Ironically on the journey from Chennai to Madurai the train was clean and comfortable and the first train I had travelled on that left on time and arrived not on time but 30 minutes early which left me in a town that had not even started to wake up at 5.30 am.
I killed half an hour with a coffee in at a coffee stand outside the station for 29 Rupee then hired a Tuk Tuk to drop me at the hotel I had booked. Luck was on my side and the night staff was there and was quite happy to let me into my room to leave my backpack and wash up before I was on my way to see the Temple, pilgrims from all over India come to pay homage at, The Meenakshi Amman Temple. Even though it was early there were still a lot of people walking around the outside, there was even an elephant?
When entering the temple complex you have to leave all cameras in a safe place so deprived of my iPad I entered the Temple to find all the Indian pilgrims snapping away quite openly with their mobile phones and when I questioned this, the policeman who was on his mobile smiled and said mobile phones are OK, just not cameras ??????
I made my way back and booked in to the hotel at 10 am and grabbed a couple of hours sleep. Refreshed after a light lunch I caught a ride to The Gandhi Memorial Museum where I spent most of the afternoon and entered into a really interesting discussion with an Indian guide and a white South African young girl on the brutality of British colonialism.
I walked the three Kms back to my hotel taking in the sights and arrived back in time to meet up for dinner with a friend from Denmark who had left me an email message saying she was in town for a couple of days. After which a walk back to the hotel and a well deserved sleep after a very long day.
Day 2 and armed with only my I phone I returned to the Meenakshi Temple in the morning resolved to take some internal pics and after a couple of hours mission accomplished.
Made a trip to the train station to make arrangements for train journey next day to find you can't book seats so another early morning to stand in a queue next day!
I needed a new back pack as the one I currently had was falling apart so spent he rest of the morning searching for a day bag which I eventually managed to find for 500 Rupee.
The rest of the day was spent in my hotel room out of the heat as temperatures had hit 28 degrees and there was little else to see in Madurai so I read a book and repacked my Backpack getting rid of unnecessary items I would not for the remainder of my trip.
