The Chennai traffic police reckon that there are 18 different types of conveyance using the roads. This partly accounts for the congestion and rather stop/start style of driving. I have so far seen the following road users:

1.         The Urban Cow. More noticeable at night, they stroll around the streets rummaging in rubbish bins. They all seem to belong to someone, and seem to be able to navigate the streets to and from home. Like all other traffic users, they change lanes without signalling.

2.         Bullock carts. Usually 4 wheel carts for heavy goods. The horns of the beast are often painted red or green, and decorated on the tips with bells.

3.         Horses. We have men on horses for two main reasons: either it is a groom going to a wedding, such as the one at the hotel last Sunday, or the complete opposite, a lad taking horse down to the beach to offer rides where they gallop bareback up and down the sand trying to whip up custom. In the first case, the procession goes at walking pace – the wedding we saw was preceded by the Jaleb Punjab Band – “full brass band and orchestra” – who gave quantity of sound in preference to quality, then male relatives dancing, the groom on horseback, sitting on red and gold cloth and shaded by a red and gold umbrella, followed by female relatives dancing with in this case torches made of fluorescent tubes tied to sticks, all linked together with a cable to a car battery, so they couldn’t move far apart.

4.         Horse drawn carriages. These seem to be reserved for weddings, though there are some horse buggies around. I saw a wonderful old photo of a woman’s grandparents in their phaeton, with two grooms and two running footmen, up in the hills. It was taken on the last occasion the carriage was used before the car arrived.

5.         Pedestrians. The pavements are not people-friendly at all, and in places disappear completely. Where they do exist, they are a suitable site for beggars; salesmen; stalls selling tea and coffee, sugar cane juice, and snacks; shoe polishers and repairers; cows; and of course parking.</p

6.         Men pulling and pushing things. 2, 3 and 4 wheel carts abound. I have seen big wooden barrows like the market porters use, a sort of giant supermarket trolley, 4 wheel carts with a man harnessed rather than a bullock – any combination you can imagine.

7.         Bicycles. A popular form of transport, though we never had the courage to get ours out of the drive. Driving consists of going for the smallest advantage, turning across the oncoming traffic, taking traffic lights and one way signs as merely advisory – and bikes are way down the pecking order only ahead of pedestrians. Bikes are designed for 2 people – one on the rack – and sometimes 3. Single occupancy bikes are a waste of an opportunity to transport someone else.

8.         Other pedal driven things. The best is the cycle rickshaw, which takes two in comfort unless you have a western-sized bum. It is tricycle based. There is a cargo equivalent, where the seats are replaced by a flat wooden platform. I have also seen tricycles with two wheels at the front, and hand pedalled invalid carriages.

9.         The auto rickshaw. This is a ubiquitous three-wheeler which is the main form of transport. It seats two in comfort behind the driver – which means that many more than this can pile in in practice. We saw 7 students get out of one outside the university – apparently they were not going for any records – and one of Eunice’s staff told us that the ones which do the school run have an extra shelf seat for the little ones, and by hanging the school bags outside can take up to 15 kids. If you see what looks like a motorised Xmas tree, take care. It has a little 2 stroke engine, but can get up to quite a speed. I took one the other day which had a leather interior and a 4 speaker Pioneer stereo system, which took me down the main drag at 50 kph. Of course the main disadvantage is that you are seated exactly at the level of the average bus exhaust.

            The auto rickshaw has two variations. In one, the seat area is converted into a van, which is amazingly useful for the small alleys, and the other where it is converted to take an articulated 2 wheel trailer.

10.       Motorised two and three wheelers. There are so many varieties of these. Ordinary scooters and motor bikes are very common and thank goodness here in the south that their owners don’t trade them in for cars. The scooter was once advertised by Government as an ideal family vehicle, and a good reason to limit your family to 4. The elder child sits in front of dad, who naturally drives, and the baby is held by mum who sits side-saddle on the back. I am amazed that all the trailing bits of sari and scarf don’t get tangled in the wheels more often, though they all have sari guards fitted. Then there are the pedal vehicles which have been motorised, like the fish carts (which carried the fish from the beach in the old days). The driver sits high off the ground, and can supplement the motor with pedalling when the going gets tough. These can also become people carriers, with the addition of seats and maybe a roof. I saw one with 7 school kids in the other day.

11.       Cars. All shapes and sizes. The classic vehicle is of course the famous Hindustan Ambassador, which was a Morris Oxford in earlier life. Bench seats, with a certain style. You can get air conditioned ones too. It is considered bad form to actually bump into another vehicle (although bikes don’t count much) so despite the total lack of lane discipline and much jockeying for pole position at the lights, there are few scrapes. Crossing the central white line to gain a few yards advantage, irrespective of oncoming traffic, is normal. 

12.       Vans, lorries and buses. The buses are the kings of the road, with a ground clearance of about 2 feet so you need to be pretty fit to get on board. They tank down the road with horns blaring, and people hop off and on wherever they can – particularly at the traffic lights, when they get off in the middle of the road and then have to run the gauntlet of all the traffic filtering left. Mind you, horns are used by everyone all the time. It is more to make a noise to let people know you are there, as it has no discernible impact on the way people actually drive. They even hoot when stopped at the lights.

I think that’s more than 18, if you break down the sub-groups. But I am sure that there will be more weird and wonderful road experiences just around the next corner – after all, this is just Chennai city!

Yesterday I drove the 25km into Dindigul, our nearest town, and also the nearest reliable ATM. Dindigul is not on the tourist routes: if you go direct from Trichy to Madurai you can now do this on the new highway without coming anywhere near Dindigul; if you come down from Bangalore and Salem to the south, Dindigul has a fine new bypass and all you will get is a sight of the rock. The picture is a poor view taken at the wrong time of day – when the sun is setting the rock goes deep red, like Ayres Rock. But more on the rock in a later blog.

I want to try to give an impression of our town. First of all, some facts. Data from the 2011 Census of India are available on-line, and from these we find that Dindigul city has a population of around 210,000 people. It is the municipal headquarters of Dindigul District, which contains around 2.2 million people, some 3% of the population of Tamil Nadu. [Tamil Nadu had 72.1 million people in 2011]. Various websites say that Dindigul is famous for locks and tanneries; for cheroots; for fruit and vegetables; and Dindigul biriyani is a famous dish all over the south.

But it is a confusing town to get around. The roads don’t quite seem to lead to where you would expect: the Palani road, for example, ends in a T-junction and you then struggle through a narrow lane which finally gets to the New Palani road. The Karur road is not now the main way to Karur. I navigate on key shops: the road of the metal shelf makers leads onto the road of the safe-makers and thence to the station; the road past the massage-oil shop leads onto the street with the coffee shop and then the supermarket; the road with the big petrol bunk has the best fruit and veg shop; and so on.

The town grew at the base of the rock which was fortified by the Nayakas from Madurai during the 17^th century and then passed to the Mysore army in 1745 and was governed by Hyder Ali from 1755. The British took control of it in 1799 after the battle with Tipu Sultan at Srirangapatnam. Round the base of the rock are a few remnants of the British era including a sadly neglected cemetery. But the value of the town now is that it is very well situated for trade, sitting in a gap between an isolated mountain called Sirumalai and the Palani Hills, which mark the easternmost end of the Western Ghats. [Sirumalai means “little hill” in Tamil, which is an understatement. I estimate it measures 20km by 15km, and rises to around 1800 metres].

As you might expect, there are few historic buildings left apart from religious ones. People are focusing on trade, and there is no room for emotion. But nor is there any desire to wilfully knock down something which can still do a job, so the Sunday doctors operate their charitable clinics from temporary cabins inside an old warehouse, modern glass-and-concrete stores rise between brick and stone houses from the 1950s, and here and there are single-storey cottages from 100 years ago or earlier.

The fruits and vegetables are excellent. Some come down from Sirumalai and a lot from Kodaikanal, so there is a good variety of produce from hills and plains. Yesterday I bought my first mangos of the season which I had for breakfast this morning.

The big tree which shades the rear of our cottage has been losing its leaves and old dry seed pods for the last two months. [The first time this happened I panicked and thought it was dying!]. Each time we swept the drive and pathways another gust of wind came and dumped a new load of leaf litter plus small but very sharp stems which cause us not a little agony since we go barefoot. Other trees are doing the same – many of the frangipani trees are now totally bare of leaves; and our teak trees are looking very decrepit indeed.

But up in the tea plantations the jacaranda are in full bloom. I remember them from southern Africa blooming just in advance of the rainy season – the central square in Harare outside Meikles Hotel was a lilac carpet of fallen blossoms. And this morning I was having my tea on the roof as usual when I noticed a feathery pale yellow blossom on the floor beside my chair. Yes – the big tree had not only put out new green shoots but is also flowering. This is a very brief but lovely time – it’s all over in a week – since the blossoms have a sort of jasminey scent which drifts over the cottage in the light morning airs.

I asked Thirupathi this morning the name of the tree – in Tamil it is Vaahai Maram – maram means tree. An internet search tells me we are the proud possessors of a very healthy East Indian Walnut, Albizia Lebbeck. Any Seychelles friends reading this blog will know it as Bois Noir.