Manmallepuram 3rd -5th Jan 2005

The bus journey from pondicherry to Manmallepuram took us along the coast road which was beautifull. The landscape however, was scared by numerous temporary settlements of tents. These were obviously there to house tsunami survivors who's houses have been destroyed. The trouble is in India its likely that these people will still be living in tents years down the line. They will probably just fall off the to-do list and be forgotten about.

When we arrive in the village of Manmallapuram we are greeted by the normal circus. Chai sellers, children begging, Sadu's wanting to bless you (for rupees of course), rickshaw drivers etc etc. I will miss all this chaos when i leave India. We get off the bus, have a cup of chai and set off on foot in completely the wrong direction for guesthouses. After a couple of km walking the wrong way we realise our mistake (OK my mistake, i was on map reading duty) and head back in the right direction.

We get to the area where all the guest houses. The first guesthouse we went to assured us there were three single rooms for 150 rupees each. We get lead upstairs an look at the rooms. Very nice. The once we have been given the keys and off loaded our packs teh price suddenly goes up to 200 rupees. We politely tell him where to stick his rooms. We have all been in Inida too long to fall for these scams. We head across the road to one of the many other guesthouses on the street, all have loads of rooms as tourists arent coming here in huge numbers since tsunami. A nman takes us and shows us three rooms. All 150 rupees. Then suddenly changes his mind and decides that the upstairs room is 250 rupees. Not very clever these chaps. We make our polite exit again and head to yet another guesthouse. This time a slightly more astute guesthouse owner realises that three rooms rented out at 150 rupees is beter for business than three empty rooms and sticks to his initial price.

The beach at Manmallapuram is a strange scene of destruction. Some collapsed beach front building lay in piles of rubble obviosly destroyed by the wave. Others seem unscathed and open for business. Rubbish and broken fishing boats, nets, and generall discarded stuff strewn all over the beach. . Other than the buildings its hard to tell what is tsunami damage and what is just normal India. This is a working beach not a tourist bathing beach and as such boats nets rubbish and general mess is probably the norm.

While in manmallapuram we visit the shore temple, a famous shore side temple. Its quite pleasant but heavily decayed by the sea air. Here, coach loads of clueless fat american tourists are walking around with guides asking the dumbest questions and generally not helping the america's overseas image.

Other sights here include some antient rock sculptures. I cant remmebre the name of them but sounds like the 5 ravers! and an old light house on a large rockformation. All are moderately interesting.

The town is full of hundreds of rock carving workshops, the noise and dust created by thousands of men chipping away at huge lumps of stont to make giant ganesh statues gives this place a unique atmosphere.

We meet up with some more people we met in Trishy and a group of us all went out to dinner together. Quite a funny mix of people, i could sence the clash of personailties between an american and a kiwi guy, which from an onlookers point of view made for quite good entertainment.

The next morning Scott, rob and i all leave on a bus heading for Chennai. My final port of call!