Part 5 – Trichy, Tamil Nadu (12, 13 & 14 June,2011)
On 12 June am, we checked out of the hotel in Madurai and walked with our two bags to Periyar Bus Stand. It was a 10mins walk. We took our time to photograph some local happenings.
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| Me with my luggage after checking out |
This was the time we craved for toasted bread for breakfast. We just couldn’t do another round of idlis, vadai and tosai. And yuppee, we found a British Bakery! Quite near to the bus-stand.
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| The British Bakery, Madurai |
But alas, they didn’t have toast as it was quite early it seems, so we opted for two sets of egg sandwich (RS95). We were kind of disappointed with the taste so we parcelled most of it and gave it to the poor outside. Never order two sets if you are a pair – the servings are huge.
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| Egg sandwich |
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| Inside the bakery |
Once at the bus-stand, we made enquiries and were told that we had to take the local bus to the Mattuthavani Central Bus Stand as buses to Trichy are only available here. So, we took the first local bus we saw heading to the Central Bus Stand. There are many buses headed that way daily, in fact every 5 mins.
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| Inside the bus - quite clean |
The bus we took was quite empty. We took the back seat so that we can park our backs easily. Bus fare was RS7 each. When we reached the Mattuthavani Central Bus Stand, we quickly got down, and asked the brown-clad bus drivers for direction as to which platform to go to book an express private A/C bus. But the counter he sent us to was closed.
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| Mattuthavani Central Bus Stand, Madurai |
So, we decided to travel with the locals instead. We got into the ‘Trichy’ bound bus and paid RS40 each for a 118km journey. (Just when the bus turned around the corner, we saw a whole row of private A/C buses, we just didn’t see it earlier).
It was a long journey, but comfortable and fun as we got to see small towns/villages. The bus diverted from the highway every now and then into smaller towns to pick up or drop off passengers.
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| Tamil Nadu Roads - good work by the TN State Government |
There was a continuous play of yesteryear evergreen Tamil songs, and commuters were quick to find seats just to doze off. The women never sit with the men unless they are a couple. And I noticed that men don't give up their seats for the women or the elderly. The seats come as two-seaters or three-seaters, if you are a couple best to take the two-seater.
We reached Trichy in less than 2 hours. Would have been faster if we had taken the Express as Express buses stick to the highway.
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| Trichy Central Bus Stand |
We were impressed of old town Trichy as everything that a traveller needs is pretty much there. Choice of hotels, food eateries, fruit stalls, tour operators, mall, cinema, night clubs and you name it, it's all within walking distance.
I had come prepared with a list of recommended hotels, and so we headed to the nearest Ramyas Hotel. But we were told that rooms were fully booked (though it was off-peak).
They suggested we try the Gajapria Hotel a short walk away. Nearing the hotel, we had to walk pass the wall of urine. Yes, if you are in South India, you won't miss this for sure. These are walls that are used as urinals. Men, day or night, old or young, poorly or smartly dressed, passerby or vehicle-owners, stop to relieve themselves. Very easy, when you get the urge, stop, turn your back, remove your thing and piss. And ironically, some of the same men actually walk a bit further from the wall because they can't stand the stench. So, we did the same, each time for the next 2 days, whenever we walked pass the wall to our hotel, we closed our mouth and nose. Unbearable! To top it all, there were posters of Madam Chief Minister on the wall! Actually there are pay and use toilets nearby. India, why are you still doing this, in this age and time? The poor I can somewhat excuse, but others?
Back to Trichy accommodation, we booked a room here for RS900 + 90 Luxury Tax per day, breakfast included. Not a bad place, room with a window, with easily available help at hand, only thing was that the shower never heated up. No bed bugs either.
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| Our room with a window |
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| The bath and toilet |
We quickly freshened up and was eager to try some non-veg Chicken Briyani. We headed to the hotel's restaurant, and had 2 sets for RS220, including mango juice. Tastewise, it was average as the rice was heavily spiced. But I must say, the restaurant had nice ambience.
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| Restaurant - nice romantic setting |
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| Sorry, we dipped into the food first, then remembered to photograph it.. |
We later ventured into Trichy town, just about walked around. Found Trichy’s roads were wider, and there was more personal space as compared to Madurai.
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| Trichy old town |
In the late afternoon, we took a walk again and had tea with Paratha (roti canai/pancake) for Rs54. Then, we looked around for local tour agencies and finally enquired at a hotel, which was next to the restaurant that we had tea.
The guy was friendly and full of information about Trichy. He told us, unlike Madurai, there is no bus tours in Trichy, one can do either an auto-tour or hire a private car with driver. Well, by this time, N was also down with diaarhea and we thought for a change, we will settle for the private car. So, a full day tour came up to RS1400. We paid a deposit of RS200. The package include RS750 for car rental, RS150 for the driver and mileage calculated at RS6 per km.
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| N with Mr Sitaram, our Trichy driver, next to Indica |
That night, we took a walk to one of the biggest shopping mall in Trichy, the Femina Mall. The biggest mall was a 2-storey building that had a connecting bridge to their own supermarket and a Food Court. Cool place and very happening at night.
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| Femina Shopping Mall, Trichy |
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| Food court in front of Femina Mall |
We hung around here but didn’t really shop. We thought of catching a movie, there were 2 cinemas in the area. We walked into the cinema lobby and a man shoo-ed us away. Later, we found out that he was a staff. It seems only those with tickets can enter the lobby. Those without had to buy tickets outside the entrance and come in only 5/10 mins before the show. And when asked what time they opened their ticket counter, we were told 5/10 mins before the show! With that, we headed back for an early night, and just about ordered food through room service. Two capatis and some vege curry for Rs50.
The next morning, we decided to get some medicine for diaarhea. The hotel staff said we could just walk to KMC Specialist Hospital (opposite our hotel), so N went alone and bought some pills from its Pharmacy for RS20. It worked so fast and efficiently that for the next two days we found ourselves constipated!
The private car tour included 6 places of interest in Trichy :-
1. Jain Temple
2. Rock Fort (UNESCO heritage site)
3. Sri Rangam
4. Samayapuram Mariamman Temple
5. Kallanai (Grand Anaicut)
6. The Jambukeshwara Temple
For breakfast, we went down to the restaurant at 7.10am and were told that it was not ready. They had it sent up to the room – idlis, vadai, pongal and tea. We ate very little as our appetite was poor.
Mr Sitaram picked us up at 8am from our hotel and finished the tour by 4pm, local time.
1. Jain Temple
This was our idea of visit as it was not a place proposed on our tour. Guess we wanted to see other worship places besides temples. Actually we wanted to venture to an ancient Jain Cave (Sittanavasal) about 58km away from Trichy town, but it was far. So we settled for this, very peaceful inside.
The temple was all white and so empty of colours. There were about 3 floors, one each for worship, gathering and priest rest area. There was a huge concentration of Rajasthani folks around this temple and they are ones frequenting it.
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| Jain Temple, Trichy |
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The exterior of the Jain temple
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When we were done with the Jain temple, on our way to Rock Fort, the driver passed by the road of Onion Wholesalers. What we saw were a whole stretch of onions being sorted right there along the streets.
Trichy onion market
2. Rock Fort, Trissur (UNESCO heritage site)
I had imagined this place to be standing alone on top of a hill. But it was totally surrounded by houses, shops and all kinds of buildings including businessess. People had even built homes attached to its Fort. This kind of took away the ancient set-up feeling. The road that leads up to the Fort is so narrow and again heavily populated.
We had earlier grabbed some buns (Rs15) before reaching this place, but were still weak and hungry. And we knew we were about to do a 400 steps climb.
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| Rock Fort - 400+ steps |
Luckily the steps were inside the Fort so there was shade. The steps were actually carved into the cave. We paid RS3 each for entrance and RS20 for camera.
This rock is said to be 3,800 million years old and one of the oldest in the world, even older than the Himalayas.
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| The Rock Fort (Malai Kottai) |
We climbed the steps which were painted red and white. Up and up we climbed. The first temple on the way up was Mariamman Temple, second was a Shiva Temple and finally at the peak of it was Uuchi Pillayar Temple (Lord Ganesha).
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| One of temples on the way up |
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| Rock Fort - Dark corridors in the interior |
When you reach the top, you get to see Trichy town and what stood out in the skyline was Sri Rangam.
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| Panoramic view from the hill top |
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| Trichy seen from the top of Rock Fort |
At the Ganesha temple, we just about rested and enjoyed the cool breeze. It was a small marbled temple which was cooling.
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| Heading up the final flight of steps |
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| Me after the climb inside the Uuchi Pillayar Temple |
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| Monkey at the top - likes to grab food , some devotees just gave away the food they carried |
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| Ancient pillars carved into the rock |
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| Beautiful wall painting |
At the exit, we met the temple elephant. She was chained to a pillar. Her master said only female elephants are used for blessing as the male sometimes go berserk. I just hope she's taken care well.
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The gentle elephant at Rock Fort - trained to bless for a donation
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3. Sri Rangam
Our next stop was Sri Rangam, just 7km from Trichy, said to be the second biggest temple after Angkor Wat and the biggest templex complex in India. Built in the 13th century, it is Lord Vishnu’s temple. Do you know that Sri Rangam town and temple sits in an island? Yes it does, and it is connected to mainland Trichy via Cauvery Bridge.
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| Sri Rangam connected by a bridge through Cauvery River |
The entrance fee was RS20 each and camera fee Rs20. My, my, what a huge temple.
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| Ranganatha Temple, Sri Rangam |
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| The surrounding wall |
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| A beautiful deity sits on watch |
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| And many, many more |
We didn’t quite do justice to Sri Rangam as we were really templed-out by this time. Hunger, heat, exhaustion, barefoot walking all added up.
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| See what I mean? |
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| Carved pillars |
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| Another entrance |
There was one priest who did a quick blessing and said some prayers for us and yes, this means a darshan was due, we gave Rs20, he actually waited for it. The priests here wore the 'U' symbol on their forehead signifying them as Vaisnavites.
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| The Vaishnavite symbol |
When done, we asked the driver to take us to a nice decent clean restaurant for lunch. Of course, standards of cleanliness is very subjective. What obviously was a good clean place did not appear so to us. We ended up in ‘Aiyer Mess’ and had 2 sets of Thali vege meals for RS80.
We were earlier approached by a beggar woman with child just outside the restaurant. As both of us were unable to finish our meal, N just wrapped up his banana leaf with food inside and walked out and passed it to the woman. I don’t think the Aiyer waiter liked this as I saw him report to the big Aiyer owner at the cashier.
We couldn’t even eat if we wanted to because......
(1) the place was fly-infested,
(2) it sat right in front of a busy street, a round-a-bout at that, and each time the buses passed, a whole lot of sand and other particles flew in,
(3) all the waiters walked around without shoes and for some unknown reason I can't stand the sight of neglected feet,
(4) the waiter who served us (an elderly Aiyer man) wore the dirtiest dhoti I have ever seen and
(5) our natural instincts went on extra alert and instinctively told us to eat little. Need I say more?
When we finished and waited to cross the busy road, we saw a whirlwind of rubbish (papers, plastic wrappers, sand, dust, smoke) fly pass us each time a bus did the round-a-bout. We didn’t want to offend our driver for his choice of restaurant and so we didn’t complain. We did, however, catch a thankful smile on the beggar woman’s face.
4. Samayapuram Mariamman Temple
According to the driver, this is a powerful temple. The presiding deity, Mariamman, made of sand and clay, is believed to actually grant wishes and prayers of her devotees especially in curing illnesses. It seems people with severe problems come to seek divine intervention. One ritual is to buy small metallic replicas, made with silver or steel, of various body parts that need to be cured, and deposit it in the donation box.
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| Inside Samayapuram Temple |
Outside the entrance, many old women were selling offerings to Mariamman in the form of ‘veppilai’ (a medicinal leaf) wrapped in a silver foil. This temple was so crowded and it seems it’s like this everyday. A long railing that led up to the altar had throngs of people standing shoulder-to-shoulder in queue to pay their respects to the Goddess. This temple is said to be the second richest temple in Tamil Nadu after Palani.
Samayapuram is 11km away from Trichy.
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| This boy kindly posted for us - shaved his head to fullfill a prayer |
After prayers, we just kind of sat and watched the devotees. One young lady was on the floor rolling and rolling with her hands clasped on top of her head in prayer. Either she was fulfilling a vow made or making a new one. An elderly woman followed her and cleverly adjusted the young lady’s saree each time it moved up her ankles. And this elderly woman is available for hire as we saw her collect her fee from the young lady at the end of it all.
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| The young woman performing a ritual |
We also saw an area for animal sacrifice. Not sure what this was for. One doesn't find this type of things in temples normally.
5. Kallanai (Grand Anaicut)
This last stop was refreshing. It is 24km away from Trichy. It is an ancient dam in Tamil Nadu, built by the Chola King in the 2nd centuryAD. The dam cuts across the main stream of the Cauvery. The dam diverts the waters of the Cauvery across the fertile Delta region for irrigation via canals. The locals frequent this plane for picnics.
Just to watch the flowing water of Cauvery River. So refreshing...
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| The Grand Anaicut |
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| We saw people going in for a swim, must be the heat |
A park sits nearby. Many families were around relaxing with their loved ones. We soaked our feet ..our poor poor feet , so overworked, especially because of the massive shoeless walks in all the earlier stops.
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| Nice water massage |
6. The Jambukeshwara Temple
This is a Shiva Temple, according to legend an elephant once worshipped Lord Shiva under the divine Jambu tree, hence the name Jambukeshwara. The presiding deity, Shiva Linga, is submerged in water. An old and popular frequent of the locals, though seem neglected.
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| Jambukeshwara Temple |
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| Sculpted to the pillars |
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| The ancient water pump |
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The Jambukeshwara Temple
The many rows of pillars |
That night we had a good early dinner at the hotel restaurant, white rice, chicken tikka, Hyderabad chicken and mixed vege gravy. It was not too bad, but the vege gravy was not appetising. It cost us Rs 197.
Then we walked to the Femina Mall’s Food Court for supper and ordered Chinese Fried Noodles for Rs170. The dish was prepared by Chinese-looking Assamese men. It was so loaded with MSG.
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| Food Court |
We ended our last night with a movie at Mina Cinema. I dozed off for the most part of it as there wasn't a story, only a guy chasing after his lady love in the fashion of teenagers. The movie was shot in Paris. Movies run for 3 hours with intermission break for half an hour. Men talking on mobile phones while movie runs is common.
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| Inside the cinema |
To describe Trichy in one or two words, this will be my list :-
1. Land of Cholas, Pallavas, Pandyas
2. Pilgrimage
3. Malai Kottai
4. Better town planning
5. Cauvery river
6. Mighty Sri Rangam
7. Developing townships
8. Crowd, crowd and more crowd
9. Rubbish-piled road shoulders
10. Wider roads
11. Walls of urine - pissing men
12. Good mix of tourist spots
13. Beggars
14. Highways
15. Choices for accommmodation
16. Rituals and offerings
17. Worshippers
18. Garlands and jasmine
19. CM Jayalalitha's posters
20. Actor Rajnikanth posters
Some tips :
- For any travel that is further than 100km from the place of stay, try not to use hired private car. It can be costly. The count is per mileage. Rule out cheaper options first.
- Good to do research on hotels and shortlist a few based on your budget; so that you don’t feel lost when you reach your destination and are not at the mercy of local hoteliers.
- If it’s just for two, better to order one set meal as the servings are huge, especially the rice.
- Better to ask for a room with a window (or better still a balcony) so that you don’t feel boxed in. Especially for those prone to asthma and sinus
- Enquire about bed bugs and request for change of bed sheet if it is stained or appear dirty.
-Be clear of 24 hours check-in at hotels, it usually means 24 hrs from the time of check-in, better still confirm with reception the time for check-out
- Always have some tablets ready to be used in case of diaarhea.
- Don’t order food through room-service as they charge you 10% tax.
- Rooms with A/C is double the cost of non A/C room.
- Give exact instruction to your driver as to pick-up point and time of finish, and get his name and phone number so that you can STD call if he goes missing (On that note, always keep some coins ready)
- Specify to your driver the exact type of restaurant you are looking for – A/C, very clean, vege, in a 5 star-hotel etc etc otherwise his understanding of clean will surprise you
- Most Indians can speak English, so language is not an issue
- Don't walk too close to walls; the urine stench can be nauseating
- The Tamil Nadu state government has done a good job in building good roads; and highways so try using the local buses
-Don't be surprised to see hotel staff walk barefoot - I am not sure if the shoes don't come with the uniform or staff remove shoes because of deity pictures around or if it's part of culture?
-Be wary of walking money-changers - they will have lots of smaller denominations in your currency but are these genuine notes? We were approached by a few in Rockfort.
-We missed the much talked about sunset scenery at Rockfort as we went in the morning. If can, try doing Rockfort in the late afternoon.
-Come prepared with skin lotion and means of protecting your feet; I tip-toed and jumped while walking in some temples as it was scorching hot
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| Temple elephant on duty |
Thank you ....
- To Mr Hotel Meega Guy who for once gave information without expecting darshan and
- To Mr Sitaram for the guide service
- The locals who helped with directions
Note : All contents and images in this blog are copyrighted, please contact sivakay2009@gmail.com if you need info.
Photos : NIKON COOLPIX P300
