Another early start today wake up call at six. Before boarding the bus, we had the unexpected surprise of watching a tree full of huge fruit bats hanging out behind the hotel. Each bat must have been 15 inches long and had beautiful rusty coloured breasts. We then spent our morning taking the scenic route between Hassan and Mysore .
Lakuma, our guide, made several unscheduled stops along the way so that we could get a better insight into the day to day rural life in southern India. The countryside is lush with farms as far as the eye can see - the main crops being coconut, sugar cane, corn and rice.
Our first stop was to see the sugar cane being made into jaggery very similar in look and taste to maple sugar. The basic belief of the people in this area is to waste nothing. The cane is put through a press and runs through a pipe into a large vat.It is then boiled for several hours and cooled . The cane husks are used to stoke the fire. Across the street we saw a coconut operation. With the coconuts the shells are used for artwork, the stringy part for mats and the meat is taken to market.
Oxen are yoked to till the fields and pull carts-but everyone has a cell phone - a nation of contrasts.
We then stopped at a village unannounced and wandered through the streets taking pictures of everyone and no one seemed to mind. This province of India is Hindu and therefore cows are sacred used only for work and dairy. The people do not eat pork or beef. They believe that all life is sacred and do want to kill even insects. The women create geometric designs in front of the door with water and rice so that the ants will eat the rice and not enter their houses. They also worship the snake and if confronted with one will kneel in front of it and pray for it to not bite.
In every home is a pharmacy from natural sources and an example is that from the fang marks of snake they can tell which snake has bitten and which antidote to use.
Robert noticed some boys playing a game with 2 sticks and asked them where he could get a pair. The boys knew very little English, so they took Robert down the road to their school. Robert ended up entertaining about 40 kids with a memory game. He gave the one boy a Cambridge Ontario pin, took the group’s photo and left ... minus the sticks.
We made one cultural stop along the way to see the summer palace of Sultan Tippu built in the 17th century. He was called the Tiger Prince because he managed to fight off the British for several years before he was finally beaten. His captured British soldiers were led into an arena and fed to the tigers. A famous children’s poem in Britain describes Tippu ...
“Tiger tiger burning bright
In the forest in the night ...”
On the way out of the palace, first Shiva Sue was swarmed by a group of high school boys looking for a photo shoot with a Canadian deva. Then they continued to swarm Vishnu Robert, probably because he looks like a “real” deva.
When we arrived in Mysore we all made a quick beeline for the pool-very hot and humid today. We swam and relaxed by the pool and wrote this blog early so that Robert and Sue could go to bed before midnight.
fruit bats
jaggery
rice patterns on the front porch to keep ants outside
Robert goes to school.
a country of contrasts
Look for Sue with the boys - They loved her blond hair.
No comments:
Post a Comment