places in Chennai. We went to play bowling and "virtual tennis". I would never say that you can find bowling in Chennai!!! Even after almost two months in Chennai, I'm still living in a big stereotype portraying India as a poor developing country full of poor, illiterate people. Thank you, Shibu, for opening my eyes ;o) I really enjoyed the tennis game. First I just sucked but then I got used to the fact that I don't have a bat but just a remote control in my hand and finally I WON!!! And imagine: next day my left arm hurted like a hell!!! So I gues it was a good exercise as well ;o) Vimarshan also invited me to his B-day party and again it was very nice. I met his colleagues and friends (I was the only girl there with 10 guys and Vim's mum!!!), I ate A LOT (it seems that I'm only eating in India ;o)) and I laughed even more because especially one of Vim's friends Sujay is such a great storyteller!!! Well, now I'm planning to join Vim and his colleagues on their trip to Bangalore (they're invited for a wedding and I was offered to join them!!!) and around at the end of April. Hopefully I'll get a leave from job because I'm so much looking forward to this trip!!! And if everything goes well, we'll go for some more trips together. Well, but enough of praising Vimarshan because he's carefully reading my blog and I don't want to feed up his ego too much, right Shibu? ;o)

Next nice experience was a muslim wedding. Our friend Abdul (I'm not sure if I've already told you about him) is muslim and he was invited by his neighbours to a wedding. He was told that he could take friends as well and so whole my flat (since we all are Abdul's friends ;o)) was happy to join him. Weddings here normally last for 3-4 days. This was the last day and a final reception. It was just a small wedding and we came quite late but still it was great to see the traditional wedding dresses and to taste wedding dish. It was fun because as soon as we entered the hall, everybody was looking at us and they were no more interested in bride and groom. They were so happy to have us there. They were taking pictures of us (alone or with newly-weds), we were taking pictures of them and everybody was happy ;o) The dinner itself was quite simple (compared to what we're used to in Czech Republic) but for Indian standards (it was a middle class family) it was really good and very tasty (especially mutton biryani). And since it was wedding and Indian people are very hospitable, whenever we finished our plate, they hurried up to give us some more food...Thus again again I ate A LOT ;o)

Don't they look really happy?















Wedding dish - mutton biryani















Wedding hall ;o)

Ouch, I've already written much more than I wanted to! I will thus just briefly add some more news:

• Pierre (French flatmate) and Lynn (Chinese flatmate) left but we have new Chinese girl Fish (it's not a mistake, English version of her name is really Fish ;o)) and Turkish guy Cagdas. Both are really nice.
• My company is delivering another training. This time it's Report Writing for MBA students. We already did one 2-day long training for the first batch and three more batches are ahead of us. The first batch was really good (compared to my first training experience). Students were smart, quiet, they followed our instructions and were very friendly. Hopefully the next batches will be alike ;o)
• I'm planning a big trip to Kodaikanal with Melanie on April 10-14. We already have our train tickets (it was quite challenging to get them and we were really lucky) and I'm now trying to find some nice and cheap accommodation which is chellanging as well becuase it's going to be a long weekend (it's public holiday on April 10 and 14) and Kodaikanal is a very popular hill station.
  

Trip to Tiruvannamalai and Gingee Fort

On Tuesday, March 10 I didn't go to work and went for another trip! Again, it was quite a quick decision without much planning. A guy called Chris (American with Indian parents), who I only knew from this on-line forum IndiaMike, offered me to join him, his cousin and her colleagues on this trip. First I was a bit suspicious because I have never met him before and it's not recommended to travel with strangers, right? I wanted to meet him first to see what type of person he is but we couldn't catch each other. Finally we met just for few minutes the evening before the trip. Well, Chris didn't talk much (he's quite a shy guy) but still I got impression that he was not the type who would kidnap me, rape me, kill me and burry me deep in ground. And I decided to go for the trip with them.

Well, in the morning I already regretted my decision because after not much sleep during weekend I had to wake up at 4:45 again! Fortunately, Chris picked me up with his bike and the morning ride refreshed me. Of course I was still a bit worried - guy who I knew for few hours drove me to his flat (or somewhere else?!) so early in the morning. Moreover, his house was not by a big busy road but hidden at the end of a very little narrow one. Hm, this really didn't encouraged me much. His cousin came from the house and she was quite nice so I calmed down. We were still waiting for two people to come when it suddenly started to rain! After more than one month here I saw rain which is very unusual in this part of year in Chennai. And it wasn't just a short shower, it was really raining cats and dogs ;o) Well, finally our group was complete and we set out for the trip. We were travelling in hired taxi which was supposed to be faster and more comfortable...hm, it wasn't but I didn't mind. It was better than sitting in office ;o)

It took us three hours to get to Tiruvannamalai. It was raining like a hell all the time but luckily it stopped when we reached the town. Tiruvannamalai is another famous pilgrimage town with a huge Annamalaiyar temple dedicated to Lord Shiva, located at the bottom of the Annamalai hill. Unfortunately we didn't have time to climb the mountain but as you can see on the picture (it's not my photo, I just downloaded it ;o)), the view from the hill is gorgeous!













We met a guy (relative or family friend of Chris's cousin's colleague) who was supposed to help us to get into the temple without spending hours waiting in line. It took him some time to get a VIP entrance permit for us but he made it and we could get in. It was really nice inside and completely different than in Tirupati temple. Here we could move freely, look around and enjoy the atmosphere of this holy place. All pilgrims were concentrated around altars with statues of gods where priests were offering pilgrims' coconuts and flowers to the deity (they decorated the statues with chains of flowers and broke the coconuts). Other pilgrims were siting on floor and meditating or lighting candels. It was "strictly not allowed" to make pictures inside so I can't share my feelings with you, however, here are at least some pictures made outside despite a gloomy weather.





























holy bull ;o)














should I be jealous?



















decorated statue of God



















chains of wonderful flowers to be offered to deity














Chris is just crazy about elephants and basically he only went to this temple because of the elephant that they were supposed to have here. He (and me too!!!) really wanted to stroke it and give it a coin to get blessing from it. Again, we had to overcome some obstacles (not-too-friendly temple guards, beggars all around, stony paths not very comfortable for bare feet) but it was worth it! We found our elephant, we stroked him, gave him a coin and were blessed. Whow! Just when I want to take some more pictures with me stroking the elephant, its owner (or what he is) almost beated me up with his stick yelling: "You don't pay, you don't touch!" ;o)

playing with "boss"














gratis stroking ;o)














And that was a sweet cerise on our Tiruvannamalai trip. But for me another adventure was yet to come in this town: we went to typical Indian veg restaurant for lunch. Well, I eat Indian food everyday and I really like it. But this was my first time eating from a banana leaf and with my right hand only (I use spoon in the office and in restaurants where I've been so far I was always offered spoon as well). I was quite awkwart (it's not that easy to eat rice with hand! and don't think that the rice is sticky...it's not! it fells everywhere!...at least in my case ;o)) but I really enjoyed the meal (and didn't have any health issues after ;o))


Our next destination was Gingee Fort. This is one of the few surving forts in Tamil Nadu 160 km from Chennai. This place used to be so well fortified that it was ranked as the "most impregnable fortress in India" and it was called the "Troy of the East" by the British. It was again raining when we stopped under the hill and even when we were climbing but we were lucky enough and after few minutes of walking in rain it stopped and our hosts monkeys came out! Ah yeah, there are many monkeys waiting for visitors and trying to steal their hand bags ;o) First they were quite cute. Chris was feeding them with bananas and it was fun. But then they wanted more bananas, they were following us and made strange sounds so I got a bit scared...Well, the place itself is just beautiful. You can really feel the breath of history. There is a nice view on other hills with forts all around...I just loved it! I think there's no use of trying to describe this place with words, just look at the pictures although they're not the best ones because of gloomy weather.

Trip to Tirumala Tirupati Temple

This trip was absolutely not planned and not organized (what appeared later). Yatan, Colombian 'professionally oldest' trainee in Chennai, came to our barbecue party on Saturday evening and told us that he was going to this richest temple on Sunday, March 8. And we (my Russian flatmates Sasha and Angelina) said: "Whow, we want to join you!" So we had a party, ate, drank and enjoyed ourselves till 2 am. I'm sure you can imagine how hard it was to get up at 4:30 am and how fresh we all were.

We took a normal, not A/C, uncomfortable, cheap bus and got on way at 6:30. Since we boarded it at its point departure we were at least lucky enough to get seats and we could sleep a bit. The temple is quite far from Chennai (it's not in Tamil Nadu but in another state called Andhra Pradesh) so it took us more than 4 hours to get to Tirupati but it was quite a nice way (well, at least it's end after few additional hours of sleep) because the area is hilly which is nice change after completely flat Chennai ;o)

The temple (Sri Venkateswara Temple) is situated on Tirumala hills (so called Seven Hills) which are the world's second oldest rock mountains. It's a very holy place dedicated to Balaji (form of hindu god Vishnu) and visited by thousands of pilgrims every day. Pilgrims on their holy pilgrimage should climb the mountain but we, spoilt western 'kids' took a bus and enjoyed the wonderful view. The whole temple areal is really huge. Unfortunately we didn't have much time (we arrived to Tirumala at 11:30) to look around and went directly to the temple. On our way to the temple we met many bald (or better said shaved) people, all men, women and children. We had an impression we were in a town of aliens, but in fact these people were pilgrims who just went through 'tonsuring' - the act of shaving your head to propriate god which is a long standing ritual associated with Tirumala. Pilgrims offer their hair to the Lord which symbolizes effacing of the ego.

We got to the big square in front of the temple and saw cages (barred corridors) full of jammed people. Those were dedicated pilgrims eager to enter the temple and see the God. Those poor people were waiting there for 8-9 hours, patiently standing in endless line, jammed in this long cell. Well, I'm sure it must have already crossed your mind: when we saw this we just told ourselves: "Whow, we have to do this as well!" When we finally found the entrance to the temple, we realized that it wouldn't be that easy to enter the temple (in India everything is more complicated with white face) and do the tour in 2-3 hours. We tried to discuss about our entrance with guards at the entrance. Well, their English was poor but they were smart enough to understand that we wanted to enter and that we were not Indian citizens ;o) One of them took Yatan and Sasha and told the rest of us to wait. So we were waiting...and waiting...and waiting...I think it took almost one hour until Sasha and Yatan came back with a VIP ticket! As usually, they had to pay, fill in a lot of forms, give our personal data and almost underwrite their souls to devil to get this permission. But they made it! However, before entering the temple we had to put our shoes to a special cloakroom and lugages (they were not allowed and later we understood why) in another one. This took us some more time but finally we were ready to enter the temple.

There were two lines divided by bars. One line was for free entrance (those poor people waiting for 8 hours) and second for paying customers (rich Indians and spoilt western kids ;o)) Ours was moving quite fast and we thought how lucky we were. But then I got just petrified when I saw that the bars dividing the two lines just disappeared!!! That was the beginning of our holy pilgrimage! People of all colors, sizes and smells were coming from all sides, they were pushing each other, steping on each other, climbing each other, sometimes there was a fight and guards had to take somebody out of the crowd, babies in parents arms were crying. And we, poor white western students (by the way, we were the only white people in that crowd counting thousands of people!), were there among them! Sometimes I felt the crowd must squeeze my soul out of my body. But I didn't give up and was fighting to make my way. The crowd provided us with a nice sightseeing: it took us to all holy parts of the temple, we saw golden altars (if they're called altar in hinduism as well), picture of God (everybody has only few seconds to see it!!! and the people were waiting there for such a long time!!!), golden statue of God with people climbing on it (and on other people) trying to place some coins there, big golden container where people were putting money (not just few coins to have luck, but whole big bags of money!!!) etc. One doesn't have much time to look around, study all statues and pictures and enjoy these holy moments. Basically, I was especially trying to survive but I still falt the strong atmosphere and it was such a huge experience! It's just incredible how much these Indian pilgrims are able to undergo to see a picture of God for few seconds and throw their savings to the container. How strong their faith must be! How easy the life of Christians is compared to this! They just sit in their half-empty churches, pray, sing songs...Well, it's really not easy to be a pilgrim in India.

After this exhausting adventure we didn't have much time (neither energy) to wander around. We just went to eat and got back to Tirupati. And down there, another adventure started. Since the trip wasn't organized at all (we thought Yatan had planned it and had had all information but he is a very easygoing person and doesn't care much about these trivial things) we realized that all buses were booked out. People were fighting only to get into the bus (there were no seats available) and willing to spend 4 hours standing or sitting on the floor. We were already half-prepared that we would do the same but divided into two groups we were still trying to find some bus with seats. And suddenly Sasha called me that they had met some more people who wanted to go to Chennai and were willing to hire a van with us. The van was 400 per each but at that moment we would pay almost anything just to get back. However, on our way to place with vans to hire, we met this guy saying: "You going to Chennai? I have a bus. Come, come, in 3 hours in Chennai, only 140 each" And he really had a bus and it was empty! We couldn't believe how lucky we were! Although the bus was overpriced (it was again an ordinary old bus and the price was higher than for A/C bus), it was better than a van and much better than spending night in Tirupati.

The way back home was long and very uncomfortable but one must get used to this because it's the only way of travelling in India. We arrived completely exhausted but full of so strong and unusual feelings as never before.

And that's the end of my first big trip. Unfortunately I can't show you many photos because we spent most of time on bus (I tried to take some pictures from window but you can imagine the quality) and inside the temple where using cameras was strictly prohibited. But still, I have some:

first hilly panorama we saw on our way to Tirupati














shaved pilgrims - don't they look like aliens?














temple














if you zoom this you can see the crowd waiting in line behind the bars














trying to get back from Tirumala Hill to Tirupati - not easy with Indian manners














some pictures caught from bus

Exploring Chennai

Finally I have some time to sit down and write "few" more lines about my life in Chennai. ;o)

Basically, nothing special happened between Feb 26 and March 5. We went to Mahabalipuram again on Saturday, Feb 28 but this time the purpose was a beach party. First I didn't want to go there (I wanted to go for a trip to a different place) but many people were supposed to come so I decided to go. However, not many people appeared and those who appeared had quite a different idea of beach party than me, Telcio and his friend Rama who came just for 2 days from Hyderabad. So finally we were just sitting on beach, drinking and chatting and it was quite a nice (almost romantic ;o)) night. Next day we went to this luxurious tourist resort again but this time, thanks to my hangover (we were drinking some Indian whiskey), I was quite looking forward to laying on clean, nice beach, swimming in sea and relaxing.

But many things happened after March 5! A friend of mine from Prague (for BS members: Hanka Kodymova) who has been in north India with her boyfriend since the end of January, came to Chennai on Thursday, March 5 for few days. We met on Marina beach (the pride of Chennai), walked and chatted. It was quite a strange feeling to meet a Czech speaking person and moreover a friend in such a huge Indian city. I really enjoyed speaking Czech again and exchanging our Indian experiences which are quite different since Hanka is in India as a tourist and travel a lot, whereas I work, travel by public transport and haven't seen that much so far.

We met again on Friday evening and went to visit Kapaleeswar Temple, one of the biggest and best-preserved temples in Chennai. I pass by this temple every day when I travel to and from my office and I just love it.



































































Then we went to the biggest shopping mall in Chennai (Spenzer Plaza) where Hanka wanted to by a charm with precious stone. It was really funny because when she was choosing the charm she asked the seller: "Is this silver?" "Yes, yes, madam, silver, silver!" But there isn't any mark on the charm. There should be a mark if it is silver," she said. "Oh no, it is silver, they just forgot to put a mark!" Whow, already this made us laugh - they FORGOT, it happens ;o) Hanka said: "But how can I know that it's silver if it doesn't have any mark?" "Do you want a mark? Wait a second, I will make a mark for you!" he said, took pliers (or what it was) and made a mark on the charm. "Now it has a mark, you see?" He was so happy that he could make it and solve Hanka's problem ;o) Well, although this "proof" didn't convince her, finally she bought the charm together with another one and a chain because it was quite cheap. However, she still has doubts about purity of the silver and stones as well, especially after having read the seller's business card saying 'Specialist in Gems & Jewellery, Imitation Jewellery'...well, this word 'imitation' together with silver purity mark make one feel suspicious ;o)

Our Chennai adventure continued on Saturday when we went shopping (or rather walking and enojoying the atmosphere) to the most famous Chennai market Pondy Bazaar. Here you can buy very cheap (but with questionable quality as well) clothes, shoes, bags and other stuff. Shopkeepers, when they saw two white girls, were persistently trying to get us into their shops, they were showing us everything they had and were assuring us about 'good price, good price'. How big their disappoint was when we didn't buy anything ;o) After one month in Chennai, I finally bought a handbag (it's really nice and it cost Rs. 140=56 CZK!!!) and two western-type tops that I find more comfortable for travelling. Mission accomplished ;o)

In the afternoon we went to visit two famous places in Chennai:
St. George Fort
Lonely Planet guide recommends this 'military architecture marvel' built by the British East India Company in 1640 AD as one of the first places to see in Chennai. The fort is believed to be the first establishment of the British in India. It served as a home away from home for the officials of the East India Company. This helped in the development of the city of Madras. From historical point of view, it's quite an interesting place. However, from touristic point of view, there's not much to see: one little church called St. Mary's Church, Fort Museum (we didn't go inside) and many old, ruined, empty buildings.

Anna Memorial & MGR Memorial
Other 'famous' and 'must see' places in Chennai. Well, not breathtaking, but quite nice ;o)











































After seeing these Chennai treasures we were so full of emotions that we decided to go home and take some rest before barbecue party in my house. The party was really nice with many guests and great Brazilian beef ;o)


PS: Some more pictures of Chennai follow

autorickshaw = common means of transport









Sri Rama Krishna Math - place of pilgrimage









typical 'outfit' of rivers in Chennai









everything is of a very good kwality!!!









"Egmore, boss, Egmoooore"