Kanyakumari-palooza

Armed with a nice, clean hotel room, a new friend, and the peace that comes from not being gawked at 24/7, I began to unwind thoroughly in Kanyakumari. I took in sunrises and sunsets that broke my heart to look at them and spent entire afternoons people-watching and soaking up the sea air on the steps of the waterfront. One thing about Kanyakumari that was striking was how safe it felt. The lack of hassle meant that I was comfortable walking around after sundown and late into the night frequently, just to absorb the beachy night breeze and watch young men playing football on the promenade. It reminded me a lot of Luxor, and the temple at night where we’d go and eat falafel with the women sitting out by the mosque while the men prayed and the boys played football. Very mellow, and very me. My second day in Kanyakumari, I bumped into Vikram again and we got to talking for several hours. With my new friend guiding the way, I got to discover some unbelievable sprawling beaches just outside the town-- bigger than the teeny spit that passes for a beach in Kanyakumari proper-- and ride on a motorcycle - SO exhilarating-- see a 1500-year-old Hindu temple that defies description (and prohibits photography-- I was obviously crushed)-- and visit an ancient fort site from the 18^th century. My trusty Rough Guide all but wrote-off Kanyakumari, giving it only a page and a half, mostly practical details and hardly any tourism info on sites like these. I was only too happy to be able to explore the area with a local I could trust since I never would have been made aware of any of these sites without him.

Sidenote: I’m disappointed in you, Rough Guide, if I’d listened to you I would have all but skipped right over Kanyakumari!! I shake my fist!

One thing that the guidebook did recommend checking out was the two rocks set out from the shore-- one hosting an ashram where a famous swami meditated sometime around the turn of the century, and the other a memorial to a celebrated Tamil poet. I boarded the ferry to the ashram to sit and meditate for a while and then exited out to the terraced courtyard surrounding it. The meditation room, if not Kanyakumari itself, seemed to reset my travel-clock, erasing the earlier rough times and filling me with calm and hope for the rest of the 2-month trip. I didn’t realize just how tense I’d gotten till I had the chance to let it go and shut the hell up for a few minutes. Meditation might just have a new convert.

Another stroke of good luck, or karma, that found me in Kanyakumari was the fact that the annual festival of the local goddess, Kanya Devi, was going on while I was in town. This meant that for either 9 or 10 days pilgrims were flooding the town, and the temple, and many rituals were being enacted, much to my delight. Each morning began with chanting and a procession of the temple elephant from his pen or enclosure or whatever down the main strip into the temple. Then, each night there was a live music performance right outside my hotel and very lively evening crowds making their way into the temple until about 8pm. Finally, on the the last day of the festival, a grand parade procession took to the street and made it's way from the temple, up the main drag and through the town, taking with it elephants, elaborately-costumed-dancers, drummers, trumpeters, and-- the main event-- the idol of the goddess Kanya Devi. Though I had a prime aerial view from my hotel room, I chose to watch from up-close downstairs as each new performer made their way past. When the time came for the goddess' idol to pass, things turned almost violent in that the onlookers threw enormous volumes of flowers and garlands-- offerings to the goddess-- at the idol and the man carrying it. Having never seen this kind of thing before, my first instinct was that the mob had turned on things, but then Vikram explained that it was a show of devotion and worship, not violence. Either way, it defied words. All that was left after the procession was the fading sound of the horn players and drummers, and massive amounts of flowers on the road.

Anyway, the area was magical and each day was bookended by the absolute wonder and beauty of the sunrise and sunset that took on a mythical feeling. I was sad to finally leave for Madurai but, as the old adage goes: all good things must come to an end. Tear...