Tamil Nadu, the State on the east coast, feels like the real South India. It’s about as opposite to Goa as you can get. Gone are the palm tree lined beaches, cheap cold beers, banana pancakes and beach huts, and in its place are noisy, crowded towns, steaming cups of chai, bottomless thali meals served on banana leafs and damp, concrete hotels. It is also a state known for its beautiful and impressive temples, and religious festivals to go along with them. We ended up spending about 5 days temple, bus and train hopping from Kanya Kumari to Madurai to Trichy to Tanjore. Luckily we were getting sufficient exercise walking barefoot through the massive temple complexes to tire us out enough to sleep in the dreary accommodation that is all too often found in places with a lack of international tourists.
Not catering to international tourists…
With only temples really on the itinerary of any given town, we had to fill the days with something (other than eating of course). Having already sent a few kgs home from Periyar due to our excessive spice purchasing, we had a bit of room in our backpacks aching to be filled. While we miraculously left empty-handed from the multilevel textile showroom reputed (by the showroom itself) to be the largest in India, the temple bazaar in Trichy did not prove so easy to resist. Perhaps you don’t always align shopping with Hindu temples, but you’re not in India. Marieke splurged 500 R ($10 CAD) on some gorgeous silk fabric to get a dress made later in our trip, while I bought some green rocklike powder for 5 R to try out on the sidewalk at home (long story), and a map of South India (geography nerd).
Fun colours and patterns!
Of course, we couldn’t possibly pass up on the chance to have tailored clothes made up for us, even if more hippie pants were really the last thing we needed. With a guarantee that yes, having our clothes ready for 10am, as we had a train to catch at 11, was indeed “possible”, we were somewhat dismayed (but not surprised) to arrive at the shop and see Marieke’s pants far from completed. It also seemed that my backpack, which was the real reason we had allowed ourselves to be pulled off the street, had not been attended to at all, and was still somewhat broken. Of course, it turned that it was yet another holiday, seemingly still part of the multi-day pongal (harvest) festival, and the bag repairing shop would not be open until 10:30 or 11. The fact that I had understood that the tailor himself could fix the bag (as it was really only in need of a bit of sewing) or the fact that the late opening time of the bag repair shop was not mentioned the night before, was now rather moot. When I reminded the tailors that we had a train to catch at 11, and still had to pack my now empty bag, we were unconvincingly reassured that everything would be ready in just five minutes.
Chai Walla- on the train!
Twenty minutes later I was pretty hopeful when one of the tailors returned on a motorbike with my backpack and a smile, but alas, it seemed the only thing possible of being fixed was a completely unrelated buckle on the bottom of my bag, which had never needing fixing in the first place. Thirty minutes later I was running back to the hotel with a thoroughly un-repaired bag (although the tailor did manage to source a replacement buckle, if not sew it on) to pack, while Marieke got last minute adjustments on her slightly disappointing new clothes. The pants were actually pretty awesome, but the shirt was “not something she would ever choose to buy”.
Marieke in her some new clothes!
Overall, it was definitely an Indian experience. Everything is possible, it just might not be exactly what you expected.
Temple walking