December 23

Dec 23: Madurai

We started at 8am. Our guide Mahesh was waiting for us - very different from previous guides, quiet and non-imposing. Besides guiding he runs the Aathma Foundation, a voluntary organization working to educate people in villages.

Our first stop was the Meenakshi Temple (excellent websites exists including some virtual tours) . As usual, it is a Siva temple, but while in all other Siva temple there would be a smaller temple for his wife Parvati, here Parvati is the main object of worship. If you are confused, Meenakshi is one of the many names of Parvati. We have seen by now many temples, many of them extremely impressive in size, beauty and detail, but this one tops them all. Beyond all the aspects mentioned, the activity in this temple is amazing - hordes of pilgrims queue up to go to the sanctum sanatorium to give offerings to the gods and get ashes to put on their foreheads. The halls are huge, with thousands of delicately sculptured columns supporting them. On the floors groups of visitors sit, eat, talk. A trained elephant (which we saw in other temples too) would perform the usual trick of picking a 10 Rupee note from anyone with his trunk, and then "bless" the giver by putting the trunk on their head (naturally the kids did it). Hundreds of elephants could easily fit between the columns and would not be noticed - it is that big. The pagodas at the gates are huge with numerous god and other sculptures, beautifully painted.

Next was the Nayak palace. It is really a recreation by the British of an older, destroyed palace. It has a huge dancing hall, and was a good starter for our next attraction, the Ghandi museum, dedicated mainly to the history of the occupation of India by the British, the resistance movement before and during Ghandi's time, and the eventual retreat and independence. We learned a lot there, and need to read more about it.

We finished the morning with the flower market, where you tread in mud between stalls of marigolds, jasmine and other flowers, sold in bulk to sellers. Flower sellers are numerous around temples as they serve as prime offerings to gods (with coconuts and bananas), as well as decorations for women's hair.

Still with our guide we went to a south indian restaurant and again had a Tali. This time we used utensils and not our hands. It was extremely tasty, some quite hot. BTW, Yuval is trying everything and eating quite a bit of stuff he wouldn't touch before - we are impressed! The highlight (which Avi liked and others hated) was a coconut leaf stuffed with coconut and sugar - a combination of sweet, sour and bitter tastes which is supposed to be good for digestion.

We then released the guide, and Ramu took us to the airport. He drove us for a week, and we were extremely impressed with his driving. He was not quite as reckless as some other drivers we had in the past, and probably better than all. The 7 hours of wait in the airport are coming to a close, and we'll soon board the flight to Bangalore.

P.S. we arrived safely in Bangalore, were picked up as planned and are staying in the lovely Le Meridien. Have to get up in less than 6 hours and drive to Hempi - that is expected to take 7 hours... Good night!