We were a bit apprehensive about going to Madurai because a few days earlier there was a mob attack on a newspaper office in which 3 people died. This was because of a disagreement of an opinion poll published by the paper, anyway we decided to to go and prayed there wouldn't be any more violence in the city!!!

We left Ooty at 5am, we were planning to get a local bus to Coimbatore and change buses for Madurai. When we got to the bus station there was a jeep there with a family squashed in the front, the jeep was a sort of private bus going direct to Coimbatore and would get there 1 hour earlier than the local bus. We decided to cram in the jeep and off it went . The driver stopped occasionaly to let more people on - we were fascinated by how many could fit? into one jeep!! We arrived in Coimbatore 3 hours later and got a rickshaw to the bus station where the Madurai bus was waiting to go. The bus was a bit painful - the journey was 5 hours long. It had a T.V showing an awful Bollywood movie, the films main star was a really ugly fat man with a dodgy tash doing kung-fu moves which we thought would rip his trousers in real life.!! In between beating everyone up, beautiful women were swooning over him. We were releaved when the film finally finished, only to be horrified when 5 minutes later another film came on with the same bloke in it but he was a bit younger (but still ugly!!). The film was almost identical to the first we had just seen!!

We got to Madurai about 1ish and found a sort of nice room which smelt really damp but it would do!! We had a little nap and then went to get a bite to eat from a rooftop restraunt, it was here we caught our first glimpse of the Sri Meenakshi Temple complex. The Temples were all lit up and stood out from the rest of the buildings around - they looked pretty amazing.

The next day we went and looked around the Gandi Memorial Museum, it was really interesting and it had a blood stained cloth in a glass cabinet that Gandi had wornwhen he was assasinted . We then got dropped off near our hotel and walked to the Sri Meenakshi Temple comlex. As we got to one of the temple entrance a man approached us and said there was a Hindu festival inside and only Hindu's we're allowed in, we couldn't enter until 6pm, loking at our watches it was only 5pm. The man then said "come with me and you can get a great view from a rooftop nearby". We had read up on this scam before we got to Madurai, basically man takes you to shop/emporioum, shop takes you to rooftop, upon leaving forces you to buy something. We started to tell the man we wern't intreasted and that we didn't have any money, the man started to tell us he worked in the temple himself and he did't need money. We felt like he was being really genuine, until he led us to an emporium and said "go up and enjoy the views", the man then scurried off.? Me and Kam started to have a little arguement on wheter we should go upstairs or not. We ended up going to the roof and got some really good views - we took some pics then planned our escape, we literally ran down the stairs and through the shop, the owner started to say "would you like....." but we were well gone before he could finish!!! We went to another temple entrance and asked the guard on the door when the festival finished, he looked extreamly confused. Why of course there was no festival, why of course this bloke didn't work in the temple and of course he was trying to take Westerners for a ride, but we knew his little game, so 1-0 to us!!!! So we went into the temple and had to remove our shoes first. Inside there were tacky stalls selling toys and other nik-naks and there was an idol of a bull which people were whispering things into it's ears. We came across an elephant, that people would place money in its trunk and it would hand the money to the owner (with its trunk) and then bless the people by tapping its trunk on their heads. Parents would get the elephant to bless their little kids, this was quite amusing to watch because the kids would start to cry as the trunk wacked them around the head, or look absolutly petrified!!! We went into a museum of temple art, which we found a bit dull!! We walked around a bit more but started to fell intrusive as people were praying around us. We didn't feel comfortable, although it was intresting to witness Hindu culture and the way they practise first hand. We did manage to find our way back to the hotel, even though the streets were quite confusing because they all looked the same. Near the hotel a really old man asked Kam where he was from, Kam replied Ogopog a made up town near Alaska, and he knew its exact location. He then said "i'm a Hippy and I smoke Marajuana, would I like some", and I replied "NO", we then parted our ways. I thought maybe this guy was from the Columbian Cartel.

Anyway Madurai alot better than we were expecting and we quite enjoyed it.

Next stop Kanyukamari........................?