The most interesting thing that I’ve done as a Local Guide was when I stayed in Tharangambadi aka Tranquebar in Tamil Nadu, India.
Unlike rest of India which was a British colony, Tharangambadi was one of the very few small pockets of India which were Danish colonies. The rich Danish Heritage is still prevalent in this little town. The historic buildings, built by the Danish, which served various purposes 3 centuries ago, are still existing and are being used for various other functions. While there is a physical tourist map locally available that said which buildings were historic, ofcourse it wasn’t still present on Google Maps.
It was my honour to walk those streets and add each and every one of those on Google Maps with photos as well! To begin with, there’s the Danish Fort aka Dansborg built in 1620! It is a local tourist spot and it was already marked and so was the Masilamaninathar temple. The Neemrana Heritage Hotel was the then Collector’s Bungalow. Beside it is the Governor’s Bungalow which is currently unused. Besides this is the Commander’s House which is now being used as the Maritime Museum. Under the Danish, the whole of Tranquebar had a fortification wall! Today, only the Gateway built in 1792 (renovated in 2002) still survives but the wall is completely gone.
This place is important because this has the first ever Protestant Church of India! When the Danish came here, the King also wanted to bring in their Christian missionaries. However the Danish missionaries, showed a lack of interest in moving to India. So he sent Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg and Heinrich Plütschau from Germany who reached here on 1706. There is a plaque planted here in 1906 at the beach marking their landing site.
Ziegenbalg made himself a home and a chapel here. He then proceeded to learn the local language of Tamil and translated Bible to Tamil. He also founded the first ever printing press in India and printed the Tamil Bible! He also continued to translate some Tamil books to German! He died in 1719 and was buried here! His tombstone is here as well. Close to the church, is another Danish building Gruendler’s House which is now being used as a boys’ hostel. Though there are a lot of burials within the church premises, behind the New Jerusalem Church is the large Old Danish Cemetery.
The main King’s street has quite a few more Danish buildings incl the Muhldorff’s House (which is now a private property), Van Theylingen’s House which is locally called Pillar House today (yeah, the reason is pretty evident), where the Dr.Van Theylingen lived. Next to this is the Rehling’s House.
India is a huge country! Since most of India was a British colony, most regions share a similar history. Smaller places like Goa (which was a Portuguese colony), Puducherry (which was a French colony), this Tharangambadi (a Danish colony) have a different feel the rest of India and the colonial architecture here is so so different than the rest of India. I’m happy to have shared the Danish Heritage of Tharangambadi (Tranquebar as the Danish called it), through place creations, edits and photographs as a Google Local Guide!
P.S: I wrote 2 blogposts about the town, soon after I visited there, explaining in detail about the buildings as well. Here they are - Part 1, Part 2.