In and out of Madurai
Trip Start
Nov 04, 2007
1
29
62
Trip End
May 03, 2008
Madurai,
India
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
We travelled to Madurai by private bus from Trichy. Previously we'd only got public buses which have been fine, and very cheap. The only reason we got a private bus this time was because that's the bus the guy at the bus station pointed us to. The private bus cost about 3 times as much as a public bus would have done (still only about a pound each), had a TV and DVD player and was supposedly a more modern bus and more comfortable. It probably was a newer bus, and there was more leg room but it was in a bit of a state - we were soon to get a good idea why! The bus was about two-thirds full and we were sat near the back with a group of young Indian guys just in front of us. The were probably about 19 or 20, but they acted about ten years younger. No sooner had the bus set off, these guys started to get a bit over-excited by a bus journey (woo-hoo!). First they started playing with the seat-reclining controls. Considering the seats could recline to an almost horizontal position similar to that of a dentist's chair it was not great for us sitting right behind
Meenakshi temple
. Next they started to mess about with the seats in front - pushing them up and down with so much force it can only be described as vandalism. Then they pulled the air-vent out from the ceiling above. Throughout this there was a fairly constant stream of shouting things out and throwing things at each other. Like any little children playing up, they got bored and tired after a while and went to sleep.We only spent one night in Madurai but it seemed to go very smoothly indeed. Madurai has a very impressive temple, the Sri Meenaksi, which is the main reason for people to visit. We arrived at about lunchtime, and by about 3 o'clock we had eaten lunch, booked our train ticket to Trivandrum for the following evening and booked ourselves on a half-day city tour the following afternoon. Feeling very pleased with ourselves (and having a feeling that it was all far too easy) we settled in our hotel room for a lazy afternoon of book reading.
Although the Meenakshi temple was part of our tour, we decided to get up early the next morning to see it on our own. It's only a 5 minute walk from the hotel, and we thought it would be more pleasant to visit in the relative cool and calm in the morning. Also, the tour wasn't due to get to the temple until 8pm - by which time it would be too dark to see much anyway! It made a welcome change to be at a temple at 8am. It was very peaceful, most of the touts and "guides" hadn't yet woken up, and we didn't burn our feet on the ground! I could try to describe the temple, but you may as well just look at the pictures we've uploaded!
After lunch a mini-bus came to pick us up for the tour
Doorway in Meenakshi temple
. It's the first organised tour we've done in India, and it was very cheap - about 1 pound 50 per person, so we thought even if it's just a glorified taxi service (which it was!) it was cheaper than an auto (tuk-tuk) would be. The tour visited 8 sites in all, some of which were very brief indeed. The first stop was the Maharajah's palace in Madurai and the guide said we had 15 minutes there. The entrance fee was 50R per adult and 30R for a camera. It looked really impressive from what we could see through the doorway, but we really didn't think it was worth paying for 15 minutes, especially as we thought we'd be charged in every place we went to. Next up, was a big water tank, where they hold a big water festival each year. It was about a week ago so not much to see really. After the water tank was the Gandhi museum. Again, we were told "15 minutes", but i told the guide we'd probably need longer than that! It was an interesting (if a little biased) potted history of India and the struggle for independence (sorry, going to add here that 'little biased' is putting things mildly - after reading most of the captions I wondered whether we ought to put on a French accent and sneak out with a different tour lest the other visitors feel the need to lynch us for being British! - Ros). They even had the loin cloth Gandhi was wearing on the day he was assasinated (blood-stained of course), although I'd be willing to take a bet that it's not the only museum in India that would have such an exhibit! We also stopped at several temples and a shrine in the surrounding hills where there were loads and loads of little monkeys, who were pretty entertaining to watch (just as well, as we were stopped from seeing the most interesting bits of the temples as we weren't Hindu). Overall the tour could have been better, but it wasn't a bad way to spend the afternoon.When the bus arrived at the Meenakshi temple, we left the tour, ate some dinner, collected our bags from the hotel and went to the station - and that was our stay in Madurai!
