The Wild Life

March 22nd, Thekaddy
This weekend all of the volunteers went to Madurai – a city in Southern Tamil Nadu – to see the Meenakshi temple. It is one of the largest temple complexes in India and has four huge towers with thousands of brightly colored statures covering them. It was pretty incredible, but we happened to be there during a time when they were restoring and repainting the whole thing. Every twelve years they repaint the temple and there is a festival during the first week of April to celebrate the unveiling. It’s a huge deal and thousands of pilgrims make the journey to be there to watch them shower the newly renovated towers with milk water and sandalwood water… I don’t really know why they do that, but it must be some kind of blessing. I wish we would have seen that, but it was still pretty awe-inspiring, even with most of the towers obstructed by scaffolding. When we arrived in Madurai after taking the overnight train, we got into rickshaws and went right to the temple. As soon as we disembarked, we were “picked up” by a little man saying, “You come now, almost nine o’clock, you come see the light on the Golden Tower, very nice view, no money, promise promise.” We figured we might as well follow him, so we all went with him to the shop he worked at – a very nice government gift shop – and he lead us up three flights of stairs through floors full of figures, carpets, wall-hangings and jewelry to the roof of his building where we had a very nice view of the temple from above. We stayed there for a bit and then went down through the shop where we were invited – not pushed – to look at the handicrafts and maybe buy. A few people bought things, and in the process we got ourselves a guide for our temple visit in the form of one of the guys who worked in the shop. A few of the boys were wearing shorts, which aren’t allowed in the temple, so the store loaned them lungis (a garment that Indian men wear which is basically a long piece of fabric worm wrapped around the waist like a sarong… or a towel after a shower). We took off our shoes and left them in the store (no shoes allowed either) and we headed across the street to the temple. We got blessed by the temple elephant, which I always enjoy, and saw lots of worshippers doing their poojas, or prayers. We were also taken to see the temple camels and the temple bull. It was sort of a cross between a religious site and a zoo. It was really cool. After that, we got lunch and went to the Gandhi museum. Gandhi spent a good amount of time in Madurai and it was actually there where he stopped dressing in Western clothes and adopted the dhoti (a white lungi), the dress of the poor peasants. The museum was interesting, but it was so hot that I felt like I was going to faint for most of it. After the museum, we went to the bus station and got on the government bus to Thekaddy, to the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary. The bus was crowded and hot and the ride was four hours long, but it only cost forty rupees – less than a dollar. I was lucky enough to score a window seat, so I had great views and a nice breeze. To get to Periyar, we had to cross the border of Tamil Nadu and enter Kerala, the state I will be traveling in when I leave Shanti Bhavan. It is a supremely beautiful state, full of greenery and lush landscapes, and it made me so excited to go back. We arrived in Kumily, the little town inside the sanctuary where we were staying, at about eight and checked into our hotel, the Meadow View Inn. It was a beautiful place with clean, Western bathrooms and MEMORY FOAM MATRESSES! Every mattress in India is equivalent to sleeping on a metal luggage rack (more on that later), and so when I sat down on that soft, lovely bed, I almost cried. Everyone went to dinner, but Molly and I went off in search of an Ayurvedic massage. We were walking down the road when we were stopped by a couple of guys sitting outside their shops. They were so nice and asked us all about ourselves and one of them, who owned a spice shop, told us about a great massage place a few doors down. The other one, a cute little man from Kashmir, told us he was getting married next week and invited us to his shop the next day for some Kashmiri tea. We promised we’d come and set off for our massage. At first we were devastated because the place was closed, but we stood outside for a few minutes and someone came out, asking us what we wanted. They agreed to re-open for us and I felt a little bad, because it was late and they had probably worked all day, but I really wanted a massage! That’s the thing about India though, you can pretty much get anyone to do anything you want if you ask them nicely and pay enough… they just need the business.
The massage was amazing. I went into the room and the girl told me to undress…all the way. I figured “when in Rome…”, so I got down to my birthday suit and she tied a little paper loin cloth around me and told me to lie down on the table. Then I forgot about everything. She was so good, gentle, but effective and the oils she used smelled like the rainforest or something. She massaged my whole body, then gave me a mini-facial with a scrub and mask, then she put coconut oil in my hair and instructed me to go sit in this old-fashioned steamer – you know the kind where you sit on a stool inside a big compartment with your head sticking out? It was wild, but felt really nice too. Then after about 15 minutes, she pulled me out, toweled me off like I was a baby getting out of a bath, and put a lump of something fragrant on the top of my head (I have no idea what it was or what it was for). I slept like a baby that night.
The next morning we got up early and went on a morning walk through the wildlife sanctuary. It was beautiful, even though we didn’t see any of the 300 elephants or 36 tigers that are supposedly living there. We did see a deer though, and some birds. After the walk, we were all pretty hungry, so we ate some breakfast (eggs and toast!) and decided to go take an elephant ride. This was so exciting for me because I am now officially in love with elephants. The three girls got on one elephant together and we set off on a little trail on our big lady, Shanta Kumari, which we figured out probably means “Princess of Peace” or something close to that. She was so beautiful and walked so smoothly it was hard to believe that we were on a three-ton animal. After the walk, we got to take pictures and pet and hug her. It was so fun. When the after-glow of elephant riding wore off, we went to do a tour of one of the local spice “plantations.” They grow all sorts of things like cardamom, turmeric, cinnamon, coffee, vanilla, pineapples, and on and on. It was interesting to see the plants in their raw state and then to hear how they are processed. It was a beautiful place too, colorful and tranquil. It was also fun because our guide had a really cute accent that for some reason caused her to say her “t’s” as “ch’s” so “plant” became “planch.” She said “tomato” perfectly though…go figure.
Next we were all ready for a little nap, so instead we went on a boat ride through the sanctuary. We piled onto a barge with about a million other tourists and set off down the lake. Again we didn’t see much wildlife, but the scenery and views were spectacular. The best part was when it started to rain. Hard. It was one of those crazy storms where the rain is pounding down, but somehow the sun is still out and everything was doubled because we were on the water. It was pretty incredible. After the rain stopped, the sun shone through the clouds, and I swear it was like God had showed up to say hi. We were about to the end of the ride when that happened and when we disembarked, the ground was covered with thousands of tiny black frogs hopping everywhere. Man they were cute, but I had to be really careful where I was walking so I didn’t step on them.
As if we hadn’t packed enough into one day, some of us decided to go to a Kerali presentation next. Kerali is a form of martial arts native to Kerala and it incorporates spirituality, strength, flexibility, and weapons! The show was unbelievable. There were six guys doing some of the most difficult and death-defying things I’ve ever seen in real life. They fought man to man, then sword to sword, then sword to bare hands, then spear to piece of fabric, then they swung flaming sticks around, then they jumped through rings of fire – and all of this on a cement floor with a little dirt on top. I’m not doing it justice, but it can’t really be described. The best part was that at the end they invited the audience – which consisted of us and about four other people – to come and take pictures. No one else went, but we did and they posed us in various fight stances with the weapons of our choice. They must have picked up on the fact that I’m good with my body, because pretty soon they were all around me trying to get me to do various impossible things, like leaning all the way back so my head touched the ground without using my hands. It was sort of fun being the only girl and getting all the attention ;). I got some great pictures and I was on an adrenaline high for a while after that… I like fighting. We all went to dinner next and then we went back to the hotel where there was no current, so we all sat around in the dark for a while playing 20 Questions and the movie game. Finally the day came to an end and we went to sleep.
Today, we decided to take it easy. The girls got up at around eight o’clock and since we couldn’t find the boys, we went and had a lovely breakfast. Then it was off for some shopping. We had promised our two friends we’d come back to their shops, so I first went and bought some spices for my dad and then we stopped into the Kashmiri guy’s shop. Sure enough, as soon as he saw us, he gave us big hugs and sent someone out for the Kashmiri tea. He told us he had been gone the previous day because he had gone to pick up his bride from Kochin for the wedding the next week. He was one big smile and in honor of his wedding, he gave us great prices on some beautiful things. He invited us to the wedding – we would have been three out of 3,000 guests- but unfortunately we can’t go. It is one of my hopes that I will be invited to and able to attend a wedding in India. I’ve heard they’re really something to see.
We just bummed around for the rest of the day until we had to get on the bus back to Madurai, where we have just discovered that our second-class A/C sleeper tickets on the train are not available anymore and that the only way to get home is to ride in the third-class unreserved compartment… this should be good.