The bus ride from Munnar, Kerala, in the Cardamom Hills to Madurai, Tamil Nadu on the hot Deccan Plateau is seven hours of bone-jarring, twisting roads. It is also a cultural change from the mild, easy-going Keraleans to the noisy, bustling, heavily populated southern India that was never conquered by the invading Moghuls from the north. Once down on the plains the roads staightened out and the temperature went up. We exchanged our decrepit country bus for a fast gleaming luxury model for the last two hours of the trip to Madurai. We swept through green fields, dry hills and a surprising number of brick factories as Bollywood music belted from the bus speakers and lovely, pudgy Indians swayed on the video screen. Madurai is the home of the Sri Meenakshi Temple, one of India's largest
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