Next morning I had a 6am flight
to Chennai and so when I got back to the hotel I organized my
packing. I had bought so many chachkes that it was not at all
clear that I could get everything stowed into the luggage I had
brought with me. The extra bag
I had packed, which I had acquired at the Bangkok flea market
actually holds a lot of stuff. Let's hope it lasts all the way
back to Philadelphia. Although I had bought a few heavy things,
I also bought lots of fabrics that pack flat and don't break.
I made it to Chennai. A car met me at the airport and took me
to the Taj Fisherman's Cove. At first it looked good, but then
it became apparent that I had booked myself into an Indian tourist
trap that was hurting but hungry and knew how to really run up
a guest's bill. Despite being on the "inclusive" plan,
I ended up spending $550 for two nights, over $125 on car and
driver and
35% on the Tamil Nadu luxury+ taxes. And I didn't even stay in
the honeymoon suite.
After arriving at the hotel,
I took a car down to Mahabalapuram, about 30km south. On the
way, we stopped at the Tiger Cave Temple, a small site right
on the beach with a 7th century temple for the god Durga carved
into a big rock. The salt, wind and sand had worn away some of
the carving but still was pretty impressive. I had read that
Mahabalapuram is famous for stone carving. An "art school"
guide showed me around and then tried to sell me some of "his"
work, right. I ended up buying a carved sphere the size of a
baseball, but resisted the fake set of 6 ganeshes that came in
its own velvet-lined box.
On to the main town of Mahabalapuram
with many temples carved into very large granite boulders. This
small town was the seaport for the Pallava kings of Kanchipuram
who first ruled in the 7th century. There are 4 main sites. Arjuna's
Penance is a massive relief carved into a single rock that measures
12m high by 30m long. It has all sorts of characters carved in
it and in the middle there is a large fissure crack meant to
symbolize the Ganges. At the far end there is a Ganesh Ratha
(temple) carved into the solid granite rock at a depth of probably
20 ft. At the entrance to the site, I had picked an old guide
who looked about 60 but I think as about my age. He later told
me he had 5 daughters, the oldest Maddie's age, as he was angling
for a large tip. He was a Christian and so had a more whimsical
attitude about all the Hindu characters than others might.
The next site was the Five
Rathas each cut from one large piece of stone, the largest probably
40 ft high. The tops of these temples were in the Dravidian style,
which is either a four-sided cupola or a rectangular shape with
a point arch end. The guide told me that the arch-ends of the
tops contained Buddhist influences. Actually all five of the
temples were carved from the same large rock and even the ground
was part of the same rock. Amazing since we are talking about
an area of probably 20x50m and it is not exactly like the workers
had pneumatic tools. This gave me a good idea of the Dravidian
influences that I would see in later temples throughout Tamil
Nadu. The entire temple had been buried under sand until 200
years when the British excavated it. This probably served to
protect the temples from the elements because the site was in
great condition.
After the temples, I visited
some of the stone carving factories, basically a shack with many
carvers working (chip, chip, chip all day long, the whole time
I am thinking carpel tunnel syndrome). At one of the hole in
the wall places, the owner told me he had 200 people working
for him each and every day. I eventually bought two small pieces
made from fine marble. They were intricately carved and despite
their small scale, they weighed a lot. I kept thinking that one
of the large multi-ton pieces would look great in the garden
and I did see several large pieces being crated up and hoisted
onto a large truck. Maybe next time...
It was due to my travel arrangements
with cars that I realized that the Fisherman's Cove was designed
to fleece tourists out of big bucks. But today was my lucky day;
I met my driver for the next 6 days, Dhanasekaran. He was assigned
to me as my driver for the trip to Kanchipuram, the capital of
the Pallava Empire that had also built Mahabalapura. It was about
60km inland and is considered one of the seven sacred cities
in India. There are five main temples but over 200 still left
for a town of about 180k. We arrived in Kanchipuram at about
9:45 am, but Hindu temples typically are open 5-12 am and 4-9
pm so I had to be focused in my visits due to transit time in
the crowded town between the temples.
The first one we hit was Devarajaswami
Temple, an enormous temple dedicated to Vishnu. Once I got inside,
I found out that
this was the last day of a 10-day festival with several 1000
pilgrims already in the temple. There was a large tank behind
one of the multi-pillared shrines and 100's of people were jumping
into the water and splashing and bathing. It was very colorful
and music
was blaring. I was the only white face.
We then hit four more temples.
The difference between Kanchipuram and Mahabalpuram was that
the temples in Kanchipuram were made of limestone, more intricately
carved but not one solid piece of granite. In one of the temples,
Kailasanatha, you could see remnants of some old frescos protected
from the elements by virtue of being inside small alcoves in
the wall surrounding the main temple. It was amazing to see the
quality of the carvings given the fact that they were about 1500
years old. At one of the temples, I stood mesmerized by this
elephant that had been trained to take a coin into its trunk
and then touch the person on top of the head as a blessing sign.
I went up and did it myself; it was cool despite the slobber.
Kanchipuram is famous for hand-embroidered
silk. I had the driver take me to a place to look. In the back
of the complex, they had a handloom and I got to see a demonstration.
Generally, they only make 4-5 saris of the exact same design.
They say it takes about 10 days to set up the first one and 25
days to complete it, 10-15 days for each one thereafter. They
use cardboard punch cards to set up the "digital" design.
Fascinating, painstaking work. I decide to subject myself to
viewing all the different types of fabric they have, from the
R's 1000 cotton to the R's 35000 elaborate wedding sari that
contains up to 1kg of gold and silver thread from Rajasthan called
zari. I selected about 5 different saris that I liked, then they
served me the proverbial no obligation drink, in this case black,
unsweetened Indian coffee. Then I move onto table clothes, shawls,
and runners.
At this point the owner shows
up, a confident well-spoken fellow about my age who had attended
U Mass and then worked for a couple of years in Texas for Met
Life of all things. His family had been in the business for 5
generations and he came back to run the business. He told me
that he had about 2000 weavers working for him and that there
were about 450k working in the Kanchipuram silk weaving manufacturing
business. He called his industry an "unorganized business"
and meant it in the technical sense. He said that he had 3 lieutenants
working for him each with 6 under them and a pyramid on down
the line. The key was monitoring and creating an environment
that fostered loyalty. Two anecdotes: (1) he said that if one
of his workers had a wife in labor and needed to go to a hospital/clinic,
his car would go and pick her up and he would pay the bill though
the worker would have to pay him back later; (2) he had about
3000 houses registered in his name and when a 30 year worker
wanted to stop weaving he would let him stay in the house, I
guess until he died. It is an interesting concept in leverage
in a country where there is an abundant lack of leverage except
at the top and even there, the lack of productivity tools requires
massive workforces. The leverage that one could gain from one
Makita screw-gun. Oh my god, the increase in productivity, but
I guess it would put too many people out of
work, or would it?
I bought 5-6 pieces and bargained
not too hard for a decent discount. Then we headed back to the
hotel. This is where I made a decision that I think vastly improved
the rest of my visit in Tamil Nadu. Although my driver did not
speak much English, we had little difficulty communicating and
I had told him my plans for the rest of the trip, which involved
staying in central Chennai for two days and then flying to Madurai.
He was entrepreneurial enough to call his boss from one of the
STD/ISD phone shops and in about a 10 minute phone conversation,
I had completely rearranged my trip, escaped the clutches of
the Taj Fisherman's Cove and their ridiculous fees, and negotiated
a good deal to drive to Madurai rather than fly. I had heard
previously that there were lots of great temples to see along
the way. I got back to my hotel, argued with the Taj over transport
charges to some avail and arranged to check out the next morning.
The only deception was that I had to request the same driver
and say that I was going to the airport since Dhanasekaran's
boss had a contract providing transport and touring to the Taj,
where he got at most 60% of the take. Had dinner at the beachside
restaurant that night after another late afternoon of body surfing
where I smashed my head on the sandbar on my last ride.
