Rock Carvings and Baguettes in Tamil Nadu

45 hours on an Indian train is pushing it a little... Chinese trains are far more comfortable than these, and that says a lot. In the morning we arrived in Chennai (formerly Madras), which is the capital of the southernmost state, Tamil Nadu, and India's fourth largest city. This state is the home of Dravidian culture, which is one of the oldest surviving major world civilizations. Some sources say it stemmed from the original Indus civilizations as far back as 1500 BC.. pretty old. Aside from economic development and a little globalization, not much has changed for these people. This is one of the most devoutly Hindu states in the country, and religious fervor is obvious in every aspect of Tamil life. Religion is life and life is religion. Every temple we visited was teeming with pilgrims and energetic worship. Very cool to experience.

Anyway - we got to Chennai just in time to hop on a bus to leave. The city was hot, humid, and polluted - we had not desire to stay. Instead, we traveled about two hours south to a town called Mamallapuram, which is famous for its ancient rock sculptures and for the expertise of its stone carvers, a skill sought after internationally to this day. Not only does the city have some fascinating carvings and temples, it is also a pleasant, laid-back backpacker hub due to its beaches, seafood, and proximity to Chennai. Lunch was an adventure - very different from the northern thalis we ate in Mumbai. You are given a large banana leaf as a plate, on top of which is slopped a pile of rice with four or five different cups of curry, dal, and curd - along with the obligatory lemon pickle paste and raita. Everything is poured on top of the rice and sloshed around with your right hand. After everything is sufficiently sloppy, you scoop it up and shovel it into your mouth, trying not to drop the watery mass all over your lap. When you are running low on anything, the waiter comes around and ladles you another serving. All you can eat lunch for a whopping 50 U.S. cents.. criminal......

We spent the afternoon climbing over carving-strewn boulders and watching monkeys harass the hill-climbing goats and Tamil families picnicking on the hilltops. We snacked on some local delicacies: cucumber with salt masala and fresh coconut milk. For dinner we headed down to the beach and tried a few decent seafood curries at a seaside restaurant before relaxing on the sand beside hundreds of brightly painted fishing boats guarded by the city's lazy sacred cow population.

The next morning I thoroughly paid the price for being too culinarily adventurous. Blazing fever and you know what.... My stomach was really pissed at me. My first thought was malaria because the mosquitoes were large and ferocious, and I had just started my malarone pills the day before. But it was just a friendly case of food poisoning (I would prefer this to malaria any day). My day was shot, but I wanted to continue making southward progress, so we caught a local bus to a town called Pondicherry. NOT FUN WITH FOOD POISONING! We waited at a main highway just outside the town to catch any passing south-bound bus. When the first one stopped, all the locals ran at the bus and jammed their way ahead of us, leaving us no room. The next bus passed ten minutes later, too full to stop. A local offered us a ride, but we didn't feel comfortable taking him up on the offer. A third bus finally came, and we pushed all the Indians out of the way to jump on - we weren't going to wait any longer, and we had learned our lesson with this vital survival-of-the-fittest strategy. The bus barely came to a stop - it slowed long enough for one or two people to hop off and for us to grab the rail by the entrance and pull ourselves in as the bus sped off down the road. The buses have no doors, and we were at the mercy of our biceps to keep us from flying out of the sardine-packed rocket that barreled down the highway. Our driver had a few very close calls before running a pair of motorcyclists off the road and into a road sign - they got back up - the driver never noticed... After a few more stops, we were carried by the mass of people into the middle section of the bus, where we held on to the ceiling rails to maintain balance - feet barely touching the ground. Still suffering with my fever, I kept my eyes closed and hoped desperately for a quick arrival. An angel of an old woman secured two seats for us, and our suffering was put to a rest.

Pondicherry -- a former French colonial city 4 hours south of Chennai. It was returned to India about 50 years ago, and aside from a few French buildings and restaurants, has re-India-tized. The name might sound familiar as the hometown of Pi - the main character in The Life of Pi. This was a perfect place for me to get a fix of some good Western food and let my stomach calm down before reintroducing the overload of Indian spices. We wandered around, the quaint French streets and spent some time people watching on the long seafront promenade - Indian men walking hand in hand, sari clad women sitting with their children on seaside boulders as huge waves crash down on top of them, children flying kites and eating ice cream. We walked through the botanical gardens (the one's from the book really do exist) and gorged ourselves on French food.

After we had satiated out Western craving, we continued on to our next destination: Tiruvannamalai, one of the holiest cities in southern India.