day5

Day 5: The Tailor of Madurai

Just before six I was awake and feeling quite good after sleeping right through in the nice bed, and in this air-conditioned room I had even slept with a blanket over me, which tends to give you that extra comfort.
But something felt wrong! I soon realised what it was. There was no helicopter hovering overhead.

We checked out around seven and waited for our taxi to arrive, I noticed that the same two girls were behind the desk, as they had been all day yesterday. They must do a hell of a lot of hours each day, probably something like 16 on, 8 off?

The car turned up a few minutes later and was the usual old style white ambassador taxi, no surprise there as it's never anything else. Our driver informed us that he thought it would take around eight hours to cover the 300 km to Madurai.
We settled ourselves in for a long ride, which was not to be without its moments. Up until now we had noticed that the drivers down here in the South, and especially the taxi drivers, who were a little more relaxed.   Well here was one who aimed to buck that trend!

After first stopping to fill up with diesel, which we had to pay up front for, he took off like a Drag racer at Santa Pod raceway and did not have any intention of letting up. This was good for Nick who gets a real buzz from the excitement of it all, I on the other hand, had become used to the slower pace of driving, so was a little taken aback by it all. I don't know why, as I was well used to it from our previous experiences up North.

Mr Michael Patel Schumacher was the name we gave to our taxi driver, because had these roads been a racing circuit he would have won hands down. We found ourselves swerving in and out of oncoming traffic at an alarming rate, steering around elephants, over laden ox carts, roaming cows, wayward cyclists, and buses with a thousand people on, dead animals and crashed trucks, all as though they did not exist.
Nick and I would just look at each other knowingly from time to time when we felt it had been a close call, the driver never batted an eyelid once, except that is, to complain about the bad driving habits of other drivers.

After a while you tend to come to terms with the whole experience, and so begin to relax a little, even going so far as to take your eyes off the road ahead and look out the side windows to take in the scenery.
I figured that if you closed your eyes you could not see what was coming, and done this to some effect, even managing to drop off for a couple of minutes at a time.
A violent swerving movement was usually enough to wake me from nodding off completely, then it would be a quick reality check to make sure I was still alive.
Mile after mile through some nice small villages and sometimes large towns, we drove like men on a mission, slowing down only when absolutely necessary, this was the case a couple of times with festivals taking place in various towns. This was nice to see, and was a welcome relief from the mayhem of the racetrack that doubled as a road, or should that be the other way around?

We stopped in a small town along the way to get some fresh supplies of water and a cold fizzy drink. As we stood there drinking it was not long before we were the centre of attention, with even passing lorries slowing down to look at us. I was thinking that rather than putting sleeping policemen on the roads to slow traffic, they should put cardboard cut outs of tourists, it was certainly working here.
The driver was a smoker but did not seem to have any of his own, but was more than happy to accept one when offered. I bought him a packet for himself in the hope that it might help calm him down as he drove, it didn't.

Just before one in the afternoon we arrived in Madurai, Mr Schumacher was very pleased with himself, I don't know if it was simply because we had arrived alive, or because he had knocked two hours off his estimated journey time. Whatever it was, I was glad to be getting out of the taxi, and could not help wondering if he would make it back alive in one piece, he would probably drive a little more crazy now he did not have to worry about passengers! I think it would be a safe bet to suggest that at least one of the taxi drivers we have had the pleasure of riding with, will at sometime kill themselves on the road.

Nick had selected the hotel Aarathy as our residence for Madurai. The place was a few steps away from being what you might call run down, but it served the purpose for us, and was a reasonable 350 rupees (�5.75p) a night for the two of us. The room was on the fifth floor of a six-storey block; it was a fairly spacious room and had two single beds with a gap of around six inches between them. The beds had clean sheets, the downside was with pillows that were not to dissimilar to bags of cement that had gone off, there was a clean bathroom, a balcony and a Chinook helicopter hovering above the beds. This should do nicely.

Our room boy was in the hotel foyer to take our bags to the room, luckily there was a lift to save having to walk up six flights of stairs. Had there been no lift I don't think he would have been able to manage our two rucksacks all that way, as when he threw them over his shoulder his very slight frame looked as though it would buckle under with the weight. This young man wore the thickest glasses I have ever seen on anybody, all I can say is he must have had bloody good eyes to see through them in the first place.

We were planning to stop in Madurai for a couple days at least; Madurai is a big town with an estimated population of around one and a quarter million people. The main attraction in this town is the Sri Meenakshi temple, which is housed on roughly a six-hectare site that lay about half a kilometre from our hotel, and was easily visible from our hotel balcony.
The Temple was on our itinerary for a visit the next day, so for now all we had to do was get something to eat and explore our surroundings. We ate another Thali in the hotel restaurant, this one was much better than the one we had previously in Pondicherry.

We were planning to complete the last leg of our journey from Cochin back to Madras by plane, as time would be tight this would allow us to take our time making our way to Kerala.

After our lunch we jumped in a rickshaw and asked to be taken to the local Indian Airlines office in order to book these flights. The young rickshaw driver we engaged did not speak to much English and just kept smiling and shaking his head, which to us means no, but to Indians, shaking your head actually means Yes!
Although he really didn't understand what we were saying to him, we finally got an understanding and pretty soon we were all shaking our heads, much to the amusement of us all, especially "smiler" who seemed to think it was all funny, no matter what we said or done.

Smiler took us directly to the Indian airline office without any detours or messing about, he did not try to rip us off either, so when he suggested that he wait for us to come out we readily agreed.
There was only one other person in the office as we entered, so it was not to long before I was handing over my credit card details with the flights secured.

Smiler wanted to give us a tour of the city; we had nothing else to do so agreed and let him take us to wherever he thought we should see. First of we went to the Ghandi museum, yes another one. This was as good as the one we had been to in Delhi, and maybe a little better. The displays were good and very informative; they even had the blood stained robe Ghandi had been wearing when he was assassinated. We spent the best part of an hour I suppose walking around reading the various stories on Indian history that were hung on all the walls.

After Ghandi's museum (picture left) we went next door to the Madurai government museum, this place houses artefacts from throughout Indian history, including the usual array of statues, paintings, earthenware and weapons.

It was not a large collection my any means, but interesting none the less. As we walked around we were followed by the barefooted security guard who switched the lights on in each section as we approached, then switched them off again just as soon as we had finished viewing whatever it was we were looking at, or should I say, as soon he felt we had looked at them for long enough.

It was quite funny, and we teased him a little by walking backwards and forwards a bit. The section, which housed the stuffed animals, was really pitiful, the animals were dead all right, and looked as if they had been for many years, such was the state of them.

There were a collection of old guns hanging on a wall, these being hundreds of years old, I imagine would be of great value, both monetarily and historically. It was just a shame that whoever had painted the wall they hung on was not aware of this. The wall had been painted a greyish shade of sky blue, but rather than remove the exhibits from it, they had simply painted around everything. So there were these nice old guns with thick blue streaks on the stocks and barrels, and some other artefacts were also covered with large blue specks where the paint had splashed.

As we were the only people in the museum the guard was giving us special attention, and was never more than a few paces away flicking the light switches merrily as he went.
Coming out the guard thanked us for visiting, then asked "Baksheesh please" holding out his open hand.
Nick gave him ten rupees, which may not sound a lot, but was actually five times the entrance fee.

In the grounds of the museums was also a large amphitheatre, which would have looked very impressive had it not been for the weeds growing everywhere. Nick said that I was too particular and should just accept the way things are when I criticised the state things were in.
My argument was that these things must have looked quite nice when in a good condition, and I reckoned that with the amount of homeless and unemployed people there are in India, it would surely not have been to hard to employ someone on a small wage to tend them.

There was a small bookshop in the grounds where we purchased a book on Ghandi's life, now perhaps I was to get around to finally reading about the man. I had promised myself on returning from India last year that I would get a book out of the library, and still had not done so a year later. As I write I still have not read the book, but I will, one day!

I asked Smiler if there was a spice market that we could go to, he knew just where to take us.

To the North of the Meenakshi Temple is located the main market in Madurai, here you will find fruit and vegetables of all kinds being sold on the ground floor of an old cement works. And in the alleyways around the market area spices of all descriptions could be found.

The fruit and vegetable market was still going, but winding down as it was now late into the afternoon, we had a quick look around, but could see nothing of any interest to us in the shady darkness that prevailed here.

Smiler told us that on the first floor of this building we would find the flower market. We walked up the stone stairs that were soaking wet with water and flower petals being squashed into sticky mulch under foot. This flower market is the place where the local street sellers buy their goods for resale outside the Temple, once they have made them into the garlands which people wear themselves and use to adorn the statues of the various deities.
Again we had come here a little late in the day, with there being very little stock left on display. The best time for a visit here would have been around sunrise when everything would be fresh. Maybe tomorrow?

It was around 5 p.m. when we got back to the hotel where we drank tea on the balcony looking out at the Kudalagar Temple directly in front of us. The Gopurams of this temple were not too dissimilar to those of the Meenakshi, and in fact I thought this was the Meenakshi at first.
While I had my shower Nick read through the lonely Planet guide book looking for somewhere to eat this evening, he chose a restaurant called the Indo Ceylon, which had good reviews and could be found in Town Hall road just a few blocks away.

The trouble with relying on guidebooks is that they are so quickly out of date, and so we found out with the Indo Ceylon restaurant, as when we arrived there it was closed down. There were plenty of other restaurants in this area, so it was no big deal and we would simply choose another one. But first off we were going to have a look around the area to pick up some fresh shirts.

We had no sooner got out of the rickshaw before he appeared! From then on I called him the silver tout!
This strange looking little man who stood about five feet nothing, and had an infectious smile about him was another street hustler and asked what we were looking for. We told him that we were just looking for somewhere to eat, "oh well there are a lot of restaurants around here" he said, then asked if we would like to look at his shop? "No thanks" I said, "maybe later! first of all we are going to look for somewhere to eat".   "When you come out maybe you will look?" he inquired. "
"Yeah maybe" I said thinking this would be the last we saw of this man.

We chose a restaurant called The Taj, which turned out to be an inspired choice. We ordered four dishes to share between us, some chapattis, three cokes and a couple of coffees, and the whole thing only came to 200 rupees (�2.80), which we felt was excellent value.
We passed on a couple of the things we read on the menu, which were brain omelette and brain Masala, we don't think it was a spelling mistake as we could not even think of any word that might be miss spelt to go with these. (If you think you know of one, e-mail me)
The other funny thing was that while we were in there our new found friend "Mr Silver Tout" kept walking in and out, not saying a word, but all the time smiling at us, obviously making sure we did not slip out the back way unnoticed.
He was still stood there smiling like a Cheshire cat when we came out of the restaurant.
"Now you come to my shop?"
"Later" I said, hoping to get rid of him, "first I have to go looking for some silver earrings" I continued. His eyes lit up as though three cherries had just dropped in!
"I sell earrings in my shop" he said, still smiling as broadly as anyone could.
" Ok, but first we have to look for some shirts," I told him!
" I also sell nice shirts" he replied. Now why did that not surprise me?

Nick and I walked away to a shop across the road, he followed as though we were all friends together out on a shopping trip, and even came into the shop with us pointing out what he thought was right for us, smiling all the time. Nick bought a couple of shirts and we made our way back onto the street.
"Now you look at my shop?" he asked, almost pleadingly.
"Ok, where is it"
"It is just over there, " he said, leading us into a large building where there were quite a few little shops.

We were stood at the recess in a wall that measured about six feet deep, by nine feet long. There were no shirts here, just rolls of cloth and two old men who were wearing just a vest and lungi.
"So where are the shirts?"
"We make them for you in one hour, you just pick the cloth," said the smaller of the two old men.
"No we, we want ready made shirts"
"But these are much better quality and made to measure" he replied.

By now I was beginning to take stock of what was going on around us, and became aware of a middle aged American couple who were trying on some garments that I assumed had just been made for them.
They looked quite good, and the couple seemed pleased enough with them.
"Ok How much for a shirt" I said in a moment of madness.
"Just three hundred rupees each" said the little old man with the really bad teeth, or should that be tooth, as he didn't have many!

By now the other man who looked as though he had served in the military all his life had joined him in trying to cajole us into buying.   A little negotiating ensued and a price of two hundred was agreed. I didn't even need any shirts at the moment, but these two old boys had worked me over with their spiel.

Little old one tooth insisted on me leaving a deposit before he would start on the shirt, this was fair enough I thought, and handed over one hundred rupees. A few quick loose measurements were taken and the cloth chosen.
"I'll pick it up tomorrow" I said to one tooth,
"No come back in one hour it will be ready"
" I don't want to come back in an hour"
"But your shirt will be ready I promise" he said. Obviously he wanted to get the deal done and dusted, with the full amount in his pocket before he went home tonight. That is if he had a home to go to, as a lot of shopkeepers actually live in their shops, or on their rickshaws e.t.c.
We finally agreed after much debate, if I did not come back in an hour I would collect the next day.

Silver tout was still at our side as we left the shopping arcade, so rather than try to dodge him any longer we agreed to look at his shop, which he assured us sold many types of earrings.
As we walked along the main road and across a junction I noticed that a younger man who I had seen in the shopping arcade was also walking our way, he was a little way in front of us, but kept looking back to see if we were following? I asked Silver tout where we were going and why this other man was also going our way?
"What other man?" he replied,
"that man there" I said, pointing to the man who by now had stopped in a shop doorway.
"I don't know that man he said"
" Well it looked like you knew him when we were at the shirt makers!"
Silver tout went and spoke to the man, and with out any real exchange of words, which you would have expected, he walked off past us in the direction from where we had just come.

This all seemed a little suspicious to me, and you can call me paranoid if you like, but I swear I then saw another man who had also been in the arcade was also following close behind us. I turned to walk back and confront him, but he could see I was about to do this and quickly crossed the road into a shop.

This all spooked me a little, and I told Silver tout that I had changed my mind and would not go to his shop, at least not now as it was so dark and we were making our way from the brighter lights of the town centre.
He protested his innocence and claimed the men were probably just going to try and get us into another shop! Whatever it was I was having none of it.
We told him we would have a look tomorrow if he gave us the address.
"No I will meet you at the tailors when you pick up your shirt"
"Yes OK" I said.
It was time to find a place where we could send home some e-mails, and of course Silver tout knew where this could be done, right back opposite the tailors shop that was a poor advert for a dentist.

We went into the cyber cafe and did what we had to do on the information super highway, then decided we would take a walk back to the hotel as we were now back in the built up part of town, and there was plenty of light.

Oh sh*t! there he was again waiting for us outside the internet caf�! It looked like he was going to come home with us at this rate. He was still smiling like a madman on speed, as was the man with one tooth who stood beside him. He had been to fetch the tailor who was more than keen to get his final payment of one hundred rupees now that the shirt was finished. This little old tailor was one of those people who speak at a hundred miles an hour, so trying to understand him was a nightmare, you just have to keep nodding and wagging your head. Then you suddenly realise you may be giving the wrong signals, when you are shaking your head meaning No; he is thinking you are shaking your head Yes!

I can't complain about the shirt, at least not for the money I was paying. The shirt had no collar, which was what I had wanted, and long cuff less sleeves just as I had requested. In fact it was ideal for the hot weather as it was lightweight, one hundred percent cotton, and the long sleeves meant it was good to wear at night for keeping the mosquito's at bay. Obviously our two tailor friends they were not happy with just the one sale and soon switched their attack. They started on Nick to buy one, or two, or twenty-two! Nick said he would make a decision when he saw what it looked like on me back at the hotel.

They were desperate for business and insisted I try it on there and then, just so that Nick could see what it looked like. I was only to happy to help out these two fine gentlemen, as I could see Nick was getting a little irritated with them, which is a little unusual for him.   Nick said it looked good, whether that was to appease them or me I'm not sure, but we didn't have time at the moment and we'd come back the next day. "Ok" they said, "what time will you be here?" the other man asked.
"Oh' some time after breakfast" we said, lying through our Back teeth just to get away from them.

We were a little lost on the way back, but I suggested to Nick that we head towards the high minaret above the local Muslim temple that could be seen lit up against the night sky from a great distance. I had guessed the right way, and within minutes we were back at the hotel.
Nick said that I had redeemed myself in the direction finding stakes, because normally I could find my way out of the room, never mind find the hotel in the dark.

I was now wearing my new blue Ghandi style shirt proudly while we were sat on the hotel room balcony, drinking our freshly ordered coffee from room service we could not stop laughing about the whole evening. Hopefully we wouldn't see the Silver tout again, we reckoned that even if we had to go to Town Hall road again, it is such a busy area that we would be hard pressed to find each other if we got lost, never mind find a little man who was afflicted with a constant smile, and claimed to own any shop you care to mention.

Time for an early night as I wanted to be up early to see the sunrise over the temple opposite us, plus according to the Lonely Planet guide, the Sri Meenakshi Temple elephant came to this hotel every morning for breakfast and I didn't want to miss that!