Madurai

So the day Bev left, I headed to Chennai for work. Since i'm in Chennai fairly often, this isn't a big deal, but this time I went to Madurai, which is a smaller city towards the bottom of the state. I did the overnight train to Madurai one night and then another overnight train the following night back to Chennai. I wouldn't recommend this for work purposes - I'm exhausted from not sleeping either night (crazy noisy cabin mates that thought turning on all lights at 3am was a good idea, and ridiculously cold AC). However, I have a policy against allowing myself to complain, because it could become a full time job. And I think if you allow yourself to think negative thoughts the experience becomes negative. So let's concentrate on the good parts, of which there are many.

Madurai is known for it's temples, the biggest of which is the Sri Meenakshi complex. It's a typical tamil (not really the right word, but typical of the style of the rulers whose territory included tamil nadu) style, which is very distinct from the northern buildings of similar times. I'd seen pictures and so the towers pictured above (there are like 5 or 6 and they are 150ft tall) didn't take my breath away but the sculptures inside did. They are so well preserved, there are tons of them and so beautifully done. The temple complex took about 400 years to build (they say that encompassed 64 generations, so life span must have been short) and covers like 15 acres or something. Each temple has over 1000 sculptures in it. Non-hindus aren't allowed in many of the temples, which is the first time I've encountered this. Some of the original paintings remain, which are also stunning. The picture is of me being blessed by a temple elephant, which apparently means being tapped on the head by his trunk.

And I didn't get a picture of this but in the tradition of great promises of indian bottled water, I noticed I was drinking "diet water" this week!