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Published: February 27th 2010
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Our next stop was the town of Madurai. We ended up in one of the more expensive hotels in town for a bit of a treat plus it was also a little hard finding a place with availability. Madurai is a fairly large place with a lot to do so we decided to stop here for a couple of nights. We went for a walk around town the first evening looking for the Meenakshi-Sundareswar Temple grounds and gave up. When we woke up in the morning we realised we had been standing pretty much in front of it. We have no idea how we missed it considering the size of it!
Anyway we took a walk around the temple we had come to see. It is a massive and ancient complex with detailed carvings every where you look and people in long queues to go into this part or that part. We wandered around as best we could and it was amazing. Gigantic beautifully coloured gate entries and a huge artificial pond with some kind of metal gold lotus in the middle. As in other southern Indian towns the worshippers were all dressed in black. Carol decided she wanted a
photo of some of the men lined up to go in to a part of the temple us foreigners weren't allowed. We wondered if it would be rude or inappropriate to ask this but Carol decided to ask anyway. Two guys happily obliged and then another 20 started screaming that they wanted their pictures taken too. She took a few photos but then we just had to run from the screaming mob. We decided to go back to the temple later that night and chanced using the same ticket we had bought earlier - no problems. We made it back for sunset and looked around the grounds a little further. After a hard day, we decided to try out the bar in our hotel. We had heard it was a little strange so we wanted to see for ourselves. It is themed like a space ship with all kinds of strange Star Trekky décor. Even after a couple of drinks the space ship theme was still lost on us.
We took a short walk to Tirumalai Nayak Palace. It is a 400 year old palace built and lived in by the old kings of the region. It's a massive
structure with a very interesting design which is very different to other palaces in India. There were also displays of ancient Hindu and Buddhist statues. We then got a rickshaw to the Gandhi museum which proved to be very interesting. We learnt a lot about India's history and what Gandhi did for the country and the Indian people. They also have the outfit on display that Gandhi was assassinated in.
Next stop after a nice enough train ride was Varkala, hello beach town. We didn't get the accommodation we had booked because reserving a room apparently means we don't reserve a room, we just tell you we do and when you show up, we check. Anyway, ended up in a really nice little cabin a very short walk away from the cliff front of Varkala. This is a really cool town with great views, a whole string of restaurants on the edge of the cliff, and a whole bunch of stores trying to sell all kinds of stuff at 'good' prices. There are also a couple of great beaches you walk down to and hire a body board. Be warned though as with the rest of India you need
to keep your wits about you. Two days in a row Garry decided to hire a body board and both times the rental staff got aggressive and wanted the board back early. Having none of this and with 2 months practise at dealing with all manner of scams, Garry stood his ground and yelled back, demanded to speak with the manager and got to keep the board for the full time. Despite this, the beach was fantastic, waves were good enough to hire the board and we had a pretty sweet couple of days. Oh and most importantly, fishermen bring fresh seafood to restaurants each day, you can choose what you want and how it will be cooked and you might be out of pocket 2 dollars. We had a particularly memorable meal of Red Snapper for around $3.75 for two. We also got to see a performance of Kathakali dancing. It's a very intense and interesting Indian (Keralan) art form about telling the story through facial expressions and elaborate make up and outfits. A quick google search would give you a little more detail if interested and it is definitely worth seeing.
On towards Kollam, not too far
away so we hadn't pre booked any trains. We ended up travelling on an unreserved carriage, the kind they strongly recommend westerners not to use. We only tried this as the train wasn't too full and it was only a very short journey. Sometimes these trains are so over packed that people are hanging out the doors but luckily for us it was actually a pleasant enough ride. The drama started once we reached Kollam. We arrived during a rickshaw/taxi strike which no one had told us about and could things be any more spread out. It was ridiculous trying to get anywhere. Also our guide book and some crappy sign posting did make it quite a challenge to get around - first off, we couldn't find our hotel, secondly we couldn't find internet cafes, then it was restaurants! And what we've finally realised is that when you ask for directions from anyone in India, they don't want to appear like they don't know the place you're looking for. So instead of saying they're not sure, they point in the direction that you are actually walking whether it's right or not. We even had one guy read our lonely planet,
and tell us that where we were looking for was near the train station as it says in the book - thanks for that, we never would've guessed! Anyway our reason for coming here was to get a trip through some of the Kerala Backwaters on a little wooden canoe. This is a series of waterways, some natural, some man made, that this whole community lives and work on the banks of. It's a little like a little Venice. The tour was great, got to drink and eat fresh coconut, see where and how the boats are made and get a feel for the life around the backwaters. After the boat trip we had all sorts of drama trying to get our selves to Goa via what ever means we could. We eventually organised a train with a slight detour but it was all good. One thing that I think we will both remember Kollam for is the "town with no toilet paper." You need to have your own for using indian bathrooms, particularly trains. I have no idea how many shops we tried but people were just looking at us like we had two heads, "what do you need
toilet paper for?" We ended up making do with some napkins.
And on our to Xmas destination of GOA!!!!
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