Madurai

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We had a leisurely morning of food and checking out then were on the 5hr midday govt bus to Madurai. It was amazing how quickly we dropped out of the mountains and this had a direct correlation to the increase in temperature. Soon we were racing along the plains of Tamil Nadu in our solar heated oven on wheels, passing tropical crops of banana and coconut. The landscape was littered with large brick kilns/drying houses – large pyramid structures covered with palm fronds where hand made bricks were stored to dry. At one point a pyramid shaped mountain (due to aggregate mining I think) stood alone on the plains with the ‘mini-me’s’ in the foreground and it felt like some alien/ lost civilisation landscape.
Madurai, one of south India’s oldest cities, was a dirty, dirty hole. Once we finally found the barely acceptable Hotel Grand Central to spend the night in, Storm locked herself in protest to the Indian city, and I went out looking for a thali.

The main attraction in Madurai is the Sri Meenakshri Temple complex, it a shame the rest of it is so unappealing. After much convincing I managed to get storm to come along with me to the temple. The temple’s history goes back 2000 years, within the temple complex there are a number of courtyards dedicated to various deities, and 12 highly decorative gopurams range in height from 45 to 60m.
The walk back to the hotel was enough for us to decide we were going to leave the city immediately so within a few hours I had arranged overnight train tickets to Bangalore.

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