Hyderabad January 1-5

My flight arrived iin Hyderabad at noon on Sunday January 1 and I took a bus to Abids in the city center. I checked into the Sai Prakash Hotel. When HMI had been located at its office in Abids, I had often had lunch at the hotel restaurant, but I had not stayed in the hotel before.
 

On Monday January 2, I went to the Andhra Pradesh State Archaeology Museum in the nearby Public Gardens. I had not been to the museum since they opened up their new Buddhism exhibit room. I bought many of the museum’s publications. In the late afternoon I met Vasant Bawa and had a long chat with him about heritage issues. The next day, Tuesday January 3, I did some work in the hotel and walked around the city, doing some shopping.

I spent the next day, Wednesday January 4, at the Henry Martyn Institute. I chatted with people and got caught up with email, having WiFi access there for the first time in almost two weeks. I went to a nearby restaurant for a lunch with Shobha Gosa, the academic program coordinator whose last day of work at HMI was today. Others in the lunch group included Varghese and Vijay, two of my former students.

The lunch group

Shobha and me

Vijay and me

At the end of the work day, I went back to the city with Christy Femila and chatted with her and her husband. That evening I walked around the city some more.

On Thursday January 5 in the morning I met Timothy Marthand, my pianist friend, and then went to HMI in the afternoon, where I chatted with people and browsed the internet. At the end of the work day, I took a bus to the airport, where I hung out until my flight to Mumbai left at 9:45. The flight arrived in Mumbai at 11:15 and I transferred to the international terminal, where I hung out until my flight back to Amman the following morning. I had booked a flight via Mumbai and Riyadh that was exceptionally cheap (150 dollars from Mumbai to Amman), but at the cost of having to spend 10 hours in the Mumbai airport.

Chennai December 31

The two drivers of the bus kept going all night. I was able to sleep a good deal. We stopped for breakfast at Viluppuram, where we could see evidence of the typhoon that had hit the area the previous day; areas farther south were not affected.

We arrived back in Chennai at 1:30. I stayed with the family as they prepared an elaborate final meal of the year. I helped out with the preparations and learned how to shred a coconut.

The final meal of the year being served

After the meal I said my goodbyes to the family at the end of the highly enjoyable trip. The trip was in all respects a great experience. Things I need to do have been piling up back in Jordan, and as far as work goes, I should have returned as soon as my project in Visakhapatnam was over. But the trip with the family sounded like too unique an opportunity to decline, and such proved to be the case.

I left  at 5:45 and checked into my hotel. That evening I walked around, but soon went to sleep at 9:30, not caring about the New Year.

On the morning of Sunday January 1, I took a flight to Hyderabad.

Kanyakumari December 30

We arrived in Kanyakumari at 12:30 am, but it took a long time until 2:30 to find a suitable hotel to check into. That night I slept in a double bed with the three teen-agers in the family. That was okay until the three of them rolled over to one side of the bed, pinning me against the wall of the room. I have not learned the proper technique of pushing back yet.
 

I got up at 6:30 and walked around the area. I came across an odd-looking mosque with towers surmounted by square-shaped fleur-de-lis that look an awful lot like crosses.

The mosque

Next to our hotel was a small local museum. On display were a dinosaur that moves and roars when plugged in and a number of panels with aphorisms and others about local history

The dinosaur

The panels with aphorisms

The panels about local history

Kanyakumari forms the southernmost tip of India and attracts a lot of tourists. In the morning we went to the large Hindu temple in the city, but we did not go out to the Vivekananda memorial on an off-shore island.

Then in the afternoon we went to the Basilica of Our Lady of Ransom.

The church

The church interior

The family in front of the church

As elsewhere on the trip, finding bath room facilities was difficult. In this case the problem was solved when a woman who worked at the church invited us all to her home a couple of blocks away.

The couple whose house we took over

At 3:15 we left for Kuttalam, and stopped briefly at a church in Vallioor along the way. We arrived in Kuttalam long after dark and went to the popular waterfalls and bathing area there, which I found much too covered with garbage to be appealing. At 10:30 pm we started on the long overnight trip back to Chennai.

Tuticorin December 29

In the morning the family went to Our Lady of Snows basilica. The name derives from a miracle in early Christian Rome where a miraculous snowfall in August was a sign from the Virgin Mary.

The Basilica of Our Lady of Snows

The family in the basilica

We left Tuticorin at noon and stopped at a nearby beach.

The beach

 We then went to a basilica at Veerapandian Pattinam.

The basilica

The family in the basilica

Later in the afternoon we went to a big Hindu temple of Murugan along the seashore at Tiruchendur. The lane approaching the temple was lined with shops selling a remarkable range of plastic junk.

The temple

The family at the seashore

A shop near the temple

At sunset we arrived at a basilica in Tiruchendur where Jesus had appeared to restore a lost child to its parents. In the center of the church, marking the spot where Jesus had appeared, is an open space filled with sand in the otherwise tiled floor, which the family members all walked across.

The family at the church

The frailest member of the family getting herself across the spot where Jesus had appeared

The family at another chapel there

We continued to visit churches long after night fall. We went to Manapad and visited a church and a nearby cave where St. Francis Xavier had stayed in 1542.

We then continued on to another place where an early church had been destroyed and forgotten under a covering of red sand, only to have been rediscovered later and put back into active use.

The rediscovered old church

We continued on to Uvari, where we visited a Catholic church of Our Lady of Health built on the shore in 1974. The bottom of the church is shaped like a ship and the top like an airplane.

The church at Uvari (photo from Wikipedia)

We then visited the nearby Church of Saint Anthony, the last church of the day, before proceeding on to Kanyakumari at 10:45 pm.

The last church of the day

Velanganni December 28

We spent most of Wednesday December 28 at Velanganni where there is a big pilgrimage basilica of Our Lady of Good Health, dating from the 16^th century.

The church

The church attracts a huge number of pilgrims.

  

Crowds milling around near the church entrance

Many boys had shaved heads, along with a few men, but very few women. Other people brought offerings of coconuts or other items. Others attached locks at one particular place.

A boy with a shaved head inside the church

The spot where people attach locks

I also went along the Stations of the Cross, where some people were making their way on their knees, ending at a water tank where the Virgin Mary had appeared some centuries ago to a lame milk vendor.

The Stations of the Cross

After spending the day at Velanganni, we left for Tuticorin at 3:30, arriving at 11:45. That night in Tuticorin I ended having a room by myself.

Thanjavur December 27

The bus reached Thanjavur at 2:00 am. We arrived at a Carmelite convent and it took a while to rouse someone to let us into the guest accommodations. The 24 of us fit ourselves into the three rooms, and I was one of five people who slept on a bed sheet spread on the floor of one room.
 

I got up at 6:30 and attended mass with the family. One of the family members, who died twenty years ago, had been a sister here, so the family has visitation privileges and we were able to briefly meet the sisters, who, being cloistered,  normally do not meet visitors. One of the sisters who does appear in public is Sister Rose, who has been blessed with a stigmata – marks of the crucifixion.

Sister Rose with the stigmata meeting the family

 

The Carmelite Convent

The grave of the family member

We left the convent at 10:45 and then visited the famous Brihadisvara Hindu temple in Thanjavur.

 

Some of the younger members of the family at the temple

 We then went to the Our Lady of Lourdes pilgrimage basilica at Poondi, dating from the early 18^th century. We toured the church, where a tiny piece of the True Cross is displayed.

The Poondi Madha church

The church interior

The True Cross on display

We left at sunset and went to another church dedicated to the Virgin Mary at Elakurichi, built in 1711, which we saw after dark. We then proceeded to Velanganni, arriving at 10:45 p.m.

That night, I slept on an uncomfortable, lumpy mattress on the floor in one room, while five others fitted into the double bed.

Chennai December 26

I had come to Chennai to join the extended family of Florina Benoit on a pilgrimage trip around Tamil Nadu. I had known Florina and her husband Ashok from their involvement with the conflict resolution program at the Henry Martyn Institute. Most every year her family, who are devote Roman Catholics, gets together and goes on a trip to visit various Christian pilgrimage churches in the state. In the end Florina and her husband Ashok, who had visited me in Jordan last January, were not able to join the family on this year’s trip, but the family welcomed me to join them anyway on the six-day trip.

The 24 participants on the trip included Charles, a brother who lives in Texas, and other siblings, along with their spouses and children, the elderly mother and a mother-in-law, another couple who were friends of the family and Megan, an American, who had met Charles’ family in the US.

On Monday December 26, I arrived at the family’s home around 11:00 am. Preparations for the trip were in full swing.I was able to meet Florina and Ashok briefly, before they had to leave.

Florina helping prepare the food for the next day

It took a while for the bus to arrive, so we did not get underway until 5:45 p.m. on a long trip to the city of Thanjavur.

The bus

Chennai December 24-25

On Saturday December 24 I explored the city of Chennai by riding on the mass transit lines. My hotel was in the Chepauk area in the heart of the city, so I first went to the Chepauk metro stop and took the train to the end of the line at Velacheri and then took the train back to Chennai Beach. I then took a different line as far as the airport stop and back. I then took the train to the Light House station and went to a shopping mall a couple of blocks away. The glitzy shopping mall is located in a slum neighborhood, making for a stark contrast.

People getting photographed at the mall’s Christmas display

The scene a short distance away

That evening I went out again and walked along the main Anna Salai street, and got some books at the Higgenbotham’s bookstore.

On Sunday December 25 I spend some time reading the books I had bought, including Bill Bryson, At Home.  I also explored the city some more. I went to the Egmore train station and took the metro line to the airport and took a bus back to the Central train station and walked around further. That afternoon I went to an internet outlet and that evening I watched a DVD of the recent Bollywood movie Muhjese Fraandship Karoge, in which Tara D’Souza stars. She is the daughter of the former director of HMI.

I did not do anything special for Christmas, thinking that I would get more than enough religiosity in the coming days.

Visakhapatnam December 20-23

Back in Visakhpatnam, on Tuesday December 20, Raman, Rani’s nephew, took me to the early Buddhist site of Rama Thirtham, north of Visakhapatnam. The site was particularly impressive. A lengthy path led up a hill side to the extensively preserved site in a scenic location. A friendly site guard accompanied us. 
 

The path

The site

The site guard and Raman

The solar-powered guard’s house at the foot of the hill

We passed through the city of Vizianagaram on the way. There are some heritage buildings there, but we did not stop.

Meanwhile Rani took Ilse and Anja shopping, and upon my return to Visakhapatnam at noon, I joined them at the Dolphin Hotel for lunch. Afterwards I went to the train station to get a refund for Ilse and Anja’s ticket to Hyderabad; they decided to fly back to Hyderabad instead. That evening Rani took us to an excellent classical Indian dance performance by Ganti Krishna Swetha.

On Wednesday December 21, Ilse and Anja left on their morning flight to Hyderabad, while I stayed on in Visakhapatnam for a couple more days. I walked around the city along the beach road and went to the Maritime and Heritage Museums. That evening Rani took me to another classical Indian dance performance by a local group.

On Thursday December 22, I got caught up with emails and walked along the beach road to the aquarium. Along the beach road I saw the sculpture garden and the row of statues of prominent citizens.

 

The sculpture garden

 

One of the sculptures

 

The row of statues

One statue was of Kodi Ramamurthy, the Indian Hercules who stopped a rail engine with a single hand.

 

The statue of Kodi Ramamurthy

On Friday December 23, I checked out of the hotel and went to Rani’s house for breakfast and discussion, before I headed to the airport for my flight to Chennai. It was scheduled for 1:05 p.m., but ended up delayed for an hour and a half. The flight arrived in Chennai at 4:15 and I checked into a hotel and walked around that evening.