We spent 3 hours in Bhubaneshwar station with a huge number of other people who were mostly lying on their plastic blankets on the floor. Every time the police moved them from the entry and exit they congregated round us blocking us in. The overnight sleeper train to Chennai was over an hour late and its a good job I was watching the departures board when the platform number flashed up, giving us 5 minutes before the train left, because we had two flights of stairs to navigate before finding the extremely long train. We eventually got somewhere near our carriage and jumped onto the train just before it set off. We fortunately had a little compartment to ourselves. The big advantage of rail over road is that you travel through the countryside while the roads in India pass through village after town after village all joined together and once you have passed through the first few miles of rubbish with cows and dogs rooting through it, you have seen quite enough.
The landscape was mostly semi-jungle: dense forest with different types of trees (mostly several varieties of palm tree) although they are not very high. There were low brown hills in the background and, travelling further south, the landscape changed gradually to large fields with spring wheat and much smaller rice paddies, with rice either harvested or growing in water. There were white birds like small herons everywhere we looked.
The journey lasted over 24 hours for the 767 mile journey; the train set off late and arrived at Chennai even later. Some bloke pestered us every few hours demanding to do “cleaning” which involved moving a brush over a clean floor and eventually demanded a “tip” for all his hard work. Somebody who we had no idea who he was also came and begged for a tip, but they didn’t get one. A very jolly man met us on the platform at Chennai and drove us for almost 20 miles to the Ibis Budget hotel on the southern outskirts of Chennai.
The other guests are basically businessmen and we are a bit pissed off with Mr Raj for putting us in a hotel 20 miles from the main sites of Chennai. They are the Kapaleeshwarar Temple, which we visited about 2 pm, only to be shooed away (literally) by a rude and aggressive doorman/bouncer so we assumed that, like the Shree Jagwanath temple at Puri, only Hindus were allowed in. Walking round the surrounding street, trying to get a better viewpoint for photoes, we found another entrance where a much more amicable man told us we could go inside at 4 pm. So we found a very pleasant cafe and spent a nice hour with ice cream and milk shakes. At 4 pm we went inside the temple complex and were amazed at the intricacy of the carving and the bright colours. It is a working temple and there was a sevice in progress. It was founded in the7th century AD and dedicated to Shiva.
Only two people have been rude to us out of the thousands we have met with in India and they were both religious cranks. Probably trying to impress their Gods.
We then went to see the Santhome Basilica which also had a service in progress. It is very impressive if you like that sort of thing; what impressed me was the tomb of St Thomas, one of the 12 disciples. He arrived in India in 56 AD and was martyred in 77 AD when he got a spearstuck in him. A small museum includes a 16th century representation of said spear. The Basilica was built by the Portuguese in 1523 before it was knocked down and rebuilt by the British in 1896. Francis Xavier, founder of the Jesuits, visited the Basilica in 1545 and lead prayers there,
People sleeping outside Bhubaneshwar sttion
Entrance to the temple complex
Tank in front of the temple
The heart of the temple
Erecting structures for a festival at end of March
Statue of a Bishop of Madras
