We had a nice train journey from Madurai to Trichy and met a nice Indian lady who we spoke to for the whole journey and she answered alot of our questions we had about Indian culture - everyone you meet (most people) are very friendly and want to find out about what we're doing and where we're going - but are all very shocked to hear we are two girls on our own backpacking for 6 months!

Trichy was a noisey, busy, dirty, honking....let's leave ASAP kinda place!

We arrived without anywhere to stay (apparently it was the wedding season so all the hotels were booked up) we were "rescused" from the roadside by Jacky who had a guest house near by....so he said! After rickshawing through a local village we arrived at his house overlooking a rubbish tip and lots of cows! The homestay was nice enough but Jacky was crazy...and Sarah made him cry! Let us explain....after travelling all day and Deb not feeling 100% we hadn't eaten since breakfast so Sarah asked Jacky if he could cook up some vegetarian food - easy enough you may think....but not today! Jacky turned up with takeaway meat biriyani because he thought that all Western people like meat even the vegetarians!! The sight of the meat made tired and hungry Sarah burst into tears which in turn made Jacky burst into tears - to try and make things better Jacky found us a coconut, which we tried but ended up pouring down the drain (green coconuts are not as nice as the coconuts from the fair grounds in England!)

The only reason we came to Trichy was to see the Rock Fort Temple. To get there we jumped on the public bus which was a bit of a squeeze - Deb was hanging out of the door and being pushed around by all the fierce Indian women! The temple was carved into a huge rock face which has been there for thousands of years, the temple itself was not that impressive but the view from the top was worth the climb up!

Over our lunch of stuffed Kulcha (naan stuffed with spice paste) and Aloo Gobi we decided to cut our time in Trichy short and book our onward journey to Pondicherry.