Plage de Merde

It took some commitment to make us move from Kerela, but we thought we should try to squeeze one more place in before our flight home. We caught an overnight train to Madurai on the western coast in the state of Tamil Nadu, where we had to change to get our final train. The plan was that we would have a few hours here, enough time to dump our bags and have a wander around the Sri Meenakshi Temple, a Hindu temple from the 16th Century. Unfortunately, the train timetable wasn't in our favour and we had a mere 90 minutes in Madurai. Still, we were keen to see one more temple, and so at 5am we were treking through the streets of a wakening Madurai looking like we had taken the Lonely Planet's tip of 'get there early to miss the crowds' a bit too far. Even in the moonlight the temple was amazing, and we had a lovely (albeit very short) visit with the morning worshippers who were beginning to flow through the doors. It was a full on Hindu temple which we haven't seen elsewhere, complete with cows and elephants. The building itself was fantastic, with endless carvings adorning the many rooms and corridors. No pics though as it was just too dark at that ridiculous time in the morning!

1. Rock Carvings

Six hours later we arrived in Mamallapuram, a small costal town with a tradition in rock carving just below Chennai, where our flight home leaves from. The town was hit by the Tsunami in 2004 and there are plenty of memorials to those to died. It seemed to have a slightly desperate edge about it; people go for the hard sell a lot more, there's plenty of orphanages and it's just not quite as friendly as the places we have grown used to, although whether this is a result of the Tsunami or it has always been the case we wouldn't know. The beach here wasn't one that we felt we were missing out on due to our shade seeking - the sea was pretty wild, and there were a fair few people having a dump while enjoying the sea breeze! 

2. Street Kids

Despite this, there was some interesting areas in the town. We had met up with Hiten and Dermish once again and the four of us had a wander around some of the rock carvings that the town is famous for, and then lounged around in the park with the locals. While we were there three street kids where playing and wanted to pose for endless pics. They were amazingly skinny - Oliver Twist looked meaty in comparison - and so we took them for a bite to eat. They were such well mannered kids and unlike so many didn't actually ask for a thing. The locals weren't so keen for us foreigners to feed them though, and we had a bit of an incident after eating. A young lad decided to take it upon himself to get rid of them, throwing the bottles they had worked hard to collect and smashing them. The little lads' faces were devastated. We tried to explain they weren't bothering us but the locals would only see them as problems and nuiscences. I can understand their arguments - we're just there for a few days and although we're trying to help they see it as adding to the problem longer term. But these poor lads were hungry. How you can actually help is always a difficult one.  

3. Parathas in the Making

After Kerela, most of India would have been a bit of a shock to the system - Kerela was amazingly ordered with an unusually high literacy rate and a lot less poverty. Still, it's good to be reminded what the rest of the counrty is like.

4. Getting their grub on

5. The Boys