Sri Meenakshi Madurai

It's March 2013. I just found my old travel journal entries from the trip I took in my gap year in 2010. I'd left pieces of writing here and there on various blog sites and, I suspect, in now lost emails. What I've salvaged isn't all of what I've written, but it's enough to have jogged some memories that I'd let slip my mind, and re-inspire me to …

Hello all,

so from Trichy we went to Madurai for an overnight stop. There wasn't much to see here apart from the Sri Meenakshi Temple and the Gandhi Museum. The temple is one of the biggest in India and is considered by many to be the height of South Indian temple architecture, and as important as the Taj Mahal is to North India. The …

... of India, with a history dating all the way back to the pre Christian era. The entire city of Madurai, is built around the Sri Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple. It is believed to have taken over a hundred years to complete the temple. The temple itself is ...

We headed south after Chennai to one of the oldest cities in Asia - Madurai, home of the impressive Sri Meenakshi Temple with its numerous gopuras (towers) rising above the city landscape. Madurai is deservably popular with tourists, both Indian and ...

... . The biggest town so far with over a Million inhabitants, we found it to be pretty stressful, loud and annoying. But the Sri Meenakshi Temple which is the highlight of a visit is an absolute must. The Temple is huge and inside the walls it ...

... 26th. . That evening some chap brought us to the roof of his linen shop and showed us a rather spectacular view of the Sri Meenakshi temple complex, which was really nice. Look it up on google or whatever, cause i couldnt really take any good pictures ...

... class air conditioned section so it was good to see the other end of the train and travel as the locals do. Madurai is a busy town known for it's Sri Meenakshi Temple. To be honest, I didn't think much of this town. It was surprisingly western with it's ...

... massive and the level of detail on the artwork on the towers and inside is really incredible. The Sri Meenakshi complex is one of the biggest temples in India, though amazingly it is not the largest, and is typical of the style of Hindu religious sights ...

... tuck! I said we were in Coonoor but that was then and this is now - we're now in Madurai the temple city with the wonderful and huge Sri Meenakshi temple. We had come across the Hindu gods on various occasions and I've even got a picture of Gill's ...

... what LP says old town is perfectly fine. Madurai is a small city, same population as Dublin. The big temple is called Sri Meenakshi and is baroque dravidian architecture style with 12 gopurams (images of gods, mythical creatures & animals) everywhere, ...

... hill giving a nice view of Madurai from above.  Even at night, it was easy to see the four main gateways at the Sri Meenakshi Temple because they were higher than anything else in the city and lights on top made them easy to spot.  Madurai was ...

... ass with these guys, we shook them and made for the temple. Ok, good time so far. Things to see: 1.Sri Meenakshi Temple 2.Ghandi Museum 3.Big Palace 4.National Museum 5.Various Temples We entered the temple grounds and before we got in ...