1/27-1/29: Hampi to Chennai

My last day in Hampi was crazy. As the festival began in full force, the price of the rooms went from 500 rupees (which actually should have cost 200 rupees) up to 1500 rupees. At first I thought it was just greedy guest house owners price gouging travelers. But then I found out that with the tens of thousands of tourists descending on Hampi (the vast majority Indian), there would be over 1000 police, and they were demanding two rooms from each guest house for the three days of the festival, free of charge. The guest house where my friends Ginetta and Shmuel were staying had even more trouble. First they were asked to give up two rooms, then three rooms, then the day of the festival the number of rooms increased to eight, and they only have nine rooms. Not just the police men were demanding rooms, but Hampi was going to be full of important government officials as well. The guest house owners were asking guests to vacate their rooms who had already paid for their rooms in advance. "What can I do?" the owner asked. "They are the police. Who am I going to complain to?" The feeling of powerlessness, for both the tourists and the guest house owners, is so depressing. It is hard to imagine what it is like when their is no one or no agency with which to seek recourse. And for so many people around the world, this is the normal state of affairs.

Martin (famous ski instructor from Switzerland) and Emely (vagabond and dive instructor from Brazil)

Shmuel (a very sweet man from Israel) and Katherine (a very sweet woman from New Zealand)

Church in Chennai (previously known as Madras) at sunrise

I am now in Chennai. I met my very good friend Sheila (who is now working in Iraq) here yesterday. We will travel together in Tamil Nadu for two weeks. It took 21 hours to get from Hampi to Chennai, for I left at the unfortunate time of the start of the evening parade and the official beginning of the three days of festivities in Hampi. There are eight stages set up all over Hampi (I counted 3000 chairs at one site), and huge boards showing the schedule of events (but it is all in Hindi, we couldn't find one in English).

The night train to Bangalore was uneventful (yea!). The seven hour train ride from Bangalore to Chennai yesterday was interesting. At each stop food sales people would board, and then get off at the next stop. Each person would sell one thing, and there was quite a variety of food to choose from - samosas, idlis, dosas, veg biriyani, tomato soup, chai, coffee, juice, water, cookies. Beggars would board as well - blind men selling trinkets, a young singing girl with an accompanying percussionist, or physically disabled people crawling along the aisles. The most interesting were the transvestite beggars (three in all in my compartment) - big, ugly men dressed in saris, bare midriffs, padded (I assume) bras, long hair, and deep voices. They would stop in front of a row of people, clap loudly, and harass the people until they gave them money to leave.

Chennai Egmore Train Station

Shanty town near the train station

It is interesting being back in a large city again (it has been two months). Everything is more intense - smells, sounds, congestion, poverty. There are sidewalks! Though walking in the early morning you have to share them with sleeping beggars, bundled completely under blankets, like corpses. And the cars are actually paying attention to the traffic signals.