The Meenakshi Pilgrimage

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Madurai was to be our final choked city of Tamil Nadu before heading across the state border to Kerala. Our journey from Trichy was one we'd prefer never to have to endure again - a crazy coach driver piloting us on a seemingly suicidal journey. A collection of impossible overtaking manoeuvers and hair-neck cornering speeds made this a white-knuckle ride to forget. Too many near misses to mention!

On arrival to Madurai we accomplished the long overdue task of picking up an Indian sim card from a local Airtel office. Phone calls in India are dirt cheap and since forward reservations were appearing to be a necessary planning step, the ability to call from the mobile was becoming a requirement. We're now sorted and if anyone needs to call or text us for any reason our number is [phone].

There's really only one reason... one very big, ornately carved and decorately painted reason to come to Madurai - the huge Meenakshi Hindu temple. We've seen plenty of Dravidian style temples both in SE Asia and S India, but none as impressive as this. It was built by the Pandya kings to honour Lord Shiva (the destroyer) and his wife Parvati. The temple is surrounded by 12 gopurams of which the tallest is the southern gate at 52m high.

After enjoying a variety of different temple views from the rooftop restaurants of the many high-rise hotels in the city we were ready to leave. There seemed to be little else to see, or prolong our stay further. We negotiated over the price of a taxi up into the Western Ghats and strated the windy 200km journey to the tea plantations of Munnar...

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Photos

Love In The Lights
I thought this was cool - a long exposure, some twinkling lights and a careful hand movement.

Risque
These sculptures on the temple are very revealing - children cover your eyes...

The North Gate
The tallest of the four main gopurams

Bizarre Bazaar
Even the temple is a good place for shopping - very sacred!