After breakfast on our only morning of an all-too-short-a-stay at the wonderful Bangala Hotel, we set off with Mohen headed for Madurai for what would be our last night in Tamil Nadu.
Coincidentally, it also happened to be our wedding anniversary.
As we drove along a 2-lane country road we realized that the fence posts around the perimeter of the properties that we had been passing for miles and miles spaced out no more than 6-8 feet apart were solid chunks of granite and wondered what those would cost at the Lowes Hardware back in North Carolina. After about 45 minutes of passing those posts, driver Mohan turned off onto a gravel road near Thirupattur and wound his way past some open fields. Eventually we parked and found ourselves on a bluff looking over a small body of water. On the opposite bank were trees covered with birds.
We had a arrived at the Vettangudi Bird Sanctuary, a park of roughly 95 acres. According to the literature provided: Vettangudi “attracts more than 8,000 winter migratory birds belonging to 217 species, mostly from European and North Asian countries. It is a breeding habitat for grey herons, darters, spoonbills, white ibis, Asian openbill stork, and night herons. It has also attracted indigenous endangered species including painted stork, grey heron, darter, little cormorant, little egret, intermediate egret, cattle egret, common teal, spotbills, pintail, and flamingos.” We felt fortunate to be able to see a lot of those species.
After a stop of about half an hour we continued on our drive to Madurai.
Our first stop in the city was the large flower market where we met our local guide who helped us navigate among over 100 vendors lining several narrow lanes at the market selling (among others) marigolds, tuberose, rose and sweet scented jasmine in bulk out of large (mostly blue) plastic bags. Other shops were selling fresh arrangements; some as simple as a Jasmine Flower Lei but many others taking the form of heavy wet garlands suitable as neckwear for the winner of the Kentucky Derby.
Our next stop was the incredible Meenakshi Temple, a historic Hindu temple built along the banks of the Vaigai River. It features not one, not two, not three but rather 14 monumental Gopurams (entrance towers) each one seemingly more ornate than the next. The outer 4 towers are built on 9 levels, each are over 160 feet high and 3 of the 4 contain over 1,000 brightly painted sudhai figures.
Unfortunately, the temple has a strictly enforced “no photo” policy so we don’t have any pictures to show from there but this was the MOST impressive Hindu Temple we have ever seen anywhere in the world.
With 14 towers you would expect this place to be huge and it is. Inside there is a labyrinth of corridors and rooms and lots of shrines and priests making offerings. The stone carving is remarkable in its detail and in the sheer number of carved pieces.
One of the highlights for us was a visit to an outer building known as The Thousand Pillar Mandapam. The actual count is 985 but each pillar is unique and individually carved in the Dravidan style. Our guide told us this room was originally used for dance but it now houses the excellent Temple Art Museum.
After lunch we visited a small facility making one of the iconic textiles of South India, the Sungudi Sari. (Note If you are interested in researching the Sungudi Sari technique, be aware there are multiple possible spellings of this word.)
We got the chance to meet with the artisan A.K. Ramesh and his wife R. Vasumathi, the owners of Madurai Sungudi Saree Making and it really was a very nice conversation.
They seemed to appreciate that we had some knowledge and respected the creation of textiles and dyeing techniques as an art form. They explained how this particular tie dye method was more than 1,000 years old but came to Madurai in the 16th century with settlers from Saurashtr, Gujarat; an area of India far to the north of Madurai along the Arabian Sea.
The making of a Sungudi Sari begins with the weaving of a cotton fabric. The desired pattern is marked on the fabric and then the artisan holds each mark with fingernails and wraps it tightly with a very thin thread and carefully knots each thread. The fabric is dunked in heated dye water several times and then rinsed in cold water. Once dried, the knots are carefully loosened and the threads are removed revealing tiny little undyed circles on the fabric.
(Note: the fabric in the photo to the upper right is from Madurai Sungudi Saree Making but it is not in the Sungudi style. To see an example of a Sungudi pattern click here.)
The end result is beautiful. While we were there they also showed us some other very nice sari material sets that had been dyed but with different techniques more similar to what we think of as batik than Sungudi. These were equally as beautiful.
After our visit to Madurai Sungudi Saree Making we drove across the city streets and then headed north out of the city in the direction of Dindigul.
About an hour into the drive we could see mountains on the horizon and approached small hills. We turned off the main road and followed a much smaller paved road for about 15 minutes and eventually turned off onto a gravel path up and around some of the hills. We started noticing signs for guest houses and after a total drive of about an hour and a half we pulled up to the very tranquil setting of the Cardamom House.
This is a gorgeous property nestles in the beautiful foothills of the Western Ghat mountains within a protected natural reserve of thick forest and spice plantations. The hotel is surrounded by a natural setting garden with plantings designed to attract bird life including Sunbirds. The small seasonal Kamarajar Lake can be seen just down the hill from the hotel.
It was about 4:30 PM when we arrived and the very friendly staff suggested we had time to unwind in the pool before dinner. We were the only ones at the pool (there are a total of only 7 rooms at the hotel) and lounging in the water when my wife asked: “Did you see that?” I hadn’t and asked what it was. She said “I know it sounds crazy but I saw a bird that looked like a peacock fly by. Can peacocks fly?” Well my friend, the answer is yes. Peacocks can fly for short distances and that’s what she saw.
Dinner was served that evening at a table on the terrace looking out over the garden right outside our room door. We met some of the other hotel guests sitting nearby and discovered that most were on a bike-riding/bird watching tour of Tamil Nadu.
The service and food were both terrific and at the end of the meal, our host surprised us with a cake celebrating our anniversary and two very large, very heavy flower garlands; all arranged by our Textile Tour facilitator.
It was a nice way to end a nice day.