Kristin Reporting!
Today's port was Chennai, India. The main site we wanted to see here was Kapleeshwarer temple– a Hindu temple. When we were researching shore excursions a month ago, we looked up pictures and decided it looked amazing and different from other things we would be seeing. We were initially wait listed for the tour because it was full, but after a few weeks passed, they delivered us tickets because enough people were interested that they opened a new booking. The good thing about this was that this new tour was leaving later than the original tour. We didn't have to meet-up for the tour until 10AM.
D had mixed feelings about going on this tour because he was somewhat looking forward to the possibility of adventuring on our own by hiring an auto-rickshaw. Personally, I was happy to sit back and let other people handle the tour for us. However, the tour ended up being pretty lame, so I think it also might have been a better experience to go it alone. Fortunately, we saw what we wanted to see on the tour, so it didn't really matter either way.
I happily used a little time this morning to call Scott. We had about a 20 minute phone call, but he wanted to talk more, so he requested that I call him at 4:00AM his time, after the tour, so we could have some more phone time.
India is another country with malaria risk, so we started taking malaria medicine several days ago. We also applied bug spray– the usual routine!
We met up at the designated point at 10:00AM and we were under way by 10:20AM. Today's tour was on a bus with excellent air-conditioning and exceptional leg room! This made both of us very happy.
The weather in Chennai today was about 93 degree F (34C) and humidity was around 60%. It was better than Malaysia (which I think was THE worst climate experience so far) but perhaps about equal or a bit hotter than Thailand. It is getting hard to judge and compare the different countries and experiences because I think our bodies acclimate to the weather to a certain degree after repeated exposure.
It was certainly another sweat trickling down your brow and back day. When we were back aboard the ship around 4:00PM, we happened to be walking past the gangway and practically ran across the room to get away from it. It felt like we were standing fully clothed in the door of a sauna and the sauna temperature and humidity was wafting out onto us. Yuck!
One thing we noticed about India over the course of the day (plus our immigration inspection experience of yesterday) is that there appears to be a lot of make work.
Today, we had to fill out a customs form to bring our cameras ashore! It said, "We request permission to bring our cameras ashore and they will return with us to the ship." More weirdness! As we were filing out of the ship I find that there are 3 guys involved in this camera declaration process! One took the form from me, and handed it to the man at the table, and he stamped and signed it and gave it back to me– the third person just watched. The form says the document needs to be returned at departure, but no note was made and no copy was made, so how they would know if a form wasn't returned is beyond me!
[Davin Interjection: India appears to have a ridiculously cumbersome bureaucracy. Two or three times the necessary number of people seem to be assigned to every job. But in this case there could just as well be no one assigned to this job. It was a total nonsense, make-work job. Interestingly at our other port in India we didn’t have to declare our cameras.]
We got onto the bus and once we were all loaded, an Indian soldier had to come to us one-by-one and check that we had our shore permission papers. He then rode in the bus with us until the the bus reached the port exit gate and then he disembarked. I saw two other soldiers there standing in the shade chatting with each other. Later we would see a lot more Indian police officers standing around doing nothing but presumably being paid for being at work!
So, we were finally on our way. We made good progress at first driving along the coast. Although we thought it was odd that every so often the two lane road had a roadblock across half the road which forced every vehicle to merge and perform an S-like maneuver. My only thought was that this was to control traffic speeds.
We passed a statue of Gandhi, and the Madras University. Chennai used to be called Madras, but the name was changed. I meant to ask what the story behind that was, but I forgot, so I still do not know.
The bus then turned and headed into the city, and that is when we got introduced to the chaos that is India! The bus came to a stop and auto-rickshaws, cars, masses of people, the occasional bicycle, a horse-cart, and two oxen-carts were seen going this way and that while we slowly crawled forward. Large buses were passing us in the other direction.
The good thing about this slow down, is we had time to watch out the windows as people came and went up a side street. So, I got a really good look at a ceremonial horse drawn cart which is used during wedding ceremonies to transport the bride or groom. The oxen were of a type that had really straight and long skinny horns.
It was interesting to see that the stores lining the streets, no matter what they were selling, were all a uniform size and looked a bit like large storage rental units. They had pull down fronts just like a storage unit. We saw a clothing launderer shop, a saree shop, a shoe store, several street eateries, auto-shops, and many other types of businesses. India may be commercialized like the rest of the world, but in this area it has its own look and feel. There were no shops or malls in the standard Western architecture or configuration that is being exported around the world (at least that we saw).
We finally arrived at our first stop which was a photo stop across a lake to the Kapleeshwarer Temple. It was a nice view, but the bright hazy sky and current location of the sun made a nice picture impossible. The colors of the temple spire could be seen with the naked eye, but just looked dark to the camera. At this viewpoint there were Hindu people sitting on the ground with offerings. I think they were praying to the gods in the temple from across the lake.
We then took to the streets on foot to get a close-up look at the temple. Our tour guide was very short, very soft-spoken and he didn't bring a sign, so this added to the chaos as most people in our tour group had no idea where the guide was at any given moment! We stayed in the front with the guide, so we didn’t have any problems but it is a miracle this guy didn’t lose anyone.
The cars were crawling along due to the number of pedestrians on the street. The vehicles had to force their way along by threatening to run people over at very low speeds. We walked past street vendors selling everything from dolls and baby clothes, to hair ties, jewelry and kitchen pots and pans. The pots and pans vendor did not appear to have a way in or out of his stall! He was literally surrounded on all sides. I can only imagine he could get down on his knees and crawl out of his booth backwards. Otherwise the pans were built up around him, but I can't imagine he didn't have a way to get out to use the restroom, etc.!
[Davin Interjection: Interestingly, the shops here all appeared to be focused on local customers. There weren’t any real tourist oriented shops selling postcards or trinkets. It seems this place isn’t really developed for tourism.]
As we neared the temple, I began to see a lot of flower vendors and masses and masses of shoes– mainly flip-flops. As we were still quite far from the temple, I thought they were selling shoes but they all looked used and dirty. I finally realized that the shoes belonged to people visiting the temple! They were a half a block away from the temple, and all looked about the same. I have no idea how any of these people finds their shoes ever again after leaving them so far from the temple in order to visit the temple! Crazy! Maybe they just grab a pair that fits at random! >.<
We didn't go into the temple because the tour guide thought the ground would be too hot on our bare feet, but we could see and admire the temple spires from the front and by peering through the side doors. There was still some scaffolding up in front of one of the spires because they had just been freshly repainted the entire temple and the commemoration ceremony had been on April 3rd. It is nice that we got the chance to see the spire sculptures in perfect condition, with an only 1 week old paint job! Inside the temple walls, the grounds were crawling with people! It looked like absolute chaos! But, I’m sure there was some method to the madness.
[Davin Interjection: It was cool seeing Kapleeshwarer, but somehow in person I didn’t feel like it was as impressive as I expected. Maybe I had simply built up my expectations too high based off of the pictures I had seen.]
It was time to return to the bus, so we walked back the way we came. Even though it had only been thirty minutes, I was ready to get back on the bus. I needed water and to get out of the heat! Our guide had us cross a road to get to the bus waiting point. To cross the road he waited for a small gap in vehicles and then had the thirty of us walk brazenly into the street forcing the cars to come to a stop. The vehicles honked in protest the entire time, but we ignored them, and they had no choice but to wait! For a non-thrill seeker like me, it was pretty thrilling to blatantly walk in front of oncoming traffic! I think I got a minor adrenaline rush! Lol! Back aboard the bus, D and I each drank a small bottle of water.
It was at this point that the tour became lame, simply because nothing else we did was worth doing! Our next stop was San Thome Cathedral. It was interesting to see a big Catholic cathedral full of Indian Christians, but other than that, who cares? It was nothing like any of the great cathedrals of Europe. Apparently St. Thomas has his tomb at this location but we didn't visit it and we didn't care about it either!
Next, we went to a Bronze Museum. This museum was interesting in that if looked nothing like we would imagine a museum looking. It was a dirty, run-down building, but inside were fabulous priceless bronze sculptures of Hindu gods!
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| Near the Bronze Museum, D found a Cannon! |
This stop was worth seeing because the bronze sculptures were beautiful, but I wouldn't normally go out of my way to see bronze sculptures. We weren't allowed to take photographs inside without paying extra, and our guide advised that we would be better off buying the postcards from the man out front of the museum instead of trying to take good photos through the glass cases.
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| The Postcard Man |
We were so happy this man selling postcards existed! We didn't buy the pictures of the bronzes but we bought a collection of 10 postcards of Chennai tourist sites. If it weren't for this man, we would have failed to find a postcard for our postcard door! The bronze museum had no shop whatsoever, and the next stop, Fort George didn't have a shop either! So, $2.00 USD for 10 postcards? We were thrilled to pay it! No one else in our tour group was interested in doing business with the postcard seller.
The next stop was Fort George. When we arrived at Fort George we had the chance to observe about 10 Indian police officers, half men and half women, standing out front doing absolutely nothing. So weird. I overhead an Indian woman telling a tourist that thirty percent of government jobs must be given to women. That was an interesting little factoid to learn.
[Davin Interjection: This was another situation where tons of people were standing around, but doing seemingly nothing at all. Why were they all there? Shouldn’t they have been out patrolling or something? It didn’t make any sense.]
The good thing about Fort George is there were lots of cannons for D to take photos with. I'm certain that after this trip I will have enough cannon photos to make 'Cannon Fodder II'– the second photobook in the series of D's world-wide travels in search of artillery. I love my projects!
The Fort Museum was boring. Mostly because we weren't interested in it! Especially in a hot building with no air conditioning. It was just a run-of-the-mill fort built by the British during their Imperial period when they ruled India. We did have the chance to do some silly portraits in the special exhibit upstairs which was about ancient hairstyles (seen in paintings and statues) that are making a modern comeback. That was amusing!
[Davin Interjection: Both of these museums were nothing like what I’d expect from a museum in any other country. They were really quite basic and the buildings were very rundown. The bronze statues were cool to see, but the fort museum seemed like a total waste of time. Apparently you’re also not supposed to take pictures inside the fort museum, even though there’s hardly anything there worth taking a picture of. It also makes little sense since they don’t even have a gift shop!]
After that, it was back to the ship. We were thrilled to go back. We got a taste of Indian chaotic daily life and Indian weather, and we were ready to get back to our room to relax and jump back on our computers! I put my phone on the charger, and D and I got some lunch at the ship buffet. Then, I gave Scott his 4:00AM wake-up call and we had an 1.5 hour phone conversation!
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| Erich popped his head outside for a minute, he said it is still too hot and humid! |
That being said, I have concerns about India’s future prospects. This is another country that economists are all gaga for because they have an expanding population, unlike China. I don’t agree that their expanding population is at all a positive. It seems like things barely work as they are now, but with more people it’s all just going to fall apart. Economists spend too much time with their heads in the clouds with their mathematical models, and don’t look at the reality on the ground.
Even if India’s economy keeps growing, the quality of life of the average person there is going to go down if their population keeps going up. However, I think they are actually going to experience serious resource shortages and the problems will actually be much worse than that. And having an unwieldy bureaucracy that employs tons of people in make-work jobs doesn’t solve the problem of having so many people either.]
In the evening, we did our weight lifting which we were forced to skip yesterday due to the weight benches being taken and the gym closing only 30 minutes after that.
At 10:30PM we went to watch an Indian classical concert which was a Sitar player and a drummer. The heat took its toll on me so I was ready to go to bed at 10:30PM and literally had trouble keeping my eyes open during the Indian classical concert. It was beautiful music but even at its most energetic the music was a bit sleepy!
We had some desserts to eat though, so I stayed up to watch one Babylon 5 episode before going to bed around midnight.
Next Stop: Cochin, India (April 13, 2016)
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