Chennai (Madras), India - April 20 part 1

silk weaving

feet cleaning

Incredible and amazing are the first 2 things I can say about India. It’s been about a day since we made our first full-day excursion into India and now back on the boat without the very pronounced smell of coal surrounding me I don’t actually think it met my expectations in every way. Although it was VERY crowded, I think I expected it to be more obviously dense with people. There definitely were many, many people for as far as I could see, but I think I expected the amount of people to impact me more. I couldn’t tell you how much distance we travelled yesterday and it may not have actually boiled down to a whole lot, but we were certainly on the road for a huge chunk of time (I’m talking hours) and really never left ‘civilization’. There were a few moments when we were in rural areas, but the vast, vast majority of the time we were either in a city or a town.


women in saris at the temple

Before we got to India we heard from the ship’s tour people repeatedly how the standards of the buses etc will not be up to ours – I didn’t come to India with that expectation, but was pleasantly surprised last night as we journeyed to our dinner on the town how cool the bus was and how well the A/C worked. Well…I learned that when the sun was blazing that the bus was marginally cooler than outside. There was A/C, but it was mostly blowing air. However, there are fans on the bus – actual fans like a desk-top one at home attached to the wall of the bus at each seat that actually did a pretty good job.

meals provided by temple

We drove for at least 2 hours before we actually were outside of the city of Chennai (Madras). While it was thick with traffic and the public buses were absolutely packed with people actually hanging out of the doors the people on the streets had room to move. I think I expected people to be a bit more tightly packed together on the streets. Normally the prospect of a 2 hour drive just to get out of a city would not have interested me, but as we drove I never tired of looking out the window – thankful that I was on my side of the window, regardless of the weak A/C.

packed public bus



temple

 The first thing I saw were the women in saris. This is where India didn’t meet my expectation. I obviously had the wrong expectation of India. I knew I would see women wearing saris, but didn’t expect to see ALL of them wearing them. As the day progressed I didn’t see one Indian woman in western clothing – not one. These saris are stunning – really each and every one of them. Our first stop was to a silk factory to see saris being made. They are made by punch cards and each one takes about a month to produce. This stop also gave me my first non-western toilet experience of this trip. I certainly have experienced them before, but I don’t think I’ll ever get used to them.

one of MANY fruit stalls

crowded street

Our next stop was Kanchipuram – they call this city the city of a thousand temples. This city is one of the seven most sacred pilgrim centers for the Hindus – we saw some pilgrims. We visited Ekambareswarar Temple which is a temple for the god Siva (one of the 3 incarnations of the Hindu god.) This temple is on 20-acre of land, and its tallest structure is almost 200 feet. Apparently non-Hindus are not permitted into all temples, but this one was OK. We had to take our shoes off and compared to Thailand temples, this one was pretty dirty – I was glad I brought along my wet-wipes. This was an amazing visit. Our guide was excellent – her information and English taught me a lot. I knew next to nothing about Hinduism and certainly had never seen anything like this site before – I have said that a lot this trip.


I must mention the heat at this point. It has been hot this trip – you know the kind of heat where the sweat rolls down your back and down your pants? That’s hot! I know I’ve been hotter before – Ephesus was hotter and we were in the heat for longer, but this was pretty hot and it was cloudy.