The Ashram of the great saint, Sri Ramana Maharshi

Tiruvannamalai

The entire purpose of this trip was to come to Tiruvannamalai. There’s a number of reasons for coming here but I’m not going to go into all that right now as my first full day was all about checking out the town.

Tiruvannamalai is a very poor town, in fact, way, way poorer than I was expecting and I was expecting poor in the first place. Check out the first few photos below and you will start to get a bit of an image of how poor I am talking here. One thing I haven’t come across to this degree is not being able to tell the difference between the beggars and, well the poor people, who also tend to beg, just in a different way. Then there are all the Babas, or Holy Men, Wandering Swamis or as I am beginning to see them, “Homeless Men in Orange clothing doing their best to cash in”. They are the ones dressed in orange and seem to wander around doing their fair share of begging and not much of the being holy. A true Wandering Swami has only his simple clothing, a staff and his bowl, he also doesn’t ask for anything, simply allows people to give as they will, quite different to this lot. So it’s a town full of people who clearly see the visiting Westerner as someone who is filthy stinking rich and should pay accordingly.

I tell you all this because in my experience in India you need to have a bit of a plan, especially if you are in one place for any length of time. If you don’t have a plan you will become easy pickings for the myriad opportunists who want you cash. My plan was to walk into town, a distance of 7km. It’s interesting to hear the staff here at the hotel suggest that it’s impossible to walk that far, but then they earn commission for organizing an auto-rickshaw for you. See, everybody is in on it here, in fact, India is so unbelievably corrupt from top to bottom, probably one of the most corrupt countries in the world, and on the basis of that you start to understand why everybody wants to get paid. (while I am on that subject, check out my “Only in India” stories I am about to post, especially the one about my arrival at the hotel)

The going rate, I have been told, for an auto-rickshaw into town is100 rupees. So if you have it in your mind that that’s the rate then from the start that’s what you pay, it’s a rort. It’s a small town and not so many auto-rickshaws (from now on will be known by me as rick-astleys) which means that by the end of the day quite a few of them seemed to already know me, as they had stopped to offer me a ride, of course they all look the same to me **insert Southpark face right here**. They would all say the same thing, 100 rupees, I would give them my usual face and sound, which is a sort of an “aurrhhh”, accompanied by a single chopping action with the hand indicating that I’m disgusted and the conversation is over. After a couple of hours I had the price down to 80 rupees and I was obviously getting a few of the same guys as they seemed to know me already, wanting to adopt me as “their Westerner”. Nearer the end of the day they were asking me how much I wanted to pay so we are already starting to get somewhere. I figure there are heaps of rides on a rick-astley for 50 rupees, none at all for 100. Seeing as I am here for close to six weeks I need to sort this one out quickly. I really don’t mind the walking, probably about 20km today over about 7 hours with breaks in between resting in the Ramana Ashramam (yes, that’s Ashramam, they like to add an extra “am” onto certain words here)

The beggars are a different matter and there are heaps of them everywhere. There is a whole other thing going on in place like this, unlike the Slumdog Millionaire version whereby they beg in gangs, there are certain groups of people here in real need, maybe more about that later. The men in orange make great photos so I am happy to pay the “model” a little at times, though you could so easily be paying out the cash all day long. The children here seem to get into begging right outside their very humble homes. It’s actually very off-putting and gets a pretty short response. First they ask for a photo (which so many people do anyway) but when that’s not happening they ask for a pen, then a sweet, then a rupee. They follow you down the road and you have to get quite short with them or they start pawing at you, and that is the worst.

All in all Tiruvannamalai would seem to be a very run down, poverty stricken type place but interestingly enough today I didn’t once smell that awful small of piss drying in the sun or see one little pile of shit. The only shit smell is that of the cows, which are everywhere here, and I have no problem with that smell at all. The town is built around one side of the hill Arunachala, the sacred hill. I’m not exactly sure what makes a hill sacred but it’s been that way for several thousand years. There are hills everywhere here, which I found surprising, but something makes Arunachala extra special. A temple, I understand to be India’s largest, is here along with the ashram of the great saint, Sri Ramana Maharshi who lived there until his death in 1950. I visited the Ashram twice today, staying for quite a while both times, sitting in different places absorbing the peaceful atmosphere. Today was a holiday known as Pongal so the Ashram was a bit crowded and a bit noisy so not as peaceful as might be expected. Indian people seem to let their kids run around crazy making as much noise as they want, I noticed that in the hotels as well. They never seem to go to bed either, up at all hours running up and down the hallways in hotels screaming and carrying on, the children at the ashram were just the same.

I’m not really an ashram kind of guy, and there are heaps of things on all day long from about 4.00am to 9.00pm every day, but I can see it will be something of a refuge from the dust and dirt of the town and the mid day heat so will probably spend quite a bit of time there. It’s quite a big place so plenty of quiet areas you can hide yourself away. More about the Ashram in later posts.

Outside nearly every single house, shack or business there are these chalk-like drawings of various quality. Actually I believe they are done in coloured flour or something , will investigate more.

 

 

Love this guy, may adopt him for the time I'm here. Tend to have favourites and probably like this guy because of his dog. See how everything, including the dog, is so neatly ordered.

The "Only in India" file

Kovalam beach and alcohol - You can go to certain licensed restaurants and be served alcoholic drinks but there aren’t many of those. But then you can go pretty much anywhere else and be served alcoholic drinks too. The only difference is that at the unlicensed places the drinks are much cheaper but there are a few extra “rules”. Little things like, if you want a bottle of beer it will be served to you poured into a brown coffee mug and the bottle must be hidden out of sight down by the table leg….Only in India !

The umbrella guy - So today started with hiring a rusty beach umbrella for 50 Rupees, that’s about NZ$1.50. Funny thing is that as the day went on umbrella man decided that I should pay 50 rupees extra as he decided I was a rich man.  I assured him I wasn’t and he got quite grumpy with me as the day went on. It was bad enough that I hadn’t hired a lounger as well….Only in India !

The Safe - So I asked if they had a safety deposit box behind reception at the hotel at Kovalam beach and was told the boy would bring one to the room, which I found to be an interesting response in itself. About three seconds later (garnering a good tip are all about speed apparently, not service !) the boy brings a safe to my room. It’s this steel box with a key, which is all very well but when I asked where they bolt it down to he just starts suggesting various places I maybe 8kg and most certainly designed by the local burglar’s fraternity as it ensures that when the bad guy comes calling he can take all your valuables in one ready made, easy to break in to steel box….Only in India !

Along the lines of the umbrella incident - Relatively uneventful sore-arse drive across to Tiruvannamalai where I was welcomed with flowers around my neck and a coconut drink before being hit with a @%&$#% bill ! I hit the @%&$#% roof !!!! They chose the wrong tired guy on the wrong @%&$#%-@%&$#% day to try and charge more for my stay didn't they ??? I had got a really good deal for my stay here via Hotels.com and it was clearly way to good a deal for them so they decided to have a go at charging me a more suitable rate. They had me sitting there while they @%&$#% around with a calculator working out what, in their view, I should pay. Then the manager of the complex was called to deal with it but he was very scared of me, tried holding my hand (I think so I wouldn't bash him with it !) I could see they had worked this out prior to my arrival and had hoped that I would just say "Oh OK, sure, no problem, here's my credit card" like some dumb-@%&$# @%&$#% idiot... @%&$# !!! They certainly weren't expecting me to give the response I did and backed right off. I walked out and went to my room and waited a couple of hours before going back down with my laptop to do some things, at which time they were trying to pretend none of this had ever happened (Those of you who have been to India know exactly what I’m talking about don’t you ? Bit like some sort of Bali thing) Please note: this story has been censored for obvious reasons but thought I might still show you what is required here sometimes in order to get things done. Seems sometimes a strong expression is required and nothing else will do. So anyway, I have been sitting here using free internet for ages because they are too scared to charge me I think "complimentary, for the misunderstanding Mr Graham" Misunderstanding my @%&# Funny thing is (and perhaps this you can imagine also) that they have worked out that all I need to do is sign a letter to head office telling that I refuse to pay, then everything will be OK. We'll see about that now won't we ? @%&$#% !!!….Only in @%&$#% India !

Thiruvananthapuram

Thiruvananthapuram, othewise and more commonly known as, Trivandrum. (Maybe more commonly known as Trivandrum because no one can actually say Thiruvananthapuram.

After leaving the massive open air toilet that was Kanyakumari, arriving back in a big city means major air pollution. Now I’ve been to New York and Tokyo, both of which have heavily polluted air but let me tell you, this is thick, blue/black air that hits the back of your throat like nothing else. On returning to your hotel room after an hour or two outside in it, you blow your nose and it’s all black and sooty. The throat gets dry and sore and you tend to breathe in a very shallow way because you just don’t want to breathe that muck in deeply. The shallow breathing has it’s own downside and overall makes you wonder what it must do to the people that have to live in it all the time.

By the way, as soon as I left kanyakumari my nose stopped running, which is interesting. Piss and shit ? Chlorine ? Who knows ? Now it’s this irritated throat and a sort of throaty cough thing as if I have been breathing in poisonous gases, which is precisely what I have been doing.

So, instead of wandering round what I consider to be just another over-crowded, filthy, dirty, polluted, stinking Indian city for a day, before heading to Tiruvannamalai, grabbed an auto-rickshaw and took off to Kovalam Beach for the day. 30 odd degrees, bright sunshine, fresh coastal air, warm water and great waves. Fresh pineapple sliced up and served on the beach followed at the end of the day with a big plate full of grilled garlic prawns. Another gaseous auto-rickshaw ride back to the hotel the day was a fantastic idea, excellent decision.

Staying these two nights in the Mascot Hotel. It’s a government owned hotel, of which there are quite a few in India apparently, but I’m still not exactly sure what the point of a government owned hotel is. It’s certainly not any cheaper, in fact the food in particular is relatively expensive. You might expect the staff in a government owned hotel to be a bit useless but then that’s no different to a privately owned hotel. Will have to make some more enquiries about that. Interesting that in India the great desire of most parents, who have the wherewithal, is to get their children as good an education as possible and get a government job, pretty much set for life apparently.

This is the view from my window at the Mascot Hotel

 

Just out for a walk up the street with her umbrella, in the driving lanes, back to the traffic !

 

The buses are great big chunky blocks of steel

 

If buses could be prisons, this is what they would look like

 

Not sure which is safer, umbrella woman or the family on the motorbike.

So many families have only a motorbike for transportation, if they are fortunate.

 

 Back to Kovalam Beach for the day

Did I mention that when you hire a lounger and an umbrella for the day you get a dog ? 

There are all these really cool, very healthy "beach dogs" that grab the shade for the day.

My fruit lady. Cuts up pineapple, mango papaya etc and serves it up right on the beach

And sunset before prawns

 

Then it was out to the airport the next day and off to Bangalore. Flight was fine and easy, got a taxi from the airport, paid a bit more than usual but got an exceptional and safe service, considering where I had to get to. Was about 80kms to my hotel, could have been about 3.5 hours driving right through the city of Bangalore but the driver asked my permission to go a "jumpy-bumpy" way through the villages which would only take two hours. Of course I agreed and it was interesting that within a few hundred metres of going off course his phone was ringing and was his office asking why. Obviously had GPS tracking on the vehicle and that was worth paying for. Got to the wost hotel in the history of the the planet, fortunately only one short night and I was out of there. 

Next morning I was out of that dump in a flash and off on the last leg of the journey toward Tiruvannamali. Had an arranged taxi and what should turn up but an old Morris Oxford-style Ambassador. Never been in one before and was quite excited. The most interesting thing about this one is that it’s actually only two years old from new. A two litre diesel engine and, wait for it, air-conditioning. If last nights “jumpy-bumpy” road wasn’t bad enough well a full 110km of this journey was like driving up the worst part of the Waimakariri River, seriously, a 200km journey that takes four to five hours in a taxi, anything up to nine or ten hours in a bus (and that’s why we take taxis here sometimes) great car, very bad bench seats that are still from the 1950s I suspect.

  Kumar and his Ambassador Taxi when we stopped for chai

 

Family of five on a bike, any higher offers ?

 

I love these sights, not always easy to capture them

 

 

 

Cows with coloured hand-prints all over them

 

And finally, Tiruvannamalai. 

This is the view from my room, with the famous Arunachala Hill in the background