Day 6: Wed 15 Nov 17: Chidambaram to Swamimalai, 86 km - Total so far: 301 km
24 to 34 deg, dry, mostly sunny with high cloud.
We head inland today into the vast lush, extremely fertile Tamil plains. Extensive agriculture everywhere, mainly rice but also a scattering of maize, bananas, veggies and forest plantations.
The first stop was a rather modest but beautiful 1,500 year old temple called Gangaicholdram. While the 40 acre monster from last night was impressive this one beat it hands down for style and grace.
We passed through a lot of what appeared to be subsistence rural areas today and I was amazed at the basic standard of the housing; in the main just a thatched hut, some with the added luxury of a tarpaulin thrown over the top. There are thousands of goats everywhere so at least they have milk products and the odd piece of meat, but many are vegetarian. I didn’t see many household veggie gardens so I don’t know if the grow a lot of their own food. There’s a lot of rice being planted at the moment so there’s many workers (mainly ladies) involved in that so lots do have employment.
We spent an hour or so riding along the top of a levee bank which gave us some great photo opportunities looking down on the paddy fields. However a prominent bush on the sides of the bank was the thorny acacia which was probably the cause of the four punctures we ended up with on that stretch.
It was then a shot ride to our hotel for the night, INDeco, Swamimalai. What a gem; it appears to be stuck out in the middle of nowhere but it has all the class of Raffles in Singapore. It’s a museum, Zoo, eco centre and resort all wrapped up in package.
It was a buffet dinner tonight, a mix of Asian and Indian, simple but tasty. It was accompanied by a three piece band playing traditional Indian music.
Another fantastic day.
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