kanyakumari - the tip of the continent

Well, here I am in Kanyakumari. Things here are slower. It's a funny tourist town which seems to be geared towards wealthy middle-class Indians and religious pilgrims (sometimes wealthy middle class pilgrims). It's an important religious site in Hinduism. More on that later. After the temples in Madurai I decided indeed to hop on a train coming down this way. The only one was local, and it ended up taking 6 hours, though the ticket window guy told me 3 or 4. Oops. But in a way this trip may be one of my long-term highlights. It was a local train, second class. I had to cram my bags on-board this sucker, and there were no seats so I started the trip standing at the space at the end of the cars. Which is where I met the gang: Chokolingam, Basha, Suryesh (not pictured here), Pravin Raja, and Subathiran. These guys were all 19 year old students on their way back from interviews to get into engineering school (none of them were accepted, but this didn't seem to worry them too much "we'll try again next year"). They were going to Nagarcoil which is where I was going as well (then to catch a bus down here to Kanyakumari). At first they were curious with lots of typical questions: where are you from? what is your job? are you married? what is your salary? (yes this is quite typical to ask in India). Later, we made some space on the floor at the end of the car and sat down. The doors open to the countryside on both sides of us. Stopping all the time to exchange passengers and take on fresh snack and samosa and coffee vendors. A good chunk of the trip was an extended lesson in Tamil for me. But I tried to answer their questions about the US as much as possible as well : do they grow rice there? do they have elephants? explaining to them my job was very very difficult. I finally left it at "gardener". Aside from Tamil they were telling me about their job prospects, their school, their families, their religion (three were hindu, one muslim, and one christian [syrian christian maybe?]). Then in the little village of Nagarcoil they all walked me the 2 kilos to the bus stand and waited with me for the bus to Kanyakumari and waved me off. These guys were very sweet. Most striking for me was to see how comfortable they were with one another - arms draped around each other, cuddling, playing. Not very much like american teenage boys, especially 19 year old ones! Anyways, I told them I'd send them a picture or two so I'll probably send this one above.

Kanyakamuri was a draw to me because of it's location - at the tip of the continent (Cape of Comorin). Lots of windfarms, and a special monument dedicated to Vivekenanda. Vivekenanda was a swami of the late 19th, early 20th centuries. He attended several world conferences on religion, and his teachings are a mix of hindu aescetism and social action. You have to take a boat ride out to his memorial (a site where he meditated for many days and had a vision about the future of India and his role in it). On land, but quite near here, is a very holy temple thought to be the place where Devi (virgin goddess) conquered demons and gained freedom for the world. All in a day's work. This religion, I must admit is much harder for me to figure out than any other religion I have ever studied. Interesting about this temple is that men must remove their shirts before entering. This is very rare in this flesh-phobic society (one must cover up all limbs almost all the time - I think it's worse for women though they get to show their belly-buttons). I must admit that I was a bit road-weary upon arrival here, so I took a little travel break and watched some movies on hbo in my room after doing a light day of tourism. I did apparently miss the sunset thing, which is where everyone goes down to the land at the tip and watches it. Oh, also, another cool thing and significance maker for hindus (and me too) is that this place is where the waters of three oceans mix: the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Bay of Bengal. I dipped my toes in.

So today, I'm back on the road. I took a bus here to Trivandrum (Thrivanpurum) in Kerala. I am stopping to book train reservations for my long overnight trips (Feb 10 Bombay to Jaipur and Feb 18 Jaisalmer to Delhi - then I fly out of Delhi that same evening - it's amazing how time flies). In a bit, once I send this, I'll hop on a quick bus to Varkala. I had a nice ride this morning with a young french woman travelling (Morgan) and a nice Keralan christian couple behind us with a really cute daughter who gave me a kiwi that tasted of cinnamon.

The food. I haven't really written much about the food. It is amazing. I'm mostly doing the Thali, which is a lunch type, all you can eat, plate of various concoctions in little metal cups and either bread (chappati) or rice. Today I had one with a little metal cup of fish curry, and then all of these other yummy but unidentifiable tasties. I did take a picture of Thali, I'll add that as well. And sometimes when you get dhosa you have to imagine that it might be 2 or even 2.5 feet long. Saravana Bhavana, a vegetarian place with 30-some outlets in Chennai (and one in NYC for you adventurous types) served one that was definitely over 2 feet. Yikes! By the way, this is all eaten with your hands. Specifically your right hand. Your left hand actually must not be used to feed yourself. This is very hard for me, but Indians seem to take it as second nature. Sumitra, in Delhi, thought it funny that it was hard for me not to use both hands. The good part about the south is that you get to use your whole hand, in the north just your right fingertips. Anyways, they let us foreigners cheat and use silverware in some places if we want, but I've been trying not to.

OK, I'm off again. Internet access is ubiquitous but often quite slow so I may not always do pictures (though they really do tell a thousand words). Today I stopped here for fast internet in the big city. I was going to see a movie too but I thought I might wait for Mumbai for that.

Adios!

John