After discovering that there were no trains till the evening we decided to try our luck with the buses and part walked part donkey carted it to the bus stand a couple of kilometres outside of town to get a bus inland to Madurai and from there a train or bus to Tranquebar back on the coast. Things didn't really go to plan with no direct train to Tranquebar and very bad connections so we decided to stay overnight and leave early the next morning.
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| From Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India |
Lunch was a priority so we had a (very good and cheap) thali before finding a cheap room on the 5th floor (again!). We rested for a while before heading down the road to see the city's main attraction – a huge temple complex.
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| From Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India |
We borrowed some dhotis from an antique shop which we were then warned about by a guide in the temple grounds – he warned us against going upstairs for views of the temple and drinking some poisoned tea which would alter our heads (a tiny bit worrying but nothing bad happened Mum!).
There were several layers to go through and although there were some areas we weren't allowed in we saw a fair bit, the place was big, bright and in some spots, bustling. Some people sat quietly in front of shrines praying and meditating, others knelt and lay on the floor but most were walking around like us.
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| From Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India |
The number of statues and carvings was incredible and everything was fresh, we estimated that every part of the temple was painted at least once a year, it all looked like it had just been covered in a new layer of paint. We stopped by the temple elephant whose forehead was decorated with very white precise patterns, she (or he) accepted 5Rs from a person then tapped him or her on the head with it's trunk and then handed the money to the overseer. We watched a few people doing it before deciding to give it a go, I couldn't wait for Djalma to go first, he was unusually slow to take up the chance of doing something new, so he got into position with the camera and I got my 5Rs ready and went to stand in front of this huge elephant suddenly feeling very small and fragile, the big trunk came towards me and I fumbled with the coin like there were teeth, actually it was just a bit wet, and then I got tapped on the head, my blessing. Apparently it cost more to get a photo because the elephant keeper deliberately stood between me and the camera blocking the view. We weren't too happy about that, although it was obviously a different way to make money it was quite special, there was something about being close to a powerful animal and in it's mercy – it could have squashed me like an old grape – that the man's selfish behaviour really spoiled the moment.
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| From Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India |
We left the temple soon after that, retrieved our flip-flops and returned the dhotis before finding an internet café and reconnecting with home. We left bright and early the next morning on a 7am train for Vailankanni.
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