20TH JAN Sat. Chettinad - our Hotel (Visalam) and nearby mansions

Chettinad consists of 75 villages, and is the cultural home of the Chettiars, a community that made its fortune as money lenders, merchants and jewellery dealers. There aren't many Chettiars in Chettinad now. We're told that most of them migrated in the 19th and 20th centuries to Sri Lanka, Singapore, Cambodia, Vietnam and Malaysia, from where they sent back lavish fittings and furnishings for their ancestral homes.

The houses still stand and what magnificent mansions they are (or in some cases, were).   We're staying overnight at Visalam which was built nearly a century ago.   Its a typical Chettinad house with a mix of Art Deco, colonial and south Indian architectural styles,.   It was built by Ramanathan Chettiar for his eldest daughter, Visalakshi, in the 1930s.

CGH Earth is a hotel/hospitality group in India that specialises in preserving the appearance and authenticity of the properties it manages.   It  has leased Visalam from its owners and still feels more like a (rather grand) family home than a hotel. It has been sensitively restored to ensure enough comfort for the paying guests without spoiling its itegrity.

Some pics of our room and the hotel grounds generally

Steps up from the entrance hall to the bedroom/lounge area. 

Doorway from bedroom onto balcony

It is a lovely balcony with great views over the gardens ..... but its in full sun and far too hot for us to sit out there

central atrium

pool area

and lovely gardens with lots of shrubs which attract tiny sun birds and some yellow/cream birds I've yet to identify.   They are all very small (just a couple of inches long) and move very quickly, tending to stay in the most dense areas so it became a bit of a mission to get photos of them ...

We visited a couple of the 'empty' mansions which have 'caretakers' in situ just to keep the places reasonably clean and problem-free.   They get free accommodation and a meagre salary so like to augment this by showing nosy tourists around for a small donation.    They don't have access to any of the many bedrooms etc (I guess that makes sense) but we saw enough to gain an idea of how grand these places were before they were abandoned.    The problem is that after a couple of centuries the ownership has become complicated with more and more family members/heirs being produced.     One place we viewed had 50 family members staking a claim but none wanted to actually take it on and undertake all the refurbishment.   So they stand empty, gathering dust.

The entrance hall has solid teak wood pillars which are around 20 foot tall

Wonderful ornate carved detail to the tops of pillars and the ceilings

Huge door frame from hallway into the central courtyard area

The tiles are locally made (in the traditional way I described earlier following our visit to a local manufacturer)

Some are in better shape than others 

and some are currently being worked on ... the bricklayers were men but guess who was doing all the heavy carrying?

Comfortable seating in the hallway of one of the empty properties we looked at

This is what they should look like .... this is known locally as the glass house but the public isn't allowed to enter/look round

20th JAN. Chettinad - Tile Production & Handloom Cotton Spinning Industries

Chettinad is known for its specialist tile production and cotton spinning - all local cottage industries

First we stopped at a small tile production site.     It was an amazing experience.   The tiles are made from concrete, with metal oxide to provide the colours.    They don't need to be fired and they have a high sheen, smooth surface when finished.

The process starts with a square frame with glass base (to give the final gloss finish).    If a repetitive pattern is required to fulfil a large order then a framework/mould is inserted into the square frame and the sections filled with the appropriate colour.  (this is fine cement coloured with oxides).

Making the cement mix

Adding oxides to cement to make the coloured sections

Adding coloured cement mix to the appropriate sections in the mould

The master craftsman

Coloured cement all in place

A thin layer of dry cement is sprinkled over this and then the frame is filled to the top with wet cement

 The framed tiles are left to dry in the sun for 3+ days

and then they stay in a water bath for 3 days to cure the cement/concrete

end result

Individual tiles can be decorated free-hand by applying colour/design without the use of a pattern/mould and I had a go at this and made a rather lovely tile (if I do say so myself)!! Sadly I can't wait around here for the tile to be ready otherwise I'd have bought it and framed it - such a masterpiece

Some photos

I thought David was going to photograph me making my masterpiece but he only got a picture of my hand!

Don't you agree, this is a beautiful design and I bet the finished tile will be a work of art!

This is an age-old traditional form of tile-making and we've seen the tiles in situ in some of the mansions in the area.     They are very thick - not like the ones we're used to back in the UK.

What's so amazing is that these don't need firing and also the end result is a highly polished surface tile.


We visited another cottage industry site - this time a handloom cotton spinning place.    Here the ladies were making fine cotton lengths for saris, shawls, table linen etc.

The owners have vowed to keep the old spinning/weaving methods going and indeed the traditional cotton designs.     The two ladies we saw working the looms today have both been doing this work for several decades and don't need to work from patterns - its all done from memory.      It looked highly complicated but I guess if its what you do all day, every day then you become an expert in your field.   The cotton is coloured using both natural and synthetic colours (the latter being less expensive)

They sit on the floor with their legs/feet in a recess under the floor boards where they're able to control the foot pedals which operate the loom.   Their co-ordination is fantastic - feet peddling away and hands working the apparatus which controls the spindles and other bits and bobs

The cotton is very good quality and I did buy a long scarf length (even though I'm not really a scarf person)!


Joshy also wanted to show us a local village temple ... we are pretty much templed out already but we went along for the ride - at least this one was on one level - no stairs to climb and slightly easier to photograph as its on a very small scale compared to recent ones we've visited.

and finally, our packed breakfasts (from the hotel) got put to good use.    Joshi gave them to two of the caretakers at the temple who were very happy with them!