Bare-footed adventures

I'm now into my third week at RIDE and the time is flying by. I spent the weekend in Tiruvannamalai, a town a few hours bus ride away, famed for being one of the 5 elemental cities of Shiva and having one of the largest temples in India, and being flanked by Mount Arunachala, where each full moon thousands of pilgrims flock to circumnavigate the base of the mountain (unfortunately none of my weekends here fall on a full moon so I haven’t seen that bit for myself!). There’s also the Sri Ramana Ashram which draws devotees from all over the world.

My visit to the Ashram on Saturday was more tiring than expected, thanks to a devotee who was keen to show me around, which included a half hour walk up part of the mountain behind the main ashram complex. 10 minutes in to the walk I was having some doubts, about where we were going, and also my initial enthusiastic decision to ‘go with the flow’, following someone I’d just met, in the baking afternoon sun, walking in bare feet on stones like hot coals (there are no shoes allowed in the Ashram). Thankfully the discomfort turned out to be entirely worth it – the path led to another small ashram and cave where Sri Ramana spent many years living, with fantastic views over Tiruvannamalai and the huge Arunachaleswar Temple.

Monkeys on the walk

view on the way back down the hill

On Sunday I went to have a look round the temple, which was very impressive, and the resident elephant and lots more monkeys provided some entertainment. Photography isn’t permitted in the temple grounds, as is the case in a number of temples, but it made me even more pleased I’d got such good views from the mountain the previous day and taken a picture from there, at least as a reminder of the scale of the temple buildings.

Back to Kanchipuram, and Britto was on-hand to feed me another great meal and answer all my questions I’d generated from a weekend away (including which colour of share-autos -the mini-buses of the rickshaw world- I should be using, and why people hang disturbingly life-like scarecrows on unfinished houses, which I saw lots of on my bus journey)

I’m really enjoying living with the family here, and getting to learn a lot about life in India as well as explore the local area. Volunteer work is quite self directed so after learning more about the organisation, its successes and issues, I have calved out my own project to be getting on with, as well as doing a few other bits and pieces where it helps. The main focus of RIDE’s work is alleviation of child labour, education, and empowerment of women in rural communities. In recent years funding sources have diminished, and the organisation is exploring other means of bringing in money to fund its work, including through tourism. While trying to be realistic about what I can achieve in a few weeks, I’m spending most of my time working on ways to develop this area and capitalise on the opportunities for tourists that RIDE already offer, including local tours to explore the temples, silk weaving industry, demonstrate RIDE’s work, cookery classes, and guest house accommodation.

So if anyone’s planning a trip to Tamil Nadu, let me know and I can recommend some great ‘responsible travel’ activities!

Here are some other photos from life around town...

At the Sri Ekambaranathar Temple

A passing sight while waiting for Jeyaraj outside a supermarket in town!

A woman from one of RIDE's self help groups

The ancient temple-keeper of an ancient Jain temple. No photos were allowed  inside, but it was fascinating to see and there were some spectacular and well preserved paintings on some of the stone structures. This temple was in a tiny village that Jeyaraj took me to see, definitely not somewhere you would stumble across on a day-trip to Kanchipuram.

Men weaving a dhoti - a long piece of fabric worn by men, similar to a sarong