Tiru, Part II

On my third day here, having napped a little too much the day before, I woke up around 5:30a.  The morning light was just starting to come up in Tiru.

I knew that if I wanted to climb Arunachala, or circumambulate it (go around it, common for temples and sacred sites; Arunachala is considered an aspect of Shiva), I was going to need to do it early, before the Indian sun started gathering steam.  Being up early, it was the perfect opportunity, so I grabbed my daypack, put my one 1 liter bottle of water in it, a mango I got at a meal the day before, and my camera.  I also took my Crocs and my socks, just in case.  The traditional austere way of doing the circumambulation or climbing, is to do it barefoot.  I knew this would be a challenge, but I didn’t quite realize how much of one it would turn out.

I get out of my room, lock it up and start walking in the dim light of morning.  Then I hear rain, well, and feel rain.  I stop.  It wasn’t raining a second ago, but it is now, directly on my head, and on my neck and my left shoulder.  It is raining urine.  A playful monkey is playing target practice with his penis and he is dead on.  They are playful little suckers.

I try to decide whether or not to go back and shower and get a late start, or press onward.  I press onward instead, hoping that by smelling like a monkey, I will avoid the aggressive ones on the mountain. 

I got up to the Inner Path, a small trail that goes around the mountain, but inside of the roads that also circle it.  Immediately, I am met with hard going.  Lots of rocks, large and small, most of them sharp.  There were twigs and thorns nearly everywhere.  I would go about 100 yards before something would stop me.  A sharp pebble that had dug in to the bottom of my foot far enough to not fall off when I lifted it for the next step.  If the pebble was still there after about three steps with it in my foot, I would stop and flick it out.  If I stopped on the first step, I never would have moved anywhere.  Another 100 yards of careful planning, and then bang, some thorns.  It was never just one thorn, it was always a little stick of them.  Often times I couldn’t tell the thorns from the sharp rocks until about the second step.  The rocks wouldn’t go any deeper, but the thorns would dig in.

I would stop and bend over to get a look at the thorns I was trying to remove, balancing on the one leg, trying not to fall over.  I would try to pull on the stick in such a manner as to remove the several thorns that were embedded simultaneously.  Usually the stick would break, being so brittle and dry, and I would have to get at least one thorn out separately.  But never once did a thorn break off inside my flesh, they always came out whole.

I’ll be more careful, I thought.  But it didn’t matter.  It didn’t matter how careful I was or how slowly I proceeded, I would always get the jagged rocks stuck in the thickest part of my sole, or another little inch-and-a-half twig of organic barbed wire.  I’d pull them out and a drop of blood would fill the hole.

What am I doing.

I was probably around three quarters of a mile in (which had taken quite a while to cover) when two Westerners whiz by me in shoes and bring my hard-headed-ness into sharp focus.

I find the nearest rock, cop a squat, and don my socks and my crocs (I use the super-thin, double-layer, runner’s socks to avoid the blisters that the crocs give me).

The difference is, of course, amazing.  There are still thorn bushes near the side of the trail in areas, so they still get my lower legs a little, and the pathway itself is mostly strewn with large and small rocks, and they need a little special navigation so as not to turn an ankle, but overall, I am moving at a brisk walk, and I continue at that brisk walking pace until I get all the way around the mountain.  Some 10 miles later.

Wow.  I didn’t know it was going to be that long!  The guy told me 3 hours and it was a little over four after factoring in my “breaks,” and I was trucking it.  I stopped for water a few times for a quick drink, once to eat the mango, and at a couple of roadside vendors to buy some biscuits (cookies), an apple and an orange all for later, but all totaled they didn’t take more than 30 minutes tops.

Somewhere near the two-thirds point, the path starts going next to people’s houses, well, in between the houses and their storage shacks and bathrooms, really.  Just a few moments before, and for the whole time previous, the trail was something that I would imagine seeing in the American desert southwest.  Scrub and cactus, splintered rock and sand.  But here, the path and its environs are littered with all manner of refuse, as if you had torn open your last 3 months of trash bags and emptied them on your lawn and sidewalk.

The trail comes to an out-of-the-way temple, and then the signage stops.

The trail markers have been haphazard and poorly spaced throughout.  On the Appalachian Trail, for instance, when my daughter and I did a short section in Virginia a couple of years back, the markings were all uniform, the same white blazes marked the trail, and from one marker, you should be able to see at least the next one, if not more.  Here though, one section would have so many that from one point, you could literally see 15 or 20.  In another section, you wouldn’t see any for 200 yards, and that is where the trail is bending and twisting and side trails are cutting in; in other words, where you really need them.  There was just no rhyme or reason to their placements.  They also weren’t in the same position.  Some were kind of sideways or tilted at an angle, and it didn’t represent what the trail was getting ready to do, it wasn’t notifying you of a direction change like the larger marked trails back home do.

So, there’s no makers anywhere around this temple, and the last markers clearly indicate this pathway.  What to do, what to do.  I ask 3 different groups of people, and they all tell me the same thing.  The Inner Path becomes this large roadway.  This can’t be right.  And I’m still not sure that it is.  But I saw no other markers at any point diverting me away from the last known direction.

I follow the large roadway until it looks like it’s going to hit major traffic and head off in the direction I know the ashram to be.  I am walking down a typical urban lane of homes and small local shops.  Everyone here looks at me like I’m the first foreigner they’ve seen.  Maybe I am.  Maybe the rest of the Inner Path people go down to the main road and hit a tuk-tuk back to homebase.  I guess I’m a little too principled for that :).

Dogs are barking at me the way dogs raised in white homes bark at black people or people with turbans.  They are alerting the people.  “One of these things is not like the other things.”  You remember that Sesame Street song?  Cookie Monster is sorting his plates of cookies?  :)

Most all of the doorways have chalk mandalas on the ground in front.  I think they’re pretty cool, but it doesn’t feel right to stop and take a snap (I find some houses later where its less conspicuous to take a photo).

A few people smile, a couple say hello, and two of the kids I pass say hi.  The rest of the children want something.  Some say “two pens!” Some say “two chocolates!” Some say “two rupees!”  They all want something.  Well, except for one kid.  He wanted to give me something.  And he did.  He side-armed a piece of ice at me after I passed him, and it hit me just behind my left ear.  It was the first act of aggression visited upon me in my nearly 6 weeks on the subcontinent.  Not bad.  It didn’t hurt very much, just stung a little.  I was wondering where the kid got ice from in Tamil Nadu!  Anyway, most of the people are not especially friendly, definitely not up to Indian standards anyway, but that’s ok, I’m not looking to make friends, I’m looking to finish this circle.

The little urban lane meets another large roadway which I take to get out of the slightly uncomfortable situation.  That large roadway becomes a larger roadway, and pretty soon I am on a busy city street.  It would be about 4 lanes of traffic if people stayed in position the way the dotted lines indicate.  However, in typical Indian fashion, there are about 5 lanes going each way instead.  The traffic is kicking up dust something serious and I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who notices.  The swarms of motorcycle (or “pilot”) and scooter drivers are all blinking long and hard, trying to accommodate for the dust that has just soaked up all the lubricating fluid on the front of their eyeballs.  They are driving with their mouths pursed closed.  The dust and dirt are blowing everywhere.

I start asking directions.  They all keep pointing me in the same direction that I think I should be going in, but I never seem to make it.  Beggars are coming up to me now wanting food and money.  I decline them all because I know that if they just follow me, they will eat a large nutritious meal for free.  Every single day.  In fact they are served at Ramana’s ashram before the guests are served, which I think is cool too.

I keep walking and see the north entrance for the huge temple in town.  It’s somewhere between 1300 and 3000 years old.  No one really knows.  It’s massive though both in size and height.  It’s several hundred feet tall and takes up 25 acres; it is the second largest temple in India, I am told.  The festivals here are legendary.  I take a few snaps and move on.  Temples are interesting but I don’t have much draw to go inside.

Finally, finally, I see the gates for Ramanashramam and I go in.  I am officially finished with the circumambulation.  I’m glad I did it.  I had a peaceful time for at least two thirds of it, and I ran into several groups of friendly monkeys.  I check my phone for the time as I pass the gates, and sit down to remove my shoes.  I determine that lunch is yet to be served, which is a relief, because I am seriously hungry.

The food every meal since the first two (and I wrote my initial blog post) have been really good.  The South Indians are fond of their okra, and that’s ok with me, because I like it.  I’ve had lentils and squash soup and some kind of sweet peanut mash, and some fresh fruit three times now.  Twice I’ve had a little scoop of mango, apple, pomegranate, and banana.  The other was a whole small mango; the one I ate on the trip around the “hill.”  It was delicious.  I would have never known how to eat it had I not watched some of the local people eating them during their meal.  They bite into the skin and with their teeth, they peel back large sheets of the tough skin.  Then they eat any fruit meat that has clung to the skin, and so on, until it is completely peeled.  Then they eat it like an apple until only the huge seed in the middle remains.

There’s another correction on the food front too.  I found out that the water pitchers that they use to put water in the metal cups is filled with the purified water.  I’ve watched the servers fill them.  And it’s the same place the water sprinkled on the leaf plates come from.  So, I’ve been drinking out of the cup (hoping it’s clean, and I think it is), and washing my leaf, and all that.  And then filling my 1 liter bottle after the meal (I was slightly chastised for trying to fill it before the meal once).

Also in the way of updates, I am also doing better with the heat.  Once I’m in the temps and used to it for a couple of days, my body seems to adjust, I’m not as miserable, my headaches go away, and my appetite starts to recover.  Good to know about my body for the future.

The last thing I did today was to go to the office to find out about transportation back to Vellore (and the Katpadi railway station that I came from).  I have an AC Chair Car ticket from Katpadi to Chennai on the morning of the 4th.  Once in Chennai, I will make my way to the domestic airport for my flight to Delhi (and from there, home).  Now, I’m not going on another bus.  I know that for sure.  I have enough money to get whatever kind of transportation is necessary to avoid another bus.  So I ask the man in the accommodations office about a car to the Katpadi station.  Then I ask him about a car from here, direct to the Chennai domestic airport instead.  The difference is less than 20 dollars, and I avoid several opportunities for delays.  And I’ll get a refund on the train ticket as I’m cancelling more than 24hrs in advance.  He tells me he can get an AC car for an extra 5 dollars.  The trip is 4 hours long.  5 bucks for AC, definitely brother.  Sign me up.

He says my driver will knock on my door at 11:15a, and I can give my room key to him for checkout, and he’ll know what to do with it.  This sounds like it’s wrapping up nicely.  Two days from now, and I’m homeward bound.