Mad Men's Peggy Olson spotted in India

Below: a photo of a photo I spotted at the Viceregal Lodge in Shimla, where many of the discussions about Indian independence took place. What's remarkable about it is that it appears to show India's first Prime Minister, Jawarharlal Nehru (in office between 1947 and 1964), absolutely cracking up at a joke made by none other than... Mad Men's Peggy Olson! A new direction for season five, perhaps?

India part 13: Mamallapuram

Back in 2003, I made up a terrible joke about this place, despite not even paying it the courtesy of a visit. It went something like: Idiot 1: "Excuse me, which member of your family will be doling out our drinks?" Idiot 2: "Mamallapuram." If the captive audience weren't utterly incapacitated by laughter at that, Idiot 1 would then add (referencing a slightly more obscure Indian town): "Yes, but Kanchipuram?" I had a lot of spare time in 2003. Of course, now it's officially called Mahabalipuram, which renders this joke as arcane as this paragraph is pointless.

Our arrival at the fabled place was amusing, since the state bus we were riding on didn't appear to stop there - so they dropped us and our backpacks off at the side of the road on the highway. Luckily it wasn't too far, and it felt cool strutting into town like we'd walked all the walk from Pondicherry.

But on to more important matters. If you wanted to start a mobile ironing business, you'd want to use the coolest, edgiest font possible, right?

The main reason to visit Mamallapuram - apart from getting your ironing done by a hipster - is the Shore Temple, which is sadly not in a great state, thanks to wind and sand and sea erosion. Here it is.

Much better are the Panch Rathas, named after the famous Ramones song 'Sheena is a Panch Ratha'. We visited on a Saturday, so the place was filled with Indian tourists posing in front of the monuments in increasingly hilarious ways. Here are a rare couple of pictures which doesn't feature any of them, for better or worse.

Which is best? The elephant on the Arjuna's Penance carving (c.600-700 AD), or a reclining Ganesha from Mamallapuram's Le Yogi restaurant (c. probably about 2005 AD)? There's only one way to find out...

Mmmm, my most memorable moment in Mamallapuram was hiring bicycles and cycling along the Kovalam Road towards Chennai, where you can see (and hear) the stone-workers chipping and shaving their sculptures by the side of the road. After nearly giving up about 10 times, we eventually reached the Tiger Cave, where there were some more Indian tourists pulling wacky poses. But you don't want to see the Tiger Cave - it looks more like a dragon, anyway. Here's a Shivalingam and Shiva's vehicle, Nandi, the bull, instead.

But it wasn't all frolicking about on bikes gazing in wonder at temples. Says my diary:

Imagine getting up early and exhausted to book Glastonbury tickets, but finding all the internet cafes in town are closed, then there being a power-cut just as they open, and then treading in a cowpat. Oh, and now imagine the reward for all this perseverance isn't actually to get to go to Glastonbury, but instead getting a ticket for a 25-hour train journey. WELCOME TO MY WORLD.

We never did get the tickets I was after; it was nearly Christmas, and the waiting lists were so huge, even the usual Tatkal option (an emergency quota of tickets held back and released at 9am two days before the travel date) was out of the question. We ended up having to shell out to get a plane from Chennai (our next destination) to Mumbai anyway. This saved us a day of travel, but made rather a nonsense of the Rs250-a-night hotel room (approx GBP 3.50) we stayed in when we arrived in Tamil Nadu's capital. Budgeting in India is quite a mindfrog: you can easily find yourself spending twice as much on a meal as you do on a night's accommodation, if you're hungry but don't care about sleeping on old sheets.

India part 12: Pondicherry and Auroville

After a lurching four-hour bus journey from Ooty, during which I saw a hotel called "Hotel Cheap and Best" - say what you mean, guys! - we stopped in Coimbatore for some food in a disastrous restaurant where they didn't have any steamed rice (only egg fried rice - in India!), Sarah was accidentally served a meat dish (some of which she unknowingly ate) and the air conditioning was so freezing, I was worried we'd wake up in the year 2195 with only Michael Jackson and Walt Disney for company. The waiter actually asked for a tip at the end. "Not this time, I'm afraid," I chortled.

The food wasn't all that bad, though, and once that business was over with, we hopped on a local bus for about half an hour to get to an obscure railway station nearby called Podanur Junction. You really prove yourself as a Proper Traveller taking local buses in India: the best technique for locating your ride is to stomp around the bus stand ignoring the stench of piss and repeating the name of your destination with a rising inflection to as many people as possible until you're so sick of the sound of the place you're trying to get to you want to give up and go home. And if one of the people you ask happens to be a drunk or a simpleton, you just have to make sure you ask enough sober or sane-looking people to redress the balance. Often the temptation is to give up and get an autorickshaw instead - but if you succeed on finding the right bus, you're rewarded by incredibly cheap fares, half a buttock's seat room, and long, meandering conversations with the locals. On this one, Sarah met a sweet young guy who worked in a clothing factory and dreamed of becoming an Oscar-winning film director. Awww.

Referring to my diary, it seems I wrote nary a thing about Pondicherry and Auroville, but I remember eating lots of quite pricey food and enjoying walks along la tres belle promenade (the town is a former French colony) while small children tried to get Sarah to buy purses. I also had a couple of conversations in very bad French with two old locals, one of whom called me a liar when I told him I didn't speak the language and then dropped in an au revoir at the end (bit harsh, non?). The other guy was blind and told me a story about "la guerre" which I didn't understand.

Ah, yes, and how could I forget this? We saw a Mollywood film star! Mollywood - not to be confused with US journalist Molly Wood - is what they call films in Malayalam, the language spoken in Kerala. Fact fans, prepare yourself for a treat: Malayalam is also the only language named with a palindrome. I once tried to explain this incredibly interesting titbit to a friend and clearly didn't do a very good job, because they initially thought I meant every word in the language was a palindrome. This is most certainly not the case, and would be utterly barmy. Anyway, here he is: Mammooty!

And this is him on Wikipedia, if you don't believe. Arguably just as cool was this guy:

And this guy:

We also dropped by the utopian town of Auroville, which is best known as "the place with the giant gold golf ball", no disrespect intended. [Subs, please copy-paste some paras about Auroville from Wikipedia, thnx.]

Equally remarkable for me was this amazingly green moss. Probably just an alien lifeform plotting to take over the Earth, though.

Then we were, in the words of Jay-Z featuring Swizz Beatz, on to the next one, heading to the local bus stand to try our luck again, and making sure we didn't drop any crisp packets on the way out, because this rather fatalistic sign was already very angry at us.

India part 11d: Ooty finale

Not sure why I have so much to say about Ooty, but there you go. We finished up with a day trek up into the tea plantations, with a guide who also had some beef with the Lonely Planet, although this time, it was more to do with vanity - I think they'd just omitted to mention him by name in the latest edition. Still, a nice fellow. We were promised scenery which "looked like the English countryside" and actually, that turned out to be not such an outrageous claim.

But things quickly changed to this:

and this:

For several kilometres of the hike, we were followed by four friendly dogs. "They are here to protect foreigners," said the guide, although the huge quantities of bisuits he fed them might also have been an incentive. Here's one of them admiring the view from the top, which would probably have been stupendous had it not been for thick, thick clouds obscuring absolutely everything.

And, to conclude, I am legally obliged to post the following picture as a kind of obligatory offering to the internet godz.

India part 11c: Ooty - Willy's

"I looked at willies on the internet," announced Sarah. It took me a good few seconds before I realised she was referring to an elusive cafe - Willy's - we'd been searching for a few days before. The previous night, realising there was plenty of life in this joke yet - or realising there wasn't but pressing ahead anyway - Dave had enthusiastically told our uncomprehending rickshaw driver: "We're hunting for Willy's!"

Anyway, we found the damn place in the end, and it was a bit of a triumph, with chicken 65 burgers (never had I heard of such a combination) and full of student types who looked like they were plotting their own separate revolutions. It also had a library which contained many Enid Blyton books, perhaps left behind by the Raj as a companion to the railways. I spent our first afternoon in Willy's reading the first half of Mrs B's The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage, which features the Five Find-Outers and Dog, not to be confused with the more famous Famous Five. Sarah asked what the difference between the two was, and I struggled to explain, eventually coming up with: "The Five Find-Outers and Dog are more... parochial." (Although Blyton definitely shows a lack of consistency in her categorisations here, since one of the Famous Five was actually a dog.) For me, FF-OaD's main selling point is the presence of Frederick Algernon Trotteville whose unfortunate initials and substantial girth earn him the inevitable nickname 'Fatty'.

India part 11b: Ooty - being there

*Warning: this post contains flowers. Loads of them.*

Although the Lonely Planet's India 2009 edition says otherwise, there are only two things wrong with Ooty's excellent Reflections guest house. One is that hot water is only available between 7 and 9am; the other is that the proprietors are obsessed with their bad write-up in the Lonely Planet's India 2009 edition and won't stop going on about it. Because of the water issue (fair enough really, it is a budget place), Sarah and I got up early - early for two weary nomads, that is - and wandered down to the communal sitting room area where I broke my 'do not socialise with travellers' rule by speaking to some other English people, who unfortunately turned out to be very nice. Most of them were just about to leave for warmer climes, but we befriended a guy called Dave, who bore a striking resemblence to Coldplay singer Chris Martin, though we didn't hold that against him, and the three of us set off for a walk down to the lake.

Along with a dam made of lifebelts, we found a dilapidated but nevertheless popular amusement park and immediately headed to the ghost house, which was mainly scary because they seemed to be playing the sounds of people being tortured at full volume from the PA.

There was also a "Freaky Jungle", which was in a similar vein but with plastic animals instead of wig-wearing skeletons, a flight simulator, which induced an unpleasant combination of nostalgia and nausea, boating on the smelly lake, a games arcade which intermittently switched itself off due to powercuts, and various deserted fairground rides.

But all this was nothing compared to the wonders of Thread Garden.

The brainchild of one Antony Joseph, this one-off attraction consists of flowers made entirely from, you guessed it, thread. Sewn by a team of 50 Keralan women (we never did find out why they didn't use local ladies), it took 12 years to create. The whole thing looked very old and faded, but perhaps this was just a result of bad lighting, for Thread Garden certainly had an exceedingly high opinion of itself. "In all respects thread garden can be rated as the highest art creation of manual effort, that ever brought about successfully in the world," proclaimed one sign. Another declared: "An artistic creation par-excellence challenging the human imagination, it occupies the position of unique and innovative miracle in this era." See its semi-divine majesty for yourself, reader.

The hotel restaurant where we had lunch shortly afterwards was filled with young men in '80s garb - one fellow wore mirror shades and a bandana, and seemed convinced he was the coolest thing in Ooty. Maybe he was, although I'm sure Antony Joseph would have something to say about that. Full up, but apparently still in search of floral thrills, we found ourselves accidentally trespassing in a strange and empty set of horticultural offices, escaping unchastised to the Rose Garden, where we were greeted by another sign distinctly lacking in modesty.

After a poor start during which we began to wonder whether this might in fact be only the sixth or seventh best rose park in the world, we reached the lower levels, which yielded some prettier rosy delights. In a startlingly original bit of symbolism, I photographed some of them against a less-than-glamorous backdrop to give you a mindblowing epiphany about, like, beauty amid poverty and that.

Each variety of rose had a sign next to it bearing the name of its species, or a dedication, or something, and these quickly got weirder and weirder, encompassing sentimental and obvious ("Perfect Moment" and so on), strangely out of place -

- inappropriate -

- and downright bizarre:

After a siesta (or "bit of a lie down" if you're old and decrepit like me) back at the guest house, we decided to head out for some dinner, for some reason setting our hearts upon a hotel-restaurant called Sherlock, which we'd heard had an Arthur Conan Doyle theme. We autorickshawed up to Charing Cross (Ooty is an old British colonial haunt, so you get touches like that here and there), but it was only after we'd started stomping up a giant of a hill in the dark that we realised our destination was quite a trek (3km, we discovered later). Luckily a man in a huge truck stopped and gave us a lift just as we were about to fall down and expire. The three of us squashed into the front as he swerved around potholes and powered around corners, with a deranged and murderous look in his eye.

And then, there we were: a pristine lawn right at the top of the hill, with the stars above clear and many. "Is this Sherlock?" asked Dave to the man who opened the door, adding: "Are you Sherlock?" To our relief, the man nodded, smiling. "Do you do food?" I wondered. Yes, he said, still blocking the doorway. "Well, can we come in?" we laughed. It was a charming and immaculate place, with a log fire and the best Christmas tree we'd seen in India so far (also only the second). As our meal cooked, Sarah and Dave played a game of chess, while I sat in an armchair reading a Sherlock Holmes story.

Fully fed, we took a chilly rickshaw ride back to Charing Cross, dashed to a bar seconds before it closed and bought some Kingfishers. As we carried them back to Reflections, clinking our way along the empty streets, we saw a man interrupt his stroll briefly to vomit onto the pavement before nonchalantly carrying on as if nothing had happened. We drank the beers on the terrace, with the stars brighter than ever, whispering so as not to wake anyone.

India part 11a: Ooty - getting there

Forty-five percent of the fun of Ooty - apart from the pleasing name, short for Ootacamund - is getting there, which is achieved by hopping aboard a narrow gauge steam train known as the Blue Nilgiri Mountain Express.

As any fule kno, the train uses the Abt rack and pinion system to wind its way up to the hill station, which basically means it uses cogs and ting, like an oversized bit of Lego.

What do you get for your ticket? Well, there's a Docklands Light Railway-like view if you book a first class ticket...

... which we're glad we did, to be honest - because second class was rammed to the rafters (NB the Blue Nilgiri Mountain Express train does not actually have rafters, this is what is known as a metaphor) with hooting schoolchildren, who would have chorused, "You are from?" repeatedly had they sighted us. Here's our very civilised carriage.

And there are some great views as you make your way up the mountain, too. The kid below wasn't the only one to come over all dreamy.

It's not only very slow, but there are approximately one million and one stops, with some stations consisting of a bit of tarmac and a sign, and very unconventional-looking guards, who look on disapprovingly.

I think this final picture was taken at the end of the line, but I may be wrong. It can happen, you know.

So there we are. Getting on at Mettupalayam, as we did, means you've travelled 41km in four and a half hours, which is twice as long as Paula Radcliffe used to take to run the same distance. They don't make 'em like this any more (except in the UK, of course, hahaha).

Oh, and here's Shahrukh Khan and Malaika Arora heading to Ooty in style...

This just in: Taj Mahal outshone by splendour of this toilet

India part 10: Madurai

Couldn't find all that much to photograph in Madurai - oh, unless you count the Meenakshi temple. And we do.

This last picture was taken from a hole in the wall at our hotel. Sree Devi was very well located, but our room was not: we slept right next to the noisiest elevator in history. Well, stayed awake next to it, anyway.

India observation #47

If there's one thing I've learnt from the subcontinent, it's that you'll never see an Indian whistling a tune. If that's what you've come here to see, forget it. Go home.

*EDIT 3/2/11 7.43pm *
Omg, saw this happening live two days ago, I REPENT.