Day 3 - Tanjavur - Madurai (163 km)
Trip Start
Oct 24, 2007
1
22
26
Trip End
Jan 13, 2008
Madurai,
India
Friday, January 4, 2008
i have survived another day and it was a GOOD day! not a single
breakdown and on good roads with minimal traffic. it was actually a
nice drive and Suresh drove half the time today. still weaning him into
the Indian driving scene!
woke up early to go visit the large temple here which is historic. it
is a world heritage site and the temple was built in 1010 AD. it is
considered the pinnacle of Tamil culture and development. as suresh
say, since then the Tamils have been on a steady decline. we left the
hotel at 9 AM. and went straight to a school and were there before
noon. we were the 5 th team to arrive at the school and learned that
when the first teams showed up, the school was surprised and not
expecting anyone. but they accommodated us and were happy to see us.
last night we went to an appliance store in tanjavur and it was packed
like a fish market due to a new year's sale. bought 5 standing large
fans and lots of stationery. in fact the merchant we went to did not
want to sell his stock so we had to grab and choose lots of things and
could not get 200 of one kind. we gave out an assortment of stationery
and the kids were amazing today and ranged from 4 to 12 years and all
lined up and said thank you and shook our hands. great day.
after that we drove straight through to our final destination stopping
twice for petrol and once for snacks. when we stopped for snacks we met
two men who spoke Hindi (instead of Tamil only) so i was able to
converse and tell them about the rally and try some local snacks. i
should clarify that my team mate understand Tamil but cannot speak it
much. so we do have issues with the language barrier every now and
then. along the way we saw great country sides, farm and seemingly
sustainable communities.
the drive in to madurai was crazy. big town with 1.2 million people and
lots of roads, working traffic lights, traffic policemen and relatively
clean. going out later to buy stuff for the school tomorrow.
enjoy the pics at
till tomorrow,
sameer
