It was kinda nice, we got this trip to go take a old lady to see some temples. She was 90 years old , in a wheelchair and had recently recovered from years of being paralyzed.  So her wish was to go thank some gods, which meant a trip down to Madurai, then to Jamnagar. On a map its almost a perfect triangle.

The Trip

Normally we look forward to Madurai, as we stay at the Gateway Hotel, which is one of the Taj hotels. This time the hotel was a bit of a let down. The place has the old colonial feel, with the old bar full of leather couches and the pool table, with the old colonial architecture, but we were let down not by a dirty room, but by the management and restaurant. In true India fashion they have senseless rules, lots of them and the one thats annoying to a business traveller, is the way they separate any liquor item from the food, and present it right down to what you drank on the bill, but the food is summarized in one group as food. And they refuse to alter the bill, so instead of the company paying for the liqour like normal as its just part of the bill as it normally says Beverage service or something like that on the bill, it says 4 large bottle gin, 2 bottles Moet etc. The other bad thing about this place was the restaurant this time.  The waiters were all in these filthy uniforms that looked like they hadnt been washed in weeks, really really dirty is all I could say to describe them. And when you did get to order your food the problem was they would go into the kitchen place the order and then come out with a problem, ie sorry sir no lettuce would you like a greek salad instead? (by the way the greek salad was anything but greek, it was in fact a Indian salad of tomato, and cucumber with vegetable oil on it!!)  Then mains come, I ordered a chicken steak sandwich…I know how can a chicken be steak right!, but out comes a little bread roll with about 4 pieces of onion on it, and about half of a half chicken breast, together with a little dish of pineapple in mayonnaise, and a hand full of sour cream and onion Lays brand chips! WTF, I ask and get sorry sir we have no fries or coleslaw! Would you think about telling me at time of order next time maybe…or is that too much to ask?

But personally I would now not recommend the Gateway hotel in Madurai , unless they have done something about the service, lack of food and cleaned the waiters uniforms.

Jamnagar was not a nice place also. For one its a dry state! And the hotel the company booked us into was a old , dirty run down piece of shit. DONT ever ever stay at the Hotel Aram in Jamnagar. I must admit I have never been in such a bad restaurant. For one it was outdoor..which would have been ok, but of course in true Indian fashion there was lights, and so many lights that all the mosquitoes in the state were attracted to it. We asked for a mozzie coil, and were given about half of inch of a coil to burn under our table…yep did nothing!. The menu as you can see by the pics was filthy, the waiter never spoke, and look at the pic of my napkin and you can see that the table was really really dirty when I wiped it. To add to the insult of a dirty mozzie ridden restaurant without a beer in sight, it was vegetarian only!

One weird thing here I couldn’t get a pic of was the carpark disco. Yep they had a stage, with a guy playing cds loudly in the car park. Later on at night I could still hear the music blaring, so I opened my door and saw the little stage jam packed full of people dancing. Now that would be ok, but when my eyes came into focus I realized it was all men gyrating together, the women were sitting on plastic chairs in front of the dance floor with no expression on their faces watching them dance… really weird it was !

Here is the trip in pics:

Well last time we came to Tirupati we couldnt get into the temple as there was a rule about buying tickets and it would take 2 weeks to get tickets to get in. But a couple of weeks ago they changed the rules and in keeping with the free market they have opened up a new system that allows you to spend 300 rupees ($6) and you get in a 2 hr line to get in.

The temple never closes so it doesnt matter when you arrive. But we arrived about 5pm, saw the line was at the 2hr level, then we were approached by a shady guy draped in orange… he offered for 500 rupees he would get us to the front of the line! How he did this was that he went to some police who were guarding the line for the in advance 50 rupee tickets, this line had no wait, so we went to this line, and this guy had paid a small bribe to the cops to let us in… all done in front of huge signs saying to avoid touts and conmen. But this line got us to the front , when at the front we slipped across to the front of the 300 rupee line, and no one in that line knew we bypassed the wait as they couldnt see us walk past them all, the tout was waiting on the outside of cage we were in and collected his money and slipped into the night.

So in we go, weird is all I can say. To start off with they herd groups of around 100 people into cages, yes iron walled cages with seats in them. You move through the cages as you get closer to the temple, in the last cage is chaos, people push and shove to get thru the gate when its opened into the hallway. Now the hallway into the temple is interesting, it is a caged area too, you are locked in, if there was a fire you would die thats for sure, but luckily its mainly concrete and steel. Problem is you have to go up some stairs at one point, and here you go from 4 people abreast in the hallways to a single person doorway… at this point its another squash, I feel sorry for the old people and kids in the line.

But after a 1 hr procession in the cages and hallways we make it in, its impressive, its rich and you can see the areas where they count the gold and money, the move the money thats offered in wheelbarrows there is so much and there are mounds of gold jewelry waiting to be sorted. There is one place where you make your offering, it looks like a big tied up bed sheet with a box in the bottom, but I think it leads into a pit, but people are throwing literally buckets of money in there and jewelry of all sorts. There are gods all around the inside of the temple and there are people guarding them, I watched 2 women guarding a god made of gold and this woman was wanting to touch it and touch her money against it, this woman was told not to touch it but she still made a lunge for the god, and it was freaky she was bitch slapped in the face by one of the guard, and it was a hard slap.But the woman who was hit wasnt upset at all and moved on.

In the center of the temple is the diety, this is what everyone is there to see and pray too, but with thousands of people every hour wanting to see it, its a mad experience. There is a area about 4 people wide at the point in front of it where you can see it and the diety is about 100ft in the distance, so lining this 4 people wide area in front of the diety are people dressed like boy scouts, men and women, and their job is to make sure you move along , to do this they hit you! Yes they slap and hit you all over forcing you to move, and one guy had a little stick and he was hitting people to make them move. So for a 1 hr wait you get to see the god for about 5 seconds from a distance, and you get roughed up in the process!

When you leave the temple you get some blessed food. This is made by people stirring huge vats of something in rice. They serve this in a little cup, and it consists of nasty tasting mushy rice…pretty gross, it almost made me gag, but the locals were gulping it down like it was the best thing they had ever eaten.  Once you leave the temple, then you get your sacred sweety, a laduu . To get this you go to a huge hall, first counter you show your ticket and donate 20 rupees, then you get given a plastic bag each and go to another window where a man scoops what looks like a pair of bulls balls into your bag. The taste is of flour, butter and lots of sugar..pretty freaky tasting actually, in a way it has no taste. But I am taking mine back to the airport assistant as he will be excited to get a laduu from here.

But that was the temple..an experience that’s for sure. Just a pity you cant take any pics inside it, you cant enter with your shoes on, no cameras, no phones or cigarettes.

Well we did do some flying this week, just a small trip one night 2 hrs south to Chennai, where we took someone to have dinner then flew them back at 11pm, followed by  small 30 minute flight the next day to a little place called Rourkela. But of course there was lots of driving on the other days around the place..

It never ceases to amaze me the way things are done here. Basically nothing is really done very well, the paint they use is still mainly lead based, and the materials used to alter or repair anything are quit substandard when compared to the rest of the world.

Also the health and safety aspect of it all is scary… look at his , this is the near the office in downtown Kolkata…. not a safety harness in sight!

You wouldnt find me up there!

Also here is something that defies logic. This is the Shuttlecock/Badminton court in the complex. Below this court is the underground carpark. Now you can see its one huge slab of cement with no expansion joints and its cracking where it should have expansion joints. So lets fix the cracks. So for the last 2 weeks these 2 guys have been repairing them, they are digging out the cement and putting new cement in its place! Huh, how is that going to fix it apart from cause 2 cracks instead of one now as they have dug out a channel in the cement and simply filled it up again. You can see the tools of their trade, a hammer, a old screw driving to chip away at and a fork!

I dunno

This guy was directing traffic yesterday at one of the busiest intersection here in Kolkata. No one was blinking an eye..