There comes an end to all things - even India. And in the South this end is called Kanyakumari, the land's end of the Indian subcontinent. This is also the meeting point of three seas: the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. Three seas or one, I'm just happy to be back on the coast after the sweltering heat (and it's winter here) of inland Tamil Nadu.
Kanyakumari is a fishing town with one old temple and two memorials built in 1970 perched on rocks out at sea. Possibly India's Southernmost rocks? The first image in this entry was from one of the rocks; a family taking a selfie next to a spittoon.
In the North I enjoyed traveling on shared jeeps. For whatever reason, the state of Tamil Nadu doesn't seem to have such an established shared taxi practice, so to get here, I've been chugging along on the mint & dark green striped Tamil Nadu state buses. And chugging along is the word. Yesterday my bus from Madurai to Kanyakumara took only 5,5 hours to traverse the 240 km between these cities. That, actually, was making very fair time compared to some rides I've taken. But I'm still puzzled how the bus managed to spend 1,5 hours on the last 35 kilometres of the trip! Above some of my fellow passangers waiting for the bus to leave.
Despite the time and hassle involved, my favoured mode of transport on my travels is the public bus or train service. The main reason is that on public transport you come into contact with "ordinary people" in a totally different way than you do just walking up the main streets. There the people most likely to approach you are salespeople, hecklers and beggars - all with a beady eye on your money.
Also the views from the bus or train windows of little villages and towns is a mesmerising show for me. This mode of travel truly takes time though, so you do have to enjoy the experience to make it worth while - and have a study back side and good bladder control.
India's trains are, of course, iconic. The source of much fine litterature and one or two horror stories. But so far the only train I have managed to board has been this toy train going round Pondicherry Botanical Gardens. And to get on this I had to brutally beat mothers of five in the dash for the prized seats.
When travelling, I make a special point of being very polite and respectful to the people I come into contact with (unless they act in a way that does not deserve respect, which is very rare). And the payback is, that peole also treat me well and we often get a rappor that leaves us all satisfied at the encounter. Simply a smile and thanking people in a heartfelt and genuine way goes a long way towards this.
And off the tourist beat, a Western traveller is a bit of a curiosity, an object of interest and discussion for people. For example I have ended up in countless group selfies. Too many at times, as saying yes to one group of people is an open invitation for others to come asking for a photo too. (In fact I am writing this in a queue for a ferry - and so far during the 12 minutes of waiting I'm up to 8 group shots - in fact I'll take one myself of the next people to approach me for a groupie - click - see above). At times this gets irritating, but I remind myself that I also take photos of the locals - so it's tit for tat.
Getting off the tourist trail is easy enough. If there's one thing I recommend, it's falling through the cracks every now and then. By this I mean e.g. getting off the main shopping streets into the little alleys that look like dead ends, but actually are the twisting and turning network of alleys that travers inside the areas defined by the main roads. Suddenly you're in a village inside a city - as in Madurai, where a little jaunt up an unpreposing alley ended up in all kinds of chance encounters. Firstly, life happens on the street, not inside homes, since homes are often very basic affairs, sometimes without running water or even electricity. So people wash clothes and little children on the street, take afternoon naps in the shadows of their houses and neighbours gather to gossip in doorways. There is much to see and people to meet.
During one of my alley-runs I met the woman in the image above, who was selling food on an alley corner. She wanted me to taste one of the piping hot food-products she was frying. I wish I could describe what the food product tasted like, but it sort of defied description. However, I hummed my appreciation as I ate it and thanked her profusely, whereupon she insisted on packing four more along for me when I left. (I admit, three of these I gave to a beggar a few blocks later). And if I know anything about people and human encounters, offering her any money for her products in this instance would have been insulting and have robbed her of the self-respect and joy a relatively poor person gets from being able to offer hospitality to a exotic alien, who wandered into her local neighbourhood. I offered to take a picture of her, her daughter and various neighbours as a thanks and she was more than chuffed for me to do so. Many people here have seldom - if ever - been under the eye of a real camera. Also the experience of a foreigner being interested in them and wanting to take a picture of them is flattering and quite exciting to them. The only payback I can give is showing them the image of them on the screen of my camera - asking them for their email is not really a viable option - but they seem happy enough at that.
Today falling through the cracks demanded no sterner task than to follow the coastline from the temple at the end of India to the fishermen's part of town (around 100 meters from the tourist main street. I promptly got nabbed by a little old lady sitting on her doorstep. She first gestured for me to sit down with her, which I did. She then tut-tutted over the unruly state of my hair (I'd left it open to dry it after an impromptu hair wash in the afternoon, taken after an episode involving a flying crow, shit and my hair). Before I knew it, she had her comb out (oh, please not a flea comb!) and was combing my hair into a neat ponytail. After which she refused to let me refuse a cup of coffee and a sit-down in her house - hers and her family's - I think there were three generations living under one roof.
So full of coffee and buns and with neat hair I am prepared to face new adventures tomorrow, leaving Tamil Nadu behind and heading for the state of Kerala. I hear a beach calling.
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