26 February - Carnac, Mystical Power of the Stones (Day 39)

As I am typing this now, I am still feeling excited about the trip today, even though I returned to INSA at 940pm and was dead tired. But let’s start today’s adventure right from the morning. I had to reach the Rennes train station before 953am, half an hour before the departure time of my train in order to collect the ticket which I had reserved online. There was no queue at all and so I collected the tickets for the return trip within minutes. I wanted to ask about how to get to Mont St Michel but apparently the man at the booth doesn’t speak English and so I dropped the idea. I had about an hour left and so went to try out the machine that sells the ticket. It is pretty easy to use even if the instructions were in French. After I had understood fully how to use the machine to collect reserved ticket, buy ticket, etc, I realized there is an English version for it. With the English version, it was piece of cake.

During that one hour, I observed the behaviours of the people there; the cleaner, the dog, the girl servicing the vending machine, etc and soon it was time to board the train. I had a reserved seat at the window but a young lady took that seat. Being a gentleman, I told her it was alright and let her had the window seat while I sat beside her. Opposite me there was a grandma and her grandson. The little boy was around 5 or 6 years old. During that one hour plus train ride, I noticed a number of people were reading books including the lady beside me. The grandma was teaching the boy to do some kindergarten homework. There are always so many different kinds of people taking the same train all with different purposes even though they might have the same destinations. Some perhaps plan to go sightseeing, some maybe to go visit a relative and some might be returning home. For me, I felt like I was a lone wanderer, with my backpack and camera. What I had in my backpack are things like: bread, snicker bars, water, maps, notes and pen, passport, French-to-English dictionary. And it really was an exciting experience because you don’t know what would happen at the destination, when would there be problems occurring, who you would meet.

The train passed by Redon, Vannes and Aurray at which I was supposed to alight. It would continue on until the last stop Quimper. So at every stop the train captain would make an announcement and I would take out the TGV guide and check the name. Just to ensure that I wouldn’t miss the stop. After 1.5 hrs or so, the train reached Aurray and both the lady and I alighted. At the train station, I was supposed to take a coach to Carnac but was unsure where to board the coach. Hence, I asked the lady at the counter and she pointed to me the direction. At the coach station, I had no idea which coach should I take. While I was checking out the notices on the board, a coach came and a lot of people were boarding it. Uncertain if this was the correct one, I asked a young man and he said yes. So I boarded the coach, presented my train ticket to the driver, and took a seat. I noticed that the cost to board the coach was around 5 euros depending on the distance you travel. So it was quite worthwhile buying everything together with the train ticket.

I also took a leaflet that had the route the coach was taking and found that there were 3 stops that had the word Carnac on them. 1. Carnac Plage, 2. Carnac Ville, 3. Plouharnel (which on my train ticket was written as Plouharnel Carnac). So I didn’t know which one to alight at. Carnac Plage had the words “office de Tourisme” written beside it but the actual destination on my train ticket was option 3. When the coach reached Carnac Plage, I decided to alight because I can always ask the people at the Office of Tourism. Moreover, the 3 places were pretty near according to the timing of the coach. When I alighted, I found the office closed and would only be opened at 2pm. It was 1230pm then. The entire place was a little town filled with residential houses. Where are the stones? That’s when I realized I had made a big mistake of alighting here. But that was also when the fun began. There was a couple peeping into the office and I guessed they were as lost as me. So I went up to them and asked if they speak English.

The guy said yes and he speaks English very well. So did the girl. Both of them had the same thought as me and so alighted early too. Since we were all lost, and were also in search of the stones, I decided to join them. The guy is called Rodrigo Ciceron and he is a Mexican. The girl is called Maialen Gredilla and she is Spanish. Maialen can speak fluent French because she is working near Brest in Bretagne as a French-to-Spanish translator. As for Rodrigo, he too can speak a little bit French, much better than I do. Both of them conversed in Spanish but spoke brilliant English with me. Rodrigo is a history student in Spain and he had been there for 3 years. He is in Bretagne now to visit his girlfriend. So within these 2 weeks, he had learnt quite a bit of French from her plus he had some studies on French back in Mexico. I gave a little intro of myself too, and I told them my name was Alex, so that it would be easier for them to remember. At the end of the day, I did tell them real Chinese name.

Luckily we had Maialen and she asked for the directions and we were on the road soon. It was a long long march to find those stones. On the way we chatted a lot, about lives here, in Spain, in Singapore, in Mexico. And it felt good that the 2 of them know something about Singapore. As we walked, we would pass by bungalows after bungalows and both Rodrigo and I thought that all these belong to rich people. Because in Mexico as well as in Singapore, you must be very rich to own such properties. For most of the time I was talking to Rodrigo because we had a common interest, which is history. Suddenly we stumbled upon a field that was fenced up. Inside the field there were hundreds of rocks and boulders. It seemed as if they were placed in no particular order. But as we walked on, we could see that they were aligned in neat rows. Rodrigo was the expert as he had studied about these stones before although he said he knew more about the Stonehenge in England. He said that these rocks were placed there for some purposes which till now, there were no clear answers. As I studied a bit on human origin before, I asked if these boulders were moved by the Cro-Magnon or the Neantherdals. He said it wasn’t so long ago. Probably 5 or 6 BC. So it wasn’t during the pre-historic age.

Then we were able to get into one of the fields and walked among the boulders which in archeological term are called menhirs. I asked Rodrigo how was it possible for Man to place a huge boulder on top of 2 standing ones. He said the people first erected the 2 boulders. Then they would pile soil and earth around them to create a small mound. Later they would drag the boulder up and placed it on top of the 2. Finally they would remove the earth. Later each of us gave a crappy answer as to why the people in the past did that. I said the boulders were obstacles for the people to do inline skating and they had to zig zag around them. Rodrigo said it was a kind of Olympic game like the shotput. Maialen said they were for people to leapfrog over and compete. Both Rodrigo and I found that answer childish and ignored her for a minute. So she thought we weren’t listening and repeated her answer again, with only herself laughing. In the end, Rodrigo gave me a wry smile and sarcastically said that her answer was correct. The next moment Maialen was chasing after him and it was so funny.

But it was really unimaginable that people in the past would use so much effort and move thousands of boulders in alignment. And these boulders must have been much larger then but had been reduced to the present size due to rain and shine. It would probably take 5 men to move the smallest boulder that I can find. I told Rodrigo that perhaps the people then had more advanced technology than modern people now but gradually degraded until at a point when it started to pick up again. Rodrigo said that there was a speculation that people aligned these rocks because they believed in extraterrestrial beings and thought that these outer space creatures could see the alignments. And he said he wasn’t joking, there was really such a speculation.

We found a tower which we could climb and it supposedly can give us a bird eye’s view of the area. However, the branches of the trees nearby were in the way. But the sight was magnificent. It was breathtaking to see hundreds of menhirs all aligned in neat rows. The combined figures for these menhirs all over Carnac is more than 2000. Somehow the sun was always in the way and we couldn’t take many good pictures. At around 2pm, we broke for lunch and had a little picnic near the woods. We just laid down our coat on the grass and sat on it. Then we took out what we had and ate and enjoyed the scenery. As we were near the sea even though we still couldn’t see it, the temperature was much warmer here, perhaps around 10 degrees. Then we chatted about our individual lives and Rodrigo told me about what he studied as a history student. I told him I wasn’t daring enough to major in history because I wasn’t sure I could make a living out of it in Singapore and I didn’t want to be a history teacher. Moreover, Singapore doesn’t have a deep history to talk about. Unlike Mexico, where there are the Aztec civilization and the Maya. I told him one day I would go there and visit all these sites as I am really interested in ancient civilisations.

I also asked for their emails so that I could send them the pictures and we could stay in touch. Maialen gave me her contact number too so that I could look her up in Bretagne. As for Rodrigo, he had to go back to Spain tomorrow. Maialen said she is staying in a small town at west Bretagne and normally would spend her weekend in the city Quimper which is quite near her place. She said I could go visit her during one of the weekends because she is staying in a friend’s apartment and she has got a lot of rooms. She said I should come because Quimper is a very beautiful city. I would go but only after I have visited St Malo and Mont St Michel. The couple said they just been to Mont St Michel yesterday and that’s why they were coming from Rennes today. For the past 2 weeks, they had been traveling around Bretagne. Maialen suggested that I should take the train to Mont St Michel and then walk to the monastery. If I take the direct bus, I would arrive at the doorstep and would miss the walk. She said there are a lot of things to see during that walk. Rodrigo said there were a lot of Japanese tourists there yesterday, and he could identify them because he speaks a little Japanese. He said his Japanese is better than his French. And he even said “Ni Hao Ma” to me. I really think he is a smart guy with a talent for languages.

Having rested and energized (after eating the 4 breads which I brought, I still had some tuna left and so took another 2 more from them), we moved on to see more rocks. By this time, we were getting a bit bored. There were more tourists coming to the sites as compared to earlier when it was just the 3 of us. There were some sheep grazing in the field and their purpose there was to cut the grass around the rocks. We had more than 2 hours before the coach arrive and so decided to make our way to the prehistoric museum. At the museum, I showed the lady my student card and she said as I was not a student of Arts and Social Science, I couldn’t get the discount. Luckily there was Maialen who pointed at the notice and helped to clarify a bit. In the end, I got to enter for just 2.50 euros instead of 5. As a history student, Rodrigo get to enter for free but he forgot to bring his card along. With Rodrigo as the guide, I learnt quite a lot about history of Man, from the prehistoric to the Middle Age. Different rooms had exhibitions for different ages. First there was the prehistoric age exhibition, where the biface and cutting tools were displayed. Then the bronze age and the Egyptian civilization, the bull god, etc. All the while, Rodrigo would be explaining to me anything he found interesting.

We then came to the Greek civilization and when we saw the goddess Nike, both of us said out loud that it is the goddess of victory. Really we do have a common interest. We ended up at the exhibition for the Roman civilization and the Middle Age. The ancient people of France were the Gauls. Who are the Gauls? They are the people in the comic Asterix. Yes, Asterix is a French or rather a Gaul. And it happened during the Greek civilization, when King of Macedonia (Philip, father of Alexander) was invading France. After a fruitful tour, we had more than an hour left and so decided to make our way to the bus station. On the way we passed by the Office of Tourism and asked for directions and the maps. As usual, Maialen would do the asking, Rodrigo would add some more questions and I would do the smiling. The lady asked where we are from and Maialen replied, “Mexique, Singapour, Espagnol”. What an unusual combination. We found the bus stop shortly and realized that we still got quite a lot of time and hence decided to go to a bar as it was cold outside.

After some finding, we found a small bar and I ordered a coffee, Maialen had juice and Rodrigo beer. There were some old men there watching horse racing on TV (in fact it was chariot racing). For the 3 of us, we decided to play cards. While the 2 of them were explaining the rules to me, I realized that this card game which they called “Solo” in French is actually “Uno”. Although there were some differences in rules, I mastered it easily and we had lots of fun playing. After a few games, we thought it was time and went back to the bus stop. On the ride back to Aurray, all of us were tired and sleepy after a day’s walk, especially Rodrigo because he had to carry a traveler backpack. We passed by a seaport and there must have been over a hundred yachts docked at the bay and it was really a beautiful view. With the sunsetting at the background and reflection from the sea, I took several pictures of that scene.

When we arrived at Aurray, I had more than an hour before my train to Rennes arrives. While they have 2 hours to wait for the train to Nantes. From Nantes, Rodrigo would take a train to the border of Spain and changed to another Spanish train. For Maialen, I guessed she would return to her place. We then went to the supermart called “Leader Price” and I found that the things there are much cheaper than those I bought from “InterMarche” in Rennes. The couple told me that I have to search out “Leader Price” in Rennes even though “InterMarche” is within walking distance because the price difference is significant. InterMarche is one of the most expensive supermarts in France. It was really beneficial knowing them because now I could save a lot more provided there is a Leader Price in Rennes. And she also said that I could get some grant for my rental by applying for CAF (some government grant). The grant is for students, be it locals or foreigners studying in France. That would give me at least 25% reduction of my rent. But the problem is, I am not studying here. Maybe I would find out about this CAF from Marie-Claude on Monday.
After our shopping, we returned to the train station and waited for our trains. I told them that we should really keep in touch because it is such a rare chance that our paths have crossed. If we hadn’t alighted at the wrong stop, we wouldn’t have met one another. Moreover, Mexico, Spain and Singapore are more or less on the Equator. Then when I thought it was time to go, there was a delay in the arrival of my train and it would be 15 min late. Then an announcement said that it would be 40 min late and so we began to take out the cards and played. In the middle of the game, there was another announcement saying that my train is arriving out of the sudden. Thanks to Maialen for telling me because I couldn’t understand what the announcement was saying. If I was alone, I would definitely have missed the train and had to spend the night in Aurray. Before I bid a hasty goodbye to my traveling mates for the day, we took a picture together and I promised I would remain in touch with them. On the train ride back, although I was exhausted, I couldn’t help smiling as it was a very enjoyable trip today. For the first time there would be someone taking pictures for me and no more headshots. I am looking forward to my next journey because maybe I would meet more travelers of different nationalities. And I would definitely visit Maialen in Quimper so that she could introduce more friends to me. I hope in this way I can build up a mini network in Bretagne and my stay here would be more enjoyable and memorable.