Looking for photos of Varanasi on Deepavali weekend inspired me to hunt out my very first lot of India pictures, taken when 2005 was shading into 2006.

I was travelling on my own, and I didn't have much time (those were the days when I had just a three-week allocation of annual leave), so I signed up for a small-group tour of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. After a nice little stopover toute seule in KL, I landed in Chennai on the evening of Tuesday 20 December, scheduled to meet the rest of my group the following day.

There's a ghastly cliche about India being "an assault on the senses". (If you Google it, you get in excess of four million results...) I didn't experience India as an assault on anything. Rather, I found it intriguing, exciting ever greater curiosity as layer after layer peeled back to reveal interesting new things -- and an infinite number of further layers.

OK, I wasn't initially bowled over by Chennai. Ensconced in the back seat of my driver's Ambassador on the way to the hotel, I peered out at a city that looked very dim after the glare of night-time KL. It also seemed very damp, as though nothing had dried out for centuries. The buildings had that rain-frazzled look, and at one point we drove round a huge pothole created by recent storms. (And indeed, the floods that battered Chennai during November and December that year were severe.) Having arrived at the hotel, I was also really surprised to be cold...

The following day, back at the airport, I met my little group of fellow-travellers, and we headed for Mahabalipuram and the Ideal Beach Resort. Less than a year before, the Boxing Day tsumani devastated the fishing community here, and this part of the coast was still hosting relief camps.

Mahabalipuram is famous for its temples, built by the Pallava dynasty in the 7th and 8th centuries CE. Best known, perhaps, are the rathas (temples built to resemble chariots), cave temples, and huge open-air reliefs. They're pretty amazing, and make a great introduction to the riches the subcontinent has to offer.











By the following day, despite some kind of allergy that was driving me crazy, I'd definitively fallen in love with India. For a start, I adored its breakfasts. Apart from idlis, I didn't know what anything was called at that point -- my diary talks about "a potato thing" and "a sweet rice thing" -- but all of it was GOOD.

The drive to Kanchipuram took us through pretty countryside, with people doing time-honoured tasks like ploughing with buffalo, sitting talking at their doorways, and manning their shops. (We also couldn't help but notice that an incredible amount of Indian earth seemed to be on the move, with the object of making paths, building roads, restoring temples, and so on. Mostly, it was on the move in small vessels transported on the heads of women, dressed -- incongruously, it seemed to us -- in saris.) In these parts, the householders somehow found time to make intricate white designs outside their doors every day. Everywhere, so much beauty: a crumbling temple; a well-stacked shop; a collection of bright saris; a buffalo, with horns brightly painted; a group of cows ambling the streets or lying placidly on whatever surface happened along.

Kanchipuram, the former capital of the Pallavas, is one of India's seven sacred cities. Granite, sandstone, and soapstone are the materials that stay in the mind.

The first temple we visited was a working temple, with bare-chested young male pilgrims strolling its passageways. Surrounded by mirrors (for a glimpse of eternity), and beneath roofs adorned with hundreds of prayer beads, we were blessed by a beautiful young priest, who capped us with a kind of silver dome, recited some words of Sanskrit, and marked our foreheads with paste.

The second and third temples were monuments rather than working temples. Alongside the third was a huge, empty bathing pool, behind which stood a white mosque, striped with rainy green, pigeons nesting in its nooks and crannies. Another little cameo in a cameo-rich day.

This city is famous for its silk weaving. It's a fascinating and intricate process, with many steps between dying the raw silk and weaving it into gorgeous patterns on old hand looms. The proprietor of the enterprise we visited said his silk, if well cared for, would last 45-50 years.











This was the day I was first introduced to a real thali lunch: wonderfully ample, totally delicious, and amazingly cheap (NZD 3 back then). Puris, poppadoms, a host of wonderful little curry dishes, yoghurt and puffed rice, black beans, buttermilk, a couple of little sweets, and a banana. Very good, very filling. Apart from a bottle of Kingfisher, I didn't consume anything else for the rest of the day.

We're up to Friday 23 December by now. On the way back to Chennai, we called at the "crocodile bank". This was much more interesting than I had expected, with a huge variety and number of crocs in evidence. We also saw a pretty scary demonstration of India's four most poisonous snakes being milked for venom. They're nasty creatures in my opinion, continually hissing and darting and slithering.

Chennai seemed much more engaging today. We visited San Thome Cathedral, built over the tomb of St Thomas (who is said to have visited India in about 50 AD). This is the only church apart from St Peter's in Rome that is reputed to be built over the tomb of an apostle. I liked the tomb, which shows a very tranquil figure laid to rest under a red cloth, his sword by his side. Lots of neatly dressed schoolgirls were crossing themselves and visiting the various items in the museum. A few were brave enough to talk to me, and we shook hands and wished each other a happy Christmas.

The trip from St Thomas's to the lunch-stop, despite the heavy traffic, brought brief glimpses of colonial architecture, and Marina Beach, a vast expanse of beautiful sand, backed by some very nice properties, including parts of Madras University.

Getting to Thanjavur involved a five-hour train journey, and then an hour and a half on a bus.

The railway journey was enlivened by frequent cups of tea (hot, sweet, milky, and only 3 rupees or NZD 0.10) from the multiplicity of vendors that patrolled the corridor, and views of unusually wet scenery (flat, green, and sodden). But getting this packed train unloaded, and its contents moving along the platform, down the stairs, up the stairs, and through the foyer was quite an operation -- and not unscary. The porters were the worst, loading massive weights on their heads, and then just barging everyone out of the way.

Night had fallen by now, and the bus trip took us past innumerable trucks and through dark countryside and dimly lit small towns.

Christmas Eve, and another awesome breakfast. Every South Indian breakfast is a good breakfast. The previous day had brought me dosa, with dhal and two chutneys. Today it was uthappam. In the presence of such opulence, the reason some people in the group consistently breakfasted off cornflakes and white toast completely eluded me...

Brihadishwara Temple was a lovely, restful, eye-pleasing place, offering beautiful architecture, worn but lovely frescoes, and a very peaceful atmosphere.

Thanjavur's palace/museum displays some of the wonderful bronzes for which the city is famous. Formerly they used equal quantities of gold, silver, tin, zinc, and copper to make bronze. Now, gold and silver together constitute just 10%, and the other metals 30% each. Particularly memorable were the dancing Shivas, full of movement and energy. (We visited a bronze-making place in the afternoon. For the first time, I think, I actually understood the process. Make wax image; coat image in clay; heat it; pour out wax; heat metal until molten; pour into mould; cool; break mould; tidy up by hand. Takes a while...)

Still at the museum, we clambered up the tower, gaining views out over a surprisingly green and pleasant city, and down into the courtyard. The palace has many domed, tiled, columned, gardened details that combined to make it a very pleasant setting for its collection of bronzes and stone sculptures.

Lastly, we looked at the pictures and manuscripts. There were some real joys in here: paintings on glass (another Thanjavur speciality); miniatures; illuminated books; and the collections of one of the Maratha kings, who was obviously a bit of a Renaissance man in his enthusiastic patronage of a variety of arts and sciences.

I'm not dwelling on my diary details of dinners (because everything was prepared from scratch, meals tended to take a long, long time, but -- probably for the same reason -- the food was always good). Nor am I recording the daily Kingfishers. I will mention, however, Royal Challenge whisky, which I had never heard of, but found palatable enough.









Christmas Day...

We travelled on to Tiruchirappalli (generally known as Trichy). To enter the enormous Sri Ranganathaswany Temple, you go through successive gates, or gopurams (huge, pyramid-like structures, made of layer upon layer of figures, in sugar-icing pinks, greens, and blues, which tell a whole library of stories). You leave your shoes at the fourth concentric wall. If you climb up to the roof, you can see the vastness of this place -- gopuram after gopuram, and the gold-topped sanctum sanctorum.

A chant -- eight notes, low, very soothing -- resounds around the complex. This is very much a living temple, thronged with pilgrims and devotees. And there is a riot of detail to be observed.

Visiting the Rock Fort Temple again involves removing your shoes, and climbing 400+ steps, to the top of a huge rocky outcrop. It's actually not too hard a climb, and the views from the top were superb, especially as we could see the immensity of the temple complex we visited earlier.

After lunch (I'll just idly drop the idea of "cardamom-infused rice pudding" into your hungry ears) we climbed back aboard the bus. The wet, emerald-green countryside grew increasingly beautiful. After a while, you see rocky outcrops, strewn boulders, and little ranges of hills stacked behind each other. And I must mention the various buffalo tableaux: buffaloes bathing, buffaloes drinking, buffaloes yoked to carts, with port-and-starboard painted horns...









Eventually we reached Madurai. We all met up in the hotel bar (it was Christmas Day, remember?). It was another gloomily lit establishment (this seems to be the trend here, as if drinking is illicit and needs to be carried out under cover of darkness). The rooftop restaurant offered views of the town laid out below, where the occasional firework was going off.

Our Boxing Day temple was Madurai's Sri Meenakshi.

Its Art Museum is situated in the 1,000-pillared hall (except there never are 1,000 pillars, because humans are not perfect, and only God is perfect). The sculpted pillars were impressive, and there were some lovely objects to look at. The Golden Lotus Tank is surrounded by colonnaded walkways. Again the place was alive with worshippers and pilgrims: bare-chested, zealous-eyed young men; families streaked with the rice flour that is available in a kind of vat in one corner; men prostrating themselves -- full-length, flat -- before the shrines; devotees washing their faces with prayer smoke; the passage of a group beating a drum and sounding a bell; bright clothing; bustle everywhere, though possibly not quite as hectic as yesterday's temple.




I could no more get my photos straight then than I can now -- but in the pre-digital age there was not a lot you could do after the fact...



Two other sensory highlights today. One was saffron tea. The other was an ayurvedic massage. One of the oils smelt of cloves; another of toasted coconut...

After dinner we went back to the temple. On the dark, still teeming streets, cows peacefully grazed the rubbish heaps, or settled down on the gravelly strip by the side of the road, where meagre human bodies, folded into impossibly small bundles, also huddled.

The temple was alive with people. The aim was to see the Lord Shiva being put to bed with his consort, Parvati, a ceremony that happens every night. Bare-breasted, bearded young male pilgrims, dressed in black lungis and bead necklaces, pounded purposefully hither and thither, or filed swiftly into the sanctum sanctorum. Other onlookers, mostly Indian, gathered to watch.

The beating of drums and the sounding of a clarinet-like instrument announce the arrival of the procession. Tridents flame around a huge, arc-like receptacle with a little curtain at the front. This is placed on a stand in front of the sanctum sanctorum. The music continues in the darkness of the gallery. Eventually, the arc is carried away to the mass of Hindu devotees awaiting it inside. Extraordinarily atmospheric.





The next day brought a truly stupendous breakfast, which stood out even among its high-quality cousins. Coconut rice served with bananas and milk; a kind of grainy substance with vegetables and herbs; and a tapioca pudding...

Then, out of Madurai heading for the hills. We climbed quite a bit, the misty hills gathering around us, and the temperatures growing perceptibly cooler.

We made several stops: to watch bricks being made; to drink a nice, sweet cup of Indian tea; to watch the dhobis beating hell out of some clothes in the river; and to watch rope being made out of coconut husks. It was interesting to see some aspects of ordinary life, even if curated.

The only issue was the children. I've no problem with them crowding round. Tourists are kiddy TV after all. But their first words -- often their only words -- are "hello, pen please." And many of our group contributed to this nuisance (I felt) by doling out pens. I really don't think it is the right thing to do. It just creates another form of dependence. Instead of real interaction -- such as you get when they're fascinated to see themselves on a camera screen -- the relationship is that of a beggar and a potential pen-dispenser. Instead of seeing tourists as a learning opportunity, they have been conditioned to see them as sources of pens, shampoo, and chocolate.







Eventually we arrived in Kumily, the gateway to Periyar, and the site of the border between Tamil Nadu and Kerala. My upstairs room had a balcony looking out to forested hills.

This is spice country. I had visited spice gardens already. But I had forgotten that coffee has gorgeously fragrant flowers (every hotel presented us with a garland of some sort, and today's beautifully scented offering turned out to be made of coffee flowers). There were other surprises too: ginger leaves smell of ginger; cinnamon leaves smell of cinnamon; allspice of allspice; and cardamom grows in long traily things along the ground. We also saw pepper, vanilla, and cloves. All in all, a very pleasant, aromatic little walk. In fact, the whole town smells of spices, and every other shop seems to stock them.

At this point, we went for an elephant ride... In the 15 years that have elapsed since this journey, the tide has turned definitively against elephant-riding (although changing attitudies have brought their own set of problems). I'm still not sure about the merits of a blanket ban, but I'm sufficiently unsettled by the evidence to never want to repeat my riding experience.

This is what I wrote in my diary at the time: "I shared an elephant with Angela. You ride astride the elephant, with just a couple of handles to hang on to. You're a long way up on an elephant, and it's a wonderfully majestic mode of transport. There are only two elephants at this place (it's a relatively new venture), and I worried about whether they overworked them. But for six months of the year they do tree-clearing, so presumably lugging a few tourists around is easy-peasy by comparison with tree-clearing [actually, experts argue that elephants are NOT adapted to carry weight on their backs]. They do the tourist thing from 10 to 6, and then do an hour's tree-clearing, presumably to keep their skills up. They happily munch all the pineapples and squash the tourists feed them, and really look quite sleek and rounded. They're extraordinary impressive beasts, with the old, wise eyes of big animals. Their heads are bristly, their ears truly ginormous, and they have an unexpectedly dainty gait."

We're up to Wednesday 28 December by now, and a walking trip in Periyar Park was a great way to mark the mid-point of the year's last week.

It was very beautiful at that early hour. We saw a boar and some monkeys before we'd even got in, and a group of otters while we were waiting for the raft contraption that ferries you across the lake.



Even with no wildlife at all, it would have been a pleasant walk, enhanced by splendid trees and birdsong. We smelled curry leaves and wild cinnamon (quite different from normal cinnamon). The guide put a match to the resin of a particular tree, and produced a cloud of sweet-smelling incense. There were venerable teak trees, banyans, and kapoks. But, in addition, we saw a single elephant (separated from the herd because of "bad habits"); and had a good view of a langur. We glimpsed the spectacular orange and black striped underside of a great hornbill, plus a stately egret, alone in a lovely, misty lake scene, and some little fawn pond herons on the shores. Later, during a trip on the lake, we saw macaques, sambar deer, terrapins, more langurs, cormorants, egrets, and a snake bird. Huge crowds of people were waiting on the jetty as we returned. Having seen the sheer weight of visitors using this park, I'm actually amazed that we saw any animals at all.

Tea highlight of the day: saffron, cinnamon, and cardamom... Dinner highlight of the day: barbecued paneer, very herby and tasty. Dinner on the terrace was a little chilly, despite the huge fire they'd lit.

The next day we arrived in Kochi. En route, beautiful mountain views, tea plantations, and rubber enterprises (this was the first time I'd actually seen the process of mangling the latex to form little sheets, which are then hung out to dry like so much dingy washing).



Having reached the plains again, the first thing to note was the much greater wealth that was in evidence in Kerala. Far more plush houses, far more low-level prosperity.

Kochi is divided into two parts, and our hotel was in the mainland part. My room-mate and I went straight out to explore the major thoroughfare outside our hotel. We avoided the extraordinarily sumptuous jewellers, and pottered in and out of a few textile shops instead. And we bought a rice spoon (in the course of which transaction, we erroneously tried to pay the cashier, whereas what we should have done was give the article to the assistant, who puts in it a bag, and writes and stamps a docket, which is then handed to the cashier, who enters the amount in his book, and stamps the docket as he accepts your money -- all this manpower, all this paper, for 20 rupees).

The must-see round here is the dance-form known as kathakali.

We went early, as tourists are encouraged to do, in order to watch the two dancers do their elaborate nightly make-up, which they mix from powders, and apply in trowelfuls.

Using the wall of face diagrams, you can try to work out who they are going to become. Using the wall of hand gesture diagrams, you can try and work out how they communicate, with the use of very subtle techniques.



The actual performance starts with a demonstration of the different emotions, and shows how a scene can be depicted with body movements and facial expressions alone. The dancer who demonstrated this was very impressive, with a hugely mobile face that could star in any mime tradition. The music (drum, cymbals, and voice), the symbolic oil lamp, and the ritual welcome made for a very atmospheric setting. The scene the players acted was decipherable to us only because of the explanation we'd had of the story. But it was very impressive. The costumes are huge, the headdresses gargantuan, and the painted faces surprisingly expressive. Aided by the music, you can easily lose yourself in the unfamiliar epic unfolding in front of you.

The penultimate day of 2005, and we bumbled around modern Kochi for a while, getting in the way of numerous fish sellers and banana carriers, and viewing the long flat boats used for carrying produce to and from market.



Then we bused across to the old town, and India's oldest European-built church, that of St Francis. Here they initially buried Vasco Da Gama, who died in Kochi in 1524 (he's now interred in Lisbon). There are many tombstones of Dutch and Portuguese travellers -- the same combination, the same change-over, as I'd seen in Malacca just a week or so before. There are rope-operated punkahs. And it's plain, fairly atmospheric, and distinctly colonial.



From the church we walked to the Chinese fishing nets, huge contraptions that raise and lower fishing nets into the waters just offshore. There's little to catch at the moment, but they keep the nets operating for the sake of the tourists. It's a pleasant area, with fish stalls, vendors, stray dogs dozing in the sun, views of various craft going by, and the general joy of being by the sea.



We ate at a restaurant overlooking the ocean, in an airy courtyard with swishy fans and a little aviary full of twittery budgies. And then we took the ferry back. A very nice ride for three rupees. We walked the seafront back to the market area, and then took a 20-rupee auto-rickshaw home.

On the last day of the year, after travelling through an increasingly watery world, we rendezvoused with our exceedingly comfortable houseboat. It's a kind of rice-barge shape, but glitzily provided with awnings and seats, plus cabins equipped with toilets.





You putter along quite slowly, enjoying the gentle rippling of the water at the back, and the ever-extending vistas of water and coconut palm-fringed shores. These are the Malabar backwaters, a network of lakes and channels, a symphony of greys and greens and slate blues. Occasionally, you see small boats carrying goods, or fishermen crouched by the water, or women working in the paddy fields, which in places lie below the level of the waterway. It's all beautifully peaceful... We stopped for lunch just down from where a duck-herd was looking after a vast flock of ducks. Every now and then, they'd get separated by the passage of a huge houseboat, and he'd have to bring them all back together again.

After lunch, we floated on to a village where we went for a bit of a walk. Everywhere were shady houses, walkways between waterways, women standing on their river steps bashing washing, the occasional little church, and an air of watery tranquillity.



Back on the boat, we eventually ended up where we'd started on the main lake, moored in the middle, where three extra boats joined us to provide for all our sleeping requirements.

It seemed a long, long wait for midnight. But finally the fireworks went off across the lake, and we sang a tuneless version of Auld Lang Syne.

It's 2006...

On New Year's Day we woke to a calm lake surface, and more of that wonderfully peaceful boating activity, where you watch others fish and wash and play. Temple music echoed atmospherically over the water at one point.

We were all quite sorry to leave the boat. It had been incredibly relaxing, and they had looked after us really well (I realize I forgot to mention the banana fritters).

But our bus drivers had decorated the bus with balloons and greetings for New Year, and before we set off, we divided up a New Year cake.

A longish road journey brought us to Kovalam. A couple of picturesque headlands divide up the beach. You can walk along the sand, in and out of the lukewarm sea, and finish up with lemon sodas on the balcony of a cafe.

The next day we walked to the Laguna Divina, where a sand bar separates the ocean from the backwaters. Interesting. Past little mosques and temples, and thatched village houses. Past coir-making activities. And past lots and lots of fishing and hauling, an activity that involves huge teams of men, a long time, and massive amounts of effort, as enormously heavy nets are hauled against the current onto the beach. They chant to keep up the rhythm of the hauling.

We also encountered a coconut-tree-climber, who was willing to demonstrate, for a small sum, how you loop some thingummy round your feet, and shin your way up.





At the lagoon, we installed ourselves at the Beach and Lake Ayurvedic Resort for drinks and lunch. A very attractive setting -- more fishermen hauling and chanting in the distance on the beach; a few much more leisurely fishermen waist-deep in the lagoon; forests of palm trees; the cawing of crows; and shady tables. The fish biryani I had here was possibly my best meal of what had generally been an excellent culinary trip, with a huge, satisfying hunk of fish in the middle, and all sorts of cashews and dried fruits and spices embedded in the rice.



Our room in Kovalam was equipped with a balcony, an excellent place to watch the sun go down and a teensy-weensy moon -- a mere toenail-clipping -- rise over the coconut palms. There are few things more elegant than the blackness of coconut palms against the sombre sky.

The next day, Tuesday 3 January, was when I left the group. This was actually a day earlier than it should have been. When I booked the trip, I had stupidly misread the itinerary, and thought we were returning to Chennai, which we weren't. Once I realized my error, Lucas, the guide, kindly helped me sort out the mess, and get myself to Chennai in time for my flight to Sarawak.

That day he took me on the back of a motorbike to get cash for my air ticket from the local ATM. This, like the one in Kochi, was guarded by a security official, whom I actually needed, it turned out, in order to decipher the instructions. That saved me a trip to Trivandrum. After lunch I took a taxi to the airport. The flight took just an hour, and the little snack was very creditable.

I overnighted at a somewhat dreary place in Chennai, which had the advantage of being not far from the airport. Everywhere I looked there was a mothball or seven.

But breakfast the following day redeemed everything. Room service brought me a dosa the size of a manhole cover, complete with a couple of little pots of sambar, lime juice, and coffee.

Lucas had hooked me up with a driver, who was going to take me to some more of Chennai's interesting sites to make the most of the time before I had to be at the airport.

I started at the museum, which cost a whacking 200 rupees, but was very enjoyable. The buildings are all set in a kind of garden, so the experience of the first, which houses lovely sculpture, is enhanced by the views through the iron window lattice onto pleasing red brick and trees and courtyards beyond.

Especially interesting was the little exhibit on Mohenjo-daro, which I'd just been reading about in my Indian history book. The seals with the indecipherable script, the mother goddesses with the batwing ears, the little wheeled toys -- here they all were. But the rest of the sculpture was good, too, and the bronze gallery quite superb (many items came from Thanjavur). I also enjoyed discovering the work of Raja Ravi Varma.





The Cathedral of St George is pillared and porticoed, and full of memorial tablets to dead British colonialists. The memorial in the porch is to two comrades-in-arms who died in the battle of Gate Pa... There is an attractive steeple, and the church is surrounded by trees, so it is another welcome haven from the Chennai traffic.



Fort St George houses the Legislative Assembly (as well as a huge flagstaff), and was my last sight-seeing destination.

My next port of call was the dimly lit hotel restaurant. The menu promised "tasty marvels", and they did indeed provide a very acceptable vegetable biryani, and a huge glass of lassi.

Then there was only the airport to negotiate, and flights to KL and Kuching.

I was pretty sure I'd be back in India. I'd only scratched a fraction of the surface. But I didn't know, on that fifth day of 2006, that my next trip would herald the start of a new life in Asia, or that both those stopover places in Malaysia would become home. There's just so much in life that we can't predict.