Mamallapuram

Mamallapuram, in South East India, is known as the place where waves dance to the symphony of stones.

It's a gorgeous little seaside village and all day you can hear the stone carvers chipping away at their sculptures. It has such a chilled out atmosphere. Most of the sculptures are of religious gods and goddesses but such amazing work. The artists love to talk about their work and can spend ages telling us the storis related to the different gods in different positions. One artist, a painter, told us that he had studied in Mamallapuram. When we asked him what subjects he had studied he said that Art was the only course on offer.

There are hundreds of yoga places and ayurvedic massage centres. I found such a lovely yoga teacher, Salamon. The classes are 150 rupees each but you get a discount if you go more often.

A small village, tiny in Indian terms 12000. Bohemian.. .the usual thing going on... everyone wanting to sell you stuff, (minimal) beggars, mosquitoes and cows walking the streets. The tsunami hit this place but its hard to distinguish whats destroyed and whats just poverty on the beach front.

Still overwhelmed by the last two cities and their windowless hotels, we check into the best place in town. So much for roughing it.

Hotel Sea Breeze lives up to its name. Its also the only place in town that has a pool.
We abuse it as the waiter at lunch tells me the locals sh1t in the sea.

Left: The quiet street with a stone masons shop foreground , Right: A cow walks the beach

We are finally having a good time, we are now in fishing village and fish is on the menu. We go to the same restaurant everyday for breakfast and dinner (Nautilus). Its run by a french guy and the waiter loves as we are from SA. He loves his cricket and ordering anything involves a half hour chat about the best allrounder or the most economical bowling figures in a world cup. The food is brilliant and cheap.

The village is famous for its stone masons. You walk the streets (these were a breeze compared to Mumbai and Chennai) and hear the sounds of chipping and chiseling as the locals work on buddhas, shiva statues and all other sorts of gods in stone from 2 inches to 7 foot. Its amazing to see as many of them don't even have more than one tool (chisel).

We have a routine, we are here for a number of days, we make friends with a few travellers and a few locals including a 10 year old who runs the phone booth but just wants to hear you talk on the phone to improve her English.
We are smiling everyday.

Everyday except for the day we go to the post office. Sim has brought too many clothes despite the warnings and has some light trousers made at the tailors here (3 Quid each and we felt we were ripped off). As with everything in India, process is paramount and overrides common sense at every corner. To post something you need to find a box. Not easy as everything is used again and again for different uses. Fill the box and take it to the post office, open, to show them what you are sending. Next its off to the tailors who makes a fabric cube for the box to go inside. He stitches it up and now you have a box covered in fabric. Next is the wax seal on every seam.

Back to the post office. Weight the item yourself.
Glue in a bottle and paint brush to put on your stamps. Sent. Finally, 3 hours later.

More stone carvings - all hand made

The rest of the time here is spent abusing the pool, eating at Nautilus and walking the few streets. We walk up to the road to go see some rock carvings from centuries back but otherwise we are happy to release the stress of the cities, the grey of London and the fear of taxi rides.


Our friend Sangeetha from the phone shop and some amazing carvings near the village

Chennai

We skipped the train ride here.. there was a bomb on a train between Delhi and Pakistan... so we flew. Not sure whats more dangerous.. having to face the the taxi ride back to the airport or flying India's version of easyjet...called 'spicejet.' They give you yummy biscuits and bottles of water on the plane.

We leave the airport.. now wise to the aircon taxi ride trick and head for our hotel. By the time we arrive its dark and the street our hotel is in looks rather dodgy. Chennai ( what used to be called Madras) is similar to Mumbai - big, busy and loud, however, the streets are wider here so more traffic to negotiate at every turn.

We check into our room.
No window again.
It still looks safer than the darkening street outside.

We attempt to walk the street. We last 5 minutes. We are the only westerners and suddenly not feeling so touristy anymore. We find a shopping center, once again, so overwhelmed we are blinded and find ourselves in a pizza hut ... I hate that crap and my last time in one of their restaurants was on the Durban beachfront aged about 10 - but we would have taken anything except for the flea infested, disease ridden street food on offer.

Afterwards, we attempt to walk around again. To our delight we find the 5 star hotel round the corner. The pattern is emerging as we head in to use the facilities.. toilets, lounge and coffee shop. Safe.

The next morning our street doesn't look any better. We are leaving for Mamallapuram - 55km's away. We hire a taxi as to avoid the bus station. The cab driver fills up with gas. I look around, we are sitting on a bench above the gas tank. Oh well.. ..

Mumbai

The cab brings us to our hotel (prebooked) in one piece. We are so excited to be alive, this combined with what we have just seen/smelt on the way here distracts us as our hotel room has no window.
We don't care.

We hit the streets in the busy tourist area of Colaba. Its all madness, people everywhere, beggars, street children, street stalls.. (if you vaguely look you get a fierce selling routine - to be explained later)... our highlight is seeing a man with no eyeballs. We are so overwhelmed we duck into the 5-star Taj Mahal opposite the Gateway of India. We have lunch there and thinks it s a steal at about 14 Quid. Suitably recovered, we walk the streets again only to find shelter in our hotel room after a few hours.

The combination of jetlag and no windows mean we wake up at about midday the following morning. We hit the streets again. More of the same. Walk + Taj Mahal (no lunch this time, just using the facilities) = Tolerable.

Our highlight this day is we walk past Leopolds. Its a coffee shop that has a intricate part in the book 'Shantaram' by Gregory David Roberts. Sim and I have read it and loved it so we were happy to see the place. We walk the streets again.

Roadworks Mumbai style

The next few days are like this again. Throw in a trip to the train station to book a ticket to Chennai, a rickshaw drive down Marine Drive, a sunset moment on Chowpatty beach (Mumbai's version of Camps bay), a bout of food poisoning and an accidental walk past the slum (interesting to put it lightly) our highlight is another trip past Leopolds. However, this time the author is there and we stop for a chat and a signature. He's and amazing man but we chat for a while and he signs an autograph for us. Sim's friends can only laugh in disgust as she took so long to read the book they say.. she doesn't deserve the signing!

Left:Ant outside the entrance to Leopolds Right: A side road in Mumbai at night

India.. our arrival

After a nine hour flight we arrive in Bombay or Mumbai.. whatever you want to call it.. it seems to be an Indian thing that you can call a place by several names which makes things a little confusing.

We hire a cab from the prepaid stand.. air con or no air con.. we choose air con.. only to find that the driver drives with the windows open.. a true sign of how things work in India. Its great.. we can smell everything and hear every hoot of a horn on our way to our hotel. At first India is mind blowing.. the poverty is just unreal but its a welcoming distraction from the driving.

Driving in India takes either balls of steel or plain stupidity.. cars, bikes and autorickshaws, pedestrians, bicylces, cows and makeshift carts are all fair game. Signs read 'please obey traffic signs'... no one does.

We are on a 3 lane highway/road..I guess.. there are no markings. The cab driver follows the mass philosophy of if there is a space take it.. and if there's no space take it twice as fast. A number of times we could have held hands with other passengers in another car/bus/rickshaw/bike in mid journey or at what seems to be one of 3 traffic lights that the drivers will actually stop at.

It only been 20 minutes and we have already seen 5 people on one motorbike..2 parents and 3 kids. As I said.. watching the poverty and the dirt along the side of the road was a welcome distractiion.

Our cab, small but fiesty!