God's own country

Last weekend I had been to the capital of God's own country and may I suggest that if you have any plans to go to just Trivandrum, you rethink it. They have many museums and palaces but even the guides there seem to lack interest in them. We went to this museum called Napier Museum and its attached to a zoo. Enter at your peril. It was a HOTTTTT day and they would not let us take water inside since we had it in plastic non-biodegradable bottles. The whole place had one measly tap right at the middle and each huge enclosure had one very very very bored looking animal, except for the hippos. There were 5 of them and they were so ashamed of being in there that they hid themselves in the water. Did I tell you it takes about 2 hours to go around the whole zoo, by which time you are ready to expire (or kill) thanks to dehydration. The museum was just one huge room. Sri Chitra art gallery was ok. They had some very good paintings especially by Raja Ravi Varma. For a chennaite the beaches do not really hold any allure. sigh!

Napier Museum in the BG on a HOT HOT day

 The Macau monkey wondering who the fool behind the camera is

 

 The Hippos hiding in their water

The totally bored Rhino doing his thing

The one thing you cannot see in the East facing Chennai - Sun setting in the beach

Second Day: Rather disappointed with the first day, we started on the second day and Wow!!!! 65 KM from TVM is Padmanabhapuram with its ancient palace (The movie Manichitrathazhu was shot here, the original movie from which Chandramukhi, Aptamitra, Bhool bhulaiya etc were taken) It was absolutely awesome and a must see place.  Then we went to the Thiruparappu falls. Had a good time in the water until we went up and saw the source.. Dirty! but still fun. And we ended the day with Neyyar dam. A damn good place (hehe couldn't resist!)

  

The King's bed made out of 64 different Ayurvedic woods.

This is where Shobana dances for "Oru murai vandhu" the equivalent of "Ra ra". Photo taken from a secret lookout from which the queen mother can see the Navarathiri Mandapam

  

This interesting piece is in the adjacent archaeological museum. Men sentenced to capital punishment were stuffed into this device and hung

Entrance to Padmanabhapuram palace

King's court

 

         The Thiruparrapu falls, fun to bathe until you get to see the source :-) 

  

                                 Water gushing out of a small opening in Neyyar dam

On the final day we didnt have much time for anything, except Sri Ananthapadmanabha swamy temple. It was the day before a 5 day utsavam was to start and the Tantric was doing some special poojas inside and there was also sahasra swarna kalasaabhishekam (Abishekam with 1000 gold pots). So the whole lot of us had to wait outside for over 2 hours feeling just like sardines in a tin can. There must have been almost a 1000 folks and in less than 20 minutes, the temple guys pushed all of us in and out for darshan. By the time I finished a pradhakshina, they had again closed the entrance :-). The black God inside is now golden and it makes my heart feel good to seem Him glitter, even if we could only get a quick glimpse.

The Metha mani found on the edge of the Temple pool,has two lambs kissing a man's face on either side, on the hour. But it has not been working for a few years now.

The Main entrance to the Temple

Oh! and we went to see the house where my dad and his siblings were born and more than 60 years later, the house still stands and even the entrance has not changed. Is that cool or what?

Dakshina Chitra

If you have not been to this place, you better go and soon. Its about 45 minutes from Chennai on the ECR.
Very nominal entry fee and a great place to spend a day or so.
As the name suggests Dakshina Chitra is an embodiment of all kinds of art from the south of India (There are separate sections for the 4 south indian states).

From Architecture to Weaving to Pottery to block and pot painting to Mehendi, every kind of art and crafts is represented. They even teach pottery, weaving, block painting, pot painting and a lot of other interesting stuff. You can get your hand read (Palmistry) or stain it with Mehendi  (I am still sulking coz Mom's mehendi has stained so much darker than mine and she has not done a darned thing, while I have been rubbing my palms with coconut oil  :-( ). There are special shows such as puppet shows, folk dances (based on the season and the artists available, I guess. We were able to see a special kind of folk dance from Karnataka called the Yojna Dance)
Cute hand made violins, bows and arrows, marble statues, jewelry, silk paintings, wood carvings, tapestries are all available for sale too.
Here is a very very small sample of the places to see in DC

Tamil Nadu

Ornate entrance to the Chettiyar house

The Thinnai and mutham as seen from the entrance of the same Chettiyar house

 The Mehendi Lady convinced me to get it done at the first house we visited instead of the last one, as we originally planned

 Ladies playing Pallanguzhi. 

 Inside the Cloth Weaver's house

 An actual weaving machine from Sundari Silks ( the weavers had gone for lunch). They are weaving a silk sari, the Pallu alone takes about 15-20 days and the whole sari takes 1.5 months to weave.

 Kerala:

The outside view of a Kerala Syrian Christian house

 An example of traditional kerala cloth mural

A traditional wall mural

Karnataka:

A Lambani mannequin and a tapestry woven by them

A Lambani residence (They are building traditional houses from Chikmagallur and a couple of more places)

Andhra Pradesh:

The Famous Cheriyal dolls in the prayer room of an Andhra weaver's house

Finished products after the weaving, Andhra Style (not that I would know the difference). We were able to see the actual weaving for this one.

Ooty over the weekend

Cursing my uncle and cousin for making me book tickets to, of all the places Ooty and then cancelling, I left for Ooty on Thursday evening and enjoyed myself ever so much. Here are some photos of my trip

Roses at the Government Rose Garden. Missed the Rose show by a week or so, but it was still beautiful. The weather was misty and cool and roses everywhere.. .sigh!

Remember Anbe Vaa movie? MGR and Saroja Devi? The final song in that movie was taken in this place. Its a small hill, totally green and at its top, its soooo windy, it will turn a person around. But lovely enough to make the heart sigh. BTW the white thingy in the foto is not a sheep but a horse :-)

That's me at the Botanical garden. Its beautiful, especially coz of the weather. But seen it too many times and hence boring

The Pykara Lake and Boathouse :- During the rainy season the water level rises to the trees 

When the water level rises in the Lake above, the Dam is opened and the Pykara water falls gushes. 

But because of the low water level, we were able to go right to the falls and dip our toes in the oh so pleasant waters.

Ooty as seen from the suicide point at the tallest spot of Nilgiris: Doddabetta

The heritage Nilgiris mountain railway, otherwise known as the Toy train, has been touting people from Metupalayam to Ooty for over a century and is still going strong. Not very comfortable but worth going atleast once. It requires a lot of patience though, as it travels at roughly 10 KMPH.

And as a grand finale, the Madame Tussaud's of Ooty, Veerappan's wax replica in the Wax world.

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