Riding (and spying) elephants and swinging swords

Saturday April 4th through Wednesday, April 8th

It’s not everyday I have the privilege of combining my love for animals with my love for men jumping through rings of fire, but on the 4th of April in Periyar National Park and in the town of Kumily in Kerala, South India, I did.

We were able to do about a four hour trek in the national park in the morning, where again any tigers evaded us, but we did see a wild elephant as well as a bear (black one, I think), a buffalo, nilgiri langore monkeys, and a variety of other animals. Mainly though, the trek was beautiful and I enjoyed what is sometimes hard to come by in India--peace and quiet.


That afternoon five of us decided to take part in something I have always wanted to do: ride an elephant. Having missed my last opportunity to do so when I was 21 years old and visiting the National Circus Museum in Barraboo, Wisconsin, I was not going to miss the chance in India. So we piled in rikshaws and headed over to what I was sure would be The Adventure of a Lifetime.


Katherine, an accountant from England who had been volunteering with deaf children In Bangalore, India, and Anne from Ireland who is a dentist that had been practicing for nine months in rural, central Australia before joining the Indian tour, joined me on our elephant, Laki. Though it wasn’t exactly a rip-the-limbs-off-trees crazy safari, we thoroughly enjoyed our ride. Ionna and Ed, a travel agent from England who is soon to relocate to Argentina, rode the other elephant, Makana. After our ride, we were able to give Makana a bath, where we used coconut shells to scrub her down.



Having such a great ride it seemed impossible for our day to get better, but it certainly did. That night a few of us went to the Kadathanadan Kalari Centre to see what they described as the oldest form of martial arts called Kalaripayattu, which originated in south India. The performance involved the martial artists tumbling, battling each other with swords and shields, defending against all sorts of blows from one another, and even jumping through multiple rings of fire. I was enamored by one artist in particular, Lalu, and he invited Anne and I down after to meet a few of them and practice some of our own moves.

Lalu was my hero, and I told him so.

Anne and I battle it out!

The next day we left Kerala for Tamil Nadu and arrived at the town of Madurai via another local bus--this one not nearly as bad as the first, but as I was sitting next to the wide open door the entire time I had a nice breeze, but also was caked in dirt by the time we arrived. However, it is best just to embrace these sorts of things, as its so hot it really is of no consequence. In Madurai we were able to tour the Sri Meenakshi Temple, which is dedicated to Meenakshi, who was a beautiful princess born to the Pandya King of Madurai, but she had three breasts. Luckily for her, she met Lord Shiva and he became her Divine Consort and she lost her deformity. The temple is actually made of 12 tours, so it is expansive. The Hindu gods that adorn it and make up the structure are repainted every 12 years, and we were lucky enough to visit just as it was being repainted so it especially stood out. I also was blessed by an elephant here, which I am sure means nothing but Good Things to come.



There were thousands, literally, of pilgrims who came to the temple to visit, and apparently this is the case each day. We had to remove our shoes, which is a fairly standard practice, but as this temple tour was longer (and larger) than most, it made dodging things all the more entertaining. I also was most amused they sell cotton candy outside the temple, and that there was a Modern Bathroom.


At night a light show adorns the temple that we were able to view from our rooftop restaurant; again, the Indians never cease to amaze me for their love of flair!

Before we got on a 6 hour day train ride to Pondicherry (not advisable if it can be avoided in the Indian summer) we had an excellent breakfast of dosas, vadas, idlis and filtered coffee near the temple. Truly, the southern India food agreed with me! After cleaning up from the train ride, we all piled into a mini-bus taxi (and I mean mini) for 5 rupees before enjoying some great food. Walking back to our hotel along the Bay of Bengal, I was able to climb up a huge statue of Ghandi and slide down with a little girl who was just as excited about it as I was.

Pondicherry is a beautiful city with a French influence and small streets reminiscent of the French Quarter in New Orleans. It was refreshing to be able to walk down the streets and enjoy the flowers and some quiet. We visited an Ahsram for a bit, as well as a homemade paper factory and had way too much Thali for lunch. As it was a dry day in India (there are lots of these days here, which fall on holidays and mean that all liquor stores are closed) I was denied when trying to purchase a bit of whiskey; alas, you can’t win them all.

There were seriously a lot of kids in this rik.

From Ponidcherry we drove a short distance to the communal living city of Auroville or “The City of Dawn.” Auroville begain in 1968 by a French woman known as “The Mother” and the idea is to create an independent, multi-racial community that live and work their self sufficiently without relying on money to get by. We watched one informational video on Auroville and then another in order to be able to walk to the Matri Mandir, which is a large, golden dome in the center of Auroville that serves as a meditation room and houses the largest crystal in the world. We were not allowed to see any of the homes though. Auroville undoubtedly is an intriguing entity, but it left most of us with more questions than answers. I joked with Anne that I would ride in on her coattails as she was a dentist, but I wasn’t sure if they needed any early-retired researchers in their midst. The goal I believe was to have 50,000 inhabitants, apparently now they are around only 10,000. Definitely something I intend to read up on.

Senor liked Auroville.

We drove to the small beach town of Mamallapuram that night, where we enjoyed a delightful seafood dinner that would have been even better if I still wasn’t full from the thali at lunch! Mamallapuram was one of the towns affected by the tsunami in 2005 that devastated so much of southeast Asia. We were able to visit the Shore Temple, which withstood the tsunami. We also visited the Five Rathas which are statues carved out of granite, as well as Krishna’s Butter Ball, which is a large rock that appears as if it will roll down a hill but is situated soundly instead. Mamallapuram was most enjoyable as well because we got to tour around on bicycles visiting all the places--and yes, the bicycles had bells. Our hotel, though the AC did not work so well, did have a swimming pool that I was able to take advantage of three times in a 24 hour span. Also, being on the beach, Ed decided to try for a surf with some new friends we met at the hotel, one of which turned out to be an Aurovillian! If I had only known sooner, the mystery of Auroville may have been revealed to me. Alas, my surfer boy, who we came to call Trident and was from the UK, could ride the waves very well.



Before we caught the night train to Mysore, our next city, we visited an orphanage run by a friend of the travel company’s. We were able to play games with the children for about an hour, and it was definitely a highlight to spend time with them.