At 5.30am we arrived at the incredibly crowded station, where people lay sleeping on the ground, having meals, or selling  almost every commodity possible, for the 8 hour train journey on the Bangalore “Shabtabi” Express.   We settled into our extremely comfortable ‘Executive Class’ reclining seats, where wifi, a mains plug for charging, a copy of the  Hindu Times and a bottle of water were provided.  Just as we were thinking how civilised this was, trays arrived with fruit juice, tea or coffee and biscuits – a sort of wake up drink. The train pulled out at precisely 6.00 am and we spent a happy hour or so watching Chennai’s industrial landscape give way to the countryside and reading our papers, before a simple breakfast and  more coffee.  It seemed that in no time at all we had arrived in Bangalore, the IT centre of India, where we were joined by families on holiday and then served lunch.  By early afternoon, we had arrived in Mysore remarkably refreshed.

Mysore is delightful, with many old colonial buildings and palaces set along wide tree lined streets.   Our hotel had originally been built for English visitors to the Maharaja and we stepped back about a hundred years into a world of gleaming brass, palms in pots and overhead fans, the only thing missing was a punkah wallah.

From the train we had seen the remains of the fortifications of Sriringapatnam destroyed by the British in 1799,  and we now went to Tippu Sultan’s summer palace nearby, built some years before his final defeat.  Decorated with floral designs and lively murals depicting courtly life and Tippu’s campaigns against the British, it stands like a Persian pavilion in a garden with cypresses and fountains that were not working at the time. The palace later became the residence of Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington.  Perhaps better known in England as Tippu Tiger, whose man eating mechanical tiger is in the V&A, this legendary ruler controlled much of southern India and until his defeat was a constant threat to the British presence there.  He is regarded by some in India as the country’s first ‘freedom fighter’ against the British.

Nearby in a beautiful garden is the mausoleum of Haider Ali built by Tippu for his father, and both are buried there.

Chennai seems to be undergoing massive and rapid change, at any rate in the centre, from which we radiate to our various destinations.  There are glimpses of colourful temples and a surprising number of churches and mosques, but the overall impression is of modernity,  fast moving, fast changing, yet undoubtedly Indian and somewhat chaotic.  None of this is helped by the massive construction works underway for the Chennai Metro system.  That said, there are parts where one sees beautiful 18th, 19th and early 20th century buildings behind scaffolding awaiting restoration and indeed some have even been restored.  However, as it is not the easiest place to stroll around, except for the Marina Beach walk in the evenings, these buildings proved impossible to photograph in our limited time.  So here  are a couple of shop fronts and one of the several hospitals in the city

The main reason for visiting Chennai, apart from taking the train to Mysore, has been to see Fort St George, built by the East India Company in 1644 and the first of the British trading settlements in India, with the exception of the short lived factory in Surat.  The fort, surrounding walls and ramparts were  rebuilt and extended  from time to time and the area which was once the administrative centre and Governor’s residence of the Madras Presidency is now home to the Legislative Assembly and Secretariat of the state of Tamil Nadu.

Unfortunately,  one is not allowed to take interior photos of the museum, completed in 1795 when it housed the Madras Bank.  On three floors there was assembled a rich display of weapons, medals, coins and ceramics and paintings of the colonial period.  Along with the canons, guns, sabres and daggers, were beautiful examples of uniforms of both the British and Indians over the long period of the Raj.  The first floor gallery containing portraits of the British rulers and several Governors, all usually in court dress, includes also paintings of the Nawabs of Arcot and other Indian princes in their very beautiful robes.

Among the objects on display are letters by Lord Cornwallis and an impressive statue of him, as well as letters by Clive of India and his marriage entry in the registry of the Anglican church of St Mary’s.

On the top floor, there is a brief history of the Indian Independence movement, with the names of all who lost their lives in the cause and photos of many of them

From the museum, we went to St Mary’s, the oldest Anglican Church In India, completed in 1680 which is also within the Fort area. It contained many touching tombstones of soldiers, company officers, political agents and  sometimes of their wives and children.

From here we rode in a Tuk Tuk driven by a woman, which was the least hair raising of our drives, to the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Saint Thomas.  This was founded by the Portuguese in the 16th Century and is also the site of some of the remains of St Thomas (Doubting Thomas).

A kindly TukTuk driver guided us to an excellent Vegie Restaurant for a late meal. It is next door to the Indian Zoological Survey and was  filled with well dressed professional men and women from this instituition. The food was simple but very good.  We have established that there is no such dish as Madras Curry on any of the menus that we have seen and wonder whether it is like ‘spaghetti bolognese’ a dish that only foreigners know of and eat.

To round off the day we had Ayurvedic massages which we are finding are utterly rejuvenating!

Today we had been invited to lunch at Indian friends of friends in London. A car was sent to collect us and yet again it was an exciting ride, but made less stressful for us as passengers in a comfortable car as opposed to a tuk tuk. It was extremely interesting to meet such a delightful couple, who helped us to understand much that we have not fully grasped about Indian history and culture. In addition to that, the home cooked food was delicious!

Strictly speaking this blog should be called ‘from the Coromandel Coast to the Coromandel Peninsula’ as our final location in New Zealand was named after the coast on which we are now staying, or rather after the Royal naval vessel HMS Coromandel, which stopped at the harbour in New Zealand in 1820.     The very name ‘Coromandel Coast’ has always had for me a dreamlike magic redolent of cardamon, cloves and of Edward Lear’s Yonghy Bonghy Bo.  More prosaically, the name is a corruption by early European travellers of the Tamil name of the region called after the ancient Chola dynasty.  It was along the Coromandel Coast road that we drove towards Chennai after leaving the comfortable Shengbagha Palace, where preparations for Christmas were already taking place.

On the whole it appeared to be a fertile and fairly prosperous region, containing small farms with mixed crops,  palmgroves, paddy fields and some cattle. Sightings of the sea were virtually non-existent, though now and again we crossed stretches of water that were large inlets from the sea.

After about two hours we arrived at Mammalapuram, the site of magnificent temples, caves and rock carvings.  One could have been here for a few days, but as we only had a few hours and as our understanding of ancient Indian religion, mythology and cultic observation is limited, it seemed best to concentrate only on a small group of monuments on which are related scenes from the Mahabharata, the Sanskrit epic.

These rock cut temples and carvings were created during the 7th century AD.  A giant relief carving on two boulders represents the descent of the Ganges and is also known as ‘Arjuna’s Penance’.  The actual story of Arjuna, standing in a yoga position on one leg, practicing ascetic self mortification, appears on the left panel, while on the right there are scenes of the natural and heavenly worlds. These are divided by a cleft carved with nagas (snakes) representing the Ganges, down which water was poured to simulate the river.

Further on are a series of cave temples, known as mandapas, some unfinished and most famously, the Krishna Mandapa, which shows Krishna lifting the Govardnhana Hill in order to protect the the villagers and their cattle from Indra’s storm.

On the west face, around the corner of the main hill of Mammalapuram is  a temple containing a relief of the Gajalakshmi, who is seated in a yoga asana on a lotus and holds two lotus buds.

Also cut out of the rock are a series of monuments known as rathas, or chariots, carved in the shape of processional chariots.  This is the Ganesha Ratha, not far from the Arjuna bas-relief.

Exhausted after trying to make sense of what was only a tiny portion of the whole complex, now a UNESCO heritage site, we headed for Chennai and our hotel.  This was the most nerve racking and time consuming part of the drive as the traffic in Chennai is dense, fast and incredibly noisy, with almost non-stop hooting which seems to be the main form of ‘traffic control’.  Our driver handled it all with calm and nerves of steel before depositing us at our hotel.

I had another excellent yoga class this morning with a teacher whose name I regret I have not been able to establish – I did not like to give offence when after he had repeated it twice I still could not understand him. It was learning by observation as opposed to aurally and probably all the better for it. Anyway, I left feeling very energised and met Nick who was delighted to have found an incredible value SIM card in an Electronic Heaven.

We gave a lift in a tuk tuk to another member of the cooking and yoga classes to her delightful hotel in the French quarter, in a beautiful old Colonial house which had a fine collection of South Indian antiquities and furniture.

On the pavement outside this house was a particularly fine design in a traditional style made from rice flour. The women of the household regularly create these, though the practice is apparently less widespread than formerly.

Then it was off to the Botanical Garden which must once have been very beautiful but has now been somewhat neglected. It was established by the French in 1826 under the direction of the botanist George Perottet who is buried in the garden. The purpose of the garden was scientific and practical, to study the performance and adaptability of various plants to local conditions. By 1829 the collection, enriched with new and rare plants had grown to about nine hundred species. There are still many rare trees standing, including a mahogany imported from Africa soon after the garden opened.

Following our walk in the garden we finally tracked down a recently opened restaurant that Nick had read about and it was certainly worth the effort. There was a perfect view of the sea from our shaded balcony table, and as so often here, the food was really excellent.

Today Nick joined a cookery class at Sita, the splendid Franco-Indian cultural institution where they have an interesting range of courses including Indian dancing and how to wear the saree, an option Nick felt was not quite right for him.  The cooking however, turned out be exactly right and he can now prepare some dishes in the South Indian style.  There were equal numbers of men and women, so no gender bias there and it was a cosmopolitan group of Singaporeans, French, Australian, British and Nick.

They set off to the fish and vegetable markets in tuk tuks, the only way really to get around the shopping streets here without risking injury or worse.   Several small bony fish called ‘sea carp’ which Nick describes as baby sea bream were bought.   After the fish had been gutted and lentils and vegetables purchased, they returned to the kitchen to chop, pound, scrape, sautee and boil all these ingredients.

About an hour later they sat down to a feast of fish in coconut and tamarind sauce, rice, a masala dahl and a salad of bhindi (ladyfingers).  It was followed by a delicious carrot helwa made with grated carrots, cashew nuts, sugar and cardamon, all slowly reduced in milk.  Everything was served on banana leaves, bought at the market and then thrown away after the meal, to join the compost heap, truly ecological, labour and resource saving – no china to be made, no washing up, bio-degradable and resource renewable.

My great excitement was fashion related, but of a modest expenditure.  Next to our very modern hotel there is a tailor in a simple booth who altered a dress for me and repaired a pair of trousers for Nick.  It was wonderful to watch and even more wonderful to pay – all at the equivalent of 80p for both.

While taking our evening stroll along the Beach Road we tried out the GELATERIA MONTECATINI TERME.  I was doubtful, but once we entered and saw the truly amazing range and the pictures of Montecatini Terme and indeed the pony tailed, uber hippy chic Indian boys serving, exactly like their Italian counterparts, I relented – the salted caramel and the coconut were to die for, but let’s hope we don’t.

After 3 gruelling flights and a 150km. drive from Chennai (Madras) we arrived in Pondicherry and in the evening took a walk on the Beach Road under bright lights alongside the Indian Ocean. Presided over by statues of Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru, it is pedestrianised every evening from 6pm until the following morning and it seems as though the whole town is out for a stroll or taking a serious brisk walk.

Here it is perfect weather and we have just had an excellent dinner in the open air overlooking the Indian Ocean. Pondicherry is enchanting in parts and chaotic in others, an extraordinary mix of faded and half forgotten Colonial France and Tamil Indian replete with sacred cows roaming wherever they please. There are masses of trees lining the streets – a French legacy, as well as rampant creepers, trees and shrubs in every square inch of earth, in gardens and covering buildings – hibiscus, oleander, gardenia, jasmine, various acacia and Indian bean trees and of course palms, coconuts and bananas.The colours of the women’s saris and shalwar kameez are perhaps even more brilliant with marvellous colours – every shade of pink, yellow, orange, green, blue, purple and combinations of some or all of these.

In spite of the cows, the streets are clean by Indian standards and for all the chaos and traffic in the commercial centre, it has a tranquil, peaceful atmosphere. The exception to this are the numerous motorbikes which pollute the air in the town centre and make walking very difficult.

These girls, between about 12 and 15, were dancing in some sort of celebration for children, who formed much of the audience. It was a very stylised dance, but beautiful and accompanied by a singer. This by the way was at about 9pm last night, at one end of a lovely public garden near the sea.

This is an interesting place to be, once a French colony, it only became part of the Indian administration in 1954 when the French handed it back. However, the French influence is still strong, with charming colonial houses many of which are now excellent restaurants -some French, some Tamil and others a Creole mix. The food so far has been fantastic.

We are so much enjoying being here. Of course there are streets where the smells are not so good and where the drains are yet to be closed and the pavements are broken or non-existent, but then an elaborate temple comes into view, the colours are eye dazzling and any thing problematic seems a minor impediment. In this age of strife beween so many people of different religions and cultures, it is good to see Roman Catholic churches cheek by jowl with the odd mosque, and Hindu temples to a multiplicity of deities.

We went yesterday morning to the town museum which is in an old colonial mansion with decaying eighteenth century furniture, religious bronzes of the most important deities, and also the plentiful remains of a Roman presence at a trading settlement about 4kms south of the city. It is an extraordinary experience to see here in India, pottery made in what is now Tuscany in the second century AD until about the 4th. and early Chinese ware at the same place. It must have been a busy port trading far west and east….

About 12 kms from the city is the settlement of Auroville, founded in 1968 by ‘the Mother’ a French woman and companion of Sri Aurobindo, a local guru.

No particular religion is followed but the inhabitants live a truly holistic, eco-friendly life, making beautiful objects (textiles and other useful items) from recycled everything – rubber, paper, plastic, rags and so on. They have built it all themselves and planted beautiful gardens and woods. Many of them are French, though there is a fair sprinkling of Aussies and a few Americans on the hippy trail. At the centre of it all is the Matrimandir, a golden dome lined with glass and marble where they congregate to meditate.

Baobab Trees at Auroville

I haven’t yet been to the ashram from which Auroville originated, but I did go to a very good yoga class at the Franco-Indian cultural centre. Today, hidden behind a phalanx of motorbikes and several small dogs, we found the Royal Emporium, purveyors of a huge range of textiles and a few yoga mats, one of which we bought so that I can practice yoga.