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

'He who litters opens evil's door'

At the weekend I braved the buses and visited Mamallapuram, a coastal town and World Heritage Site, with some interesting temples and an entertaining anti-litter campaign. My trusty LP guidebook describes this place as a traveller ghetto, so I turned up expecting to have a day off from being the only non-Indian in the village, but I soon realised that I am in a minority of foreigners daft enough to be travelling in this region at the hottest time of year, so the town was hardly bustling with backpackers. However there were plenty of Indian tourists and a good vibe, and I enjoyed wondering around taking in the temples and beautiful stone carvings. And eating an icecream- essential, of course, to cope with the heat.

The Shore Temple, Mamallapuram

One of many anti-litter signs in Mamallapuram.
I think we should get some of these up in the UK.

On Sunday I took a stroll down to one of Kanchipurams many temples (Kanchi goes by two other names - Temple City, because there are so many ancient temples, and Silk City, for the high quality silks produced here- you can't turn a corner in town without seeing at least 20 silk sari shops, and people come from many parts of India to get their saris in Kanchi). The rest of the 'must see' temples are further into town and not walkable from where I'm living, so I'm going to see these with Jeraraj when the RIDE driver can give us a lift.

The back entrance to the Devarajaswami Temple in Kanchipuram

On Friday, Anu, one of the ladies who works for RIDE, took me to see a house in the local neighbourhood that is part of a silk weaving cooperative and has a loom for making saris. There are quite a few women in the area who weave for a living as part of one of these cooperatives. Recent advances in the mechanics of the looms,where the pattern for the saris feeds in to the loom automatically, have helped reduce the number of children working in the silk industry, enabling them to attend school rather than stay at home working. It was an interesting walk around the neighbourhood with Anu, including stopping at her house, her neighbour's house and her uncle's house for cups of coffee. 

Anu at her house with her brother and parents

A loom which weaves two saris at once

In other news, it's still hideousy hot, and I'm still eating the most delicious food - the home-made yoghurt is helping with the heat from the food at least. Britto has promised me some cooking lessons while I'm here so I can hopefully share some of these South Indian delights when I get home!

Vanakkam from Kanchipuram

Greetings from Tamil Nadu. I'm gradually settling into life in Kanchipuram and it's all going well so far. In fact, less than a week into my stay and I have achieved two things on my wish-list - to eat delicious South Indian food (I get to do this 3 times a day and thankfully the novelty has not worn off) and go to a traditional Hindu wedding, which to my delight I did last night with my host Jeyaraj.

I am living with the family of the Director of RIDE (the Rural Institute for Development Education), which is the NGO I am volunteering for. Jeyaraj, his wife Britto and son Jonas (and Joy the dog) have been so welcoming and Britto's cooking is superb, so I am feeling very well looked after. This week Jeyaraj and Britto have been introducing me to various aspects of RIDE's work, mainly relating to the challenges of life in rural Tamil Nadu for the Dalits (people in the lowest caste, traditionally regarded as 'untouchable'). I should be getting stuck into my work next week, which is likely to be focused on developing a programme of child labour eradication in the local stone quarries, something which RIDE has made significant headway on already in the silk factories.

My biggest challenge here is the heat, it is incredibly hot, all the time (I just looked up the local forecast and it described it as 'extremely hot' so I don't think I'm over-exaggerating). It's around 38-40 degrees C during the day, and only drops to about 30 at night, so it's very difficult to escape from. A brief ride in an air conditioned car yesterday to get to the wedding was a welcome break from it. The rooms in the house have fans but there's only so much pushing hot air around will do to ease the discomfort! The other difficulty here is the frequent power cuts. Luckily the house has a back-up battery so I haven't yet had to endure an entire night without a fan on, but it does put a stop to using computers.

At the weekend I'm hoping to explore the local area and maybe take a day-trip to Mamallapuram on the coast. I'll post some photos in my next update if the power-cuts allow!

The Final Countdown

Well I have been counting down for about 6 months, but this weekend I am at last leaving the country. There have been a few last minute changes of plan, and before my Raleigh project begins in July I will be volunteering for about a month at RIDE, the Rural Institute for Development Education (www.rideindia.org), a small NGO a couple of hours from Chennai.

The next update will be from Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu, so long as I haven't melted in the 40 degree heat...