Mamallapuram, South of Madras
I haven’t gone to see ANY temples since I’ve arrived in India. Some people come to India just to look at temples. Temples blur in my mind.
I spent the
other evening at Mamallapuram which is about one hour south of Madras.
The road from Madras airport winds along the South East coast. 
Long
driveways lead down to mammoth houses that look right out onto the Bay
of Bengal. The houses would fit in well on Majorca. I wrote to my friend
in Hyderabad to find out if this was where wealthy Madras folks had their
weekend houses. It looked like it. In between, the landscape was very
barren. Just big expanses of flat brown land with the occasional super
tall coconut tree. And then sea.
Both of my guidebooks recommended a lodge to stay at in Mamallapuram. One that was supposed to be particularly popular with travelers. I never end up staying at these places which is dumb. There’s a reason they’re recommended. They’re usually clean, cheap and well prepared for questions like, Where can I send email, Where can I do laundry, Where can I get a taxi at 4am. And, they offer a respite from the typical conversation I’ve had over the last six weeks: What country? You married? You on "tour" alone? Money? Dollars? Your parents, what do they do? Where are you staying? My brother in America!
This lodge didn’t disappoint. A true backpacker’s institution with a noticeboard for sharing rides, selling bicycles and whatever else. And the rooms? A mattress on cinderblocks, bars across the windows and a bucket in the bathroom. Thank goodness for the BeEverything sarong: towel, sheet, skirt and wah-wah blanket.
Th
e
temples were lovely. And just buzzing with visitors, mostly Indian. Typical
to most historical sites here, I had to search for the sites. In between
the heaps of garbage (coconut shells and blue plastic bags) and the lack
of signs. A guard stopped me as I made my way up one of the paths; a Mom
pig was protecting her pigling and about to charge towards me.
Back at the
lodge, I decided to have a beer and go sit on the roof. It was a full
moon and I could see right out over to the sea. I started talking to Tess,
a Swedish girl with lazy, murky, gray eyes and a blond ponytail. Tess
has been traveling for the last four years moving westwards from Sweden
over America and into Asia (and by my calculation, she’ll be travelling
for another seven years to get back to Sweden). 
She’d
stopped in between and worked for six months on Maui. And then went home
and met a man which delayed the rest of her trip for a year. Tess rolled
her eyes. You know how it is. My fiancé. He’s around here somewhere,
she said. We’re going to get married on this trip. I asked her how long
she’d (they’d) be in India. I dunno, she replied. I’ll see how I like
it. Six months, a year, and she shrugged her shoulders. I dunno. Tess
sounded bored. We’re meeting friends for the Millennium in Goa but I know
it’s going to be so spoilt, so touristy. Tess sneered. And then Rajasthan
(home of the romantic vision of India--deserts, palaces, forts, gypsies,
dowries and funky-chunky jewelry), I WANT to go up there. Tess didn’t
sound like she wanted much. She asked if I was traveling alone and I replied,
Yes. She worried that that was Very Hard. Wasn’t it scary? I replied that
it was best for me to travel alone because I’m a schitzy traveler. One
who wakes up in the morning and just takes off. In any direction. Tess
said that she used to be like that when she was younger. Three years ago,
she said, I used to be like that. I’ve grown up now, she said. Tess is
21. Tess and her fiancé (Ivan, a lanky lad also with a blond ponytail)
had also gone to the Andaman Islands. Except, they took the 60 hour boat
ride from Calcutta and went bunk class. Tess said she felt dirty on the
boat: there were cockroaches and rats everywhere but during the day it
was OK because they could sit outside. And, sure enough, they were delayed
on a local bus on the islands by a roadblock of tribal folks, arrows and
all. Tess and Ivan flew on one-way tickets from Port Blair back to Madras.
Reproduction of material from posthoc is prohibited without written permission.
Copyright 2001 Posthoc, Inc.