Well we've been in South India for several days now and it is interesting how different it is from the north. Greener and with more palm trees and rice paddy fields and a lot of rural communities. Towns and cities tend to be as mad and dirty as up north but the temple complexes have to be seen to be believed! Roads are under construction everywhere and in a seemingly haphazard fashion with dual carriageways suddenly changing to single carriage ways and then into original dirt track which makes travel somewhat longer and more bouncy! Bamboo and palm are utilised in every conceivable way from thatch, fencing, plates and curtains. Our guide is actually from the north and speaks Hindi so has nearly as many problems with the language as we do. Differences in religion are very apparent with Buddhism and Sikhism less widespread than in the north and with Christianity and Hinduism predominating. We are just about getting to grips with the major Hindu deities now but only with the main ones as there are thousands of them!
We liked Mammalapurum best - lovely hotel by the sea with some amazing temples and monuments. Pondicherry and Thanjavur were interesting and we are now templed out as we have seen 5 temple complexes in 3 days! Today's was the most extensive and took about 2 hours just to wander around the tourist parts! Tomorrow we are off to Kerala to stay on a nature reserve and then on a houseboat so we're looking forward to that. Our coughs appear to be better -touch wood. We hope everyone at home is well and that the weather isn't too bad - it's cloudy here but very warm and humid. The monsoon has not been as severe as usual either here in the south or in the north. We should be able to update again when we reach Kochi in about 4-5 days time so until then lots of love to you all...Ann and Iain
1 comment:
Good to hear your coughs are subsiding. It has been warm and humid here too - all of 15 degrees, that is! Your impressions of the multi-culturality of India, many religions, many deities, are just what we expect to hear. This wide variety of humankind!
I have just been reading in the LRB about the continued employment of line-in servants amongst middle-income households in India, despite having all western mod-cons. Of course you are unlikely to come across this phenomenon - go back in Britain 100 years to find any kind of equivalent. Love Alan
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