India

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I'm back in India!!

The train ride here was really quite uneventful . I rode in 2nd class reserved sleeper and shared the space with 5 other people. I had requested a lower birth but could only get an upper (of 3 on each side) and I think that was a good thing. I got on the train at Varkhala at 6:40pm and arrived in Madurai at 5:30 in the morning. I slept most of the way in spite of the many stops. It was good...basically a horizontal space of my own with my own pillow and a sarong as a cover...a lot of horking and coughing in the car but mostly I slept .

Arriving here as the day was beginning was ok also. The train station is walking distance to the hotel strip an I saw a sign I recognized and headed there ... it was full and the next one was as well...fortunately the third ,which has a write up in the Lonely Planet had room and I registered at 6am...so I made real good time!They also take credit cards which I was pleased about at this point in my journey.

I AM in India. The streets here are more like I remembered them in the north. Animals wandering about , bicycle rickshaws as well as auto rickshaws and bicycles , cars ,people selling fruit ,flowers ,people walking on the edges of the streets not on the side walks (when there are sidewalks) ,some beggars but not too many and the store keepers all wanting you to come and see what they have to sell ... but they haven't been terribly aggressive about it .

Madurai is a temple town . The SriMeenakshi-Sundareswarar Temple is a complex that has been added to over the last 2000 years and it now comprises an area of 65000sq meters...it is huge and it is a very holy place for the Hindu people. I have been there twice and will probably go there again tomorrow. I find it quite interesting to watch people go through their rituals ... although nonHindus are not allowed in the temples themselves...and the museum and the hall of 1000 pillars are interesting in themselves. The carving is magnificent!

Today I also went to the Gandhi Museum and was very impressed by what I saw and read. It had a 200 year history of India up to the time of independance.I hadn't realized the terrible things the East Indian Company was responsible for nor the repression the Indian people lived under the Brits...I found it interesting that one of the books that had a major impact on Gandhi was Tolstoy's ...Finding the God Within...(I think that was the title I will have to check when I get home...

I am enjoying this city. I think they are used to foreigners and everyone has been most helpful. I am walking quite a bit but not in the afternoon when it is hot. The rickshaw drivers have been most helpful and bargaining a little helps me to save face...

Yesterday afternoon and evening I spent time with a 32 year old german woman who had joined me at lunch.(The hotel has a roof top restaurant where the caucasians seem to gather.) She had an emergency appendectomy here 7 days ago and has been recuperating at the hotel...This morning she felt ready to move on and left for Pondicherry .That will be my next stop so I suspect that I will run into her again. She is so glad to be alive but a little fragile ...

Life is good .Hope all is well with you and yours.

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Comments

[Suzanne]

Pondichérry
Hi, I know nothing of India but remembering a movie I saw .... Pondicherry was a french area. In the movie it sounded as though it was some kind of a paradise for the french people....paradise!!!!! You tell me...

[Mary Anne]

Tamul Nadu
Once again, you seem to be getting the experiences you are looking for - perhaps there was a reason you went back?