It was late when we finally reached Madurai, after 10:30 PM. We found some dinner and had our first experience of Kari Dosa - a much thicker, meat filled variant of a dosa that was more like a pancake. We turned up at our hotel to be promptly shown a list of rules, one of which being “Indian Nationals Only”. Ah. That would be a problem! We talked to the manager on the phone and there was no way they were going to let us stay there so we had to find a new hotel at nearly midnight. They recommended somewhere nearby and we showed up to a lovely security guy and receptionist who could fortunately get us a room. Unfortunately, it was nearly three times the price of what we usually like to pay, especially for a night which was only going to be about eight hours before we checked out!!! We enjoyed our short sleep in our overpriced bed, and were woken up to a phone call informing us of the complimentary breakfast, what a treat!
Our main reason for coming to Madurai was to try and visit the school that I worked at in 2012 when I visited India on a World Challenge trip. I’ve actually kept that visit as a separate blog, to ensure the location of the school is marked on our map, and to allow for all the things I have to say about that day (which is lots). So, that blog (which I'll post tomorrow) picks up here, after breakfast when we met Rajesh, and this blog is going to now skip to the end of that day, when we get back to the hotel. Suitably confused? Once you’ve read both I’m sure it will make sense.
After we said goodbye to Rajesh, we only had six hours to fill before our overnight train to Varkala, which wasn’t nearly enough to explore the city known as the “heart of Tamil Nadu”. We got into an auto rickshaw with our bags and headed into the centre of the city, enjoying the most beautiful city sunset on the way. I love the feeling of whizzing through rush hour traffic, scarf covering your mouth and nose from the fumes, light slowly fading, horns blaring, sights and sounds and smells everywhere and the ever present feeling that your driver is cutting everything a little too close for comfort. It’s just a total sensory overload and every time I feel like I’m in a movie and I just can’t believe this is actually my life!
First stop was the train station to drop our bags at the cloak room - realizing most stations have these is going to be so helpful for overnight travel, filling that gap between check out and the evening train. We also wanted to confirm we had booked our tickets correctly as it was our first time… and turns out we were actually on a wait list! So that’s what the WL stood for… Once the “chart” is prepared two hours before departure you find out if you get a seat (or a bed) in the class you booked, and thankfully the people we talked to seemed pretty confident we would with our waitlist position.
The rest of the evening involved dinner - more Kari Dosa, biriyani and soup - all mutton! We had found a place on google maps, and had walked through an absolute rabbit warren of alleyways to find it. On the way we got a glimpse into the (very spiritual) life of Madurai, with every house having small shrines out the front and house sized temples on nearly every corner. India’s second most popular religion was also being celebrated in the streets. Cricket, or course! A group of boys were practising in the street and wanted to show off their skills forcing scooters, auto rickshaws and bicycles to stop and wait while they finished their play. After they found out we were from New Zealand, they were very excited to talk to us, asking our favorite Indian players. Rahul or Varun were the two we could remember (thankfully). Next we were off to find the (actual) temple the city is so well known for.
The Meenaksi Amman temple is another special hindu temple, dedicated to the goddess Meenaksi (a form of Parvati) as the principal deity, and her consort (a form of Shiva) and her brother (a form of Vishnu). This makes the temple pretty significant as it forms a confluence between three main branches of Hinduism that celebrate different deities as their supreme deity (Shiva, Vishnu or, a woman/feminine energy). Entering this temple was a mission, you had to leave your shoes, bags and any technology (phones included) at the entrance, and we really had to have faith in the system as we had all our tech with us due to the train!! You’re not allowed to take any photos inside, but we thoroughly enjoyed wandering the ornate halls and admiring the carvings and different shrines throughout. The ceilings and pillars were a real highlight, wherever you looked it was decorated in so much detail. Unfortunately the massive gopurams or entrance towers there were covered up for painting while we were there, but you could still see the size and imagine the detail underneath the shade cloth.
We couldn’t actually perform darshun (the act of viewing the deity) at this temple as it was reserved for practising Hindus only, but seeing the size of the line we weren’t mad about that. We were pretty happy to spend an hour or so wandering the halls and admiring this historic and spiritual place. Originally built in 1190 CE, the temple has been in use ever since, apart from a 60 year stint for rebuilding after destruction in the 14th century. You could feel the history in this place, and we felt very privileged to observe such an ancient worship experience.
After we left the temple (and successfully got all our belongings back), we enjoyed a cup of street side chai before heading to the railway station. Here we spent an hour or so in an AC lounge ($2.41 NZD well spent) getting ready for our first overnight train journey. We had booked 3rd class AC, and as it was our first experience we were a little nervous. It was a bit hectic finding the right platform and coach number, but the system is actually very well organized and easy to follow if you know where to look. It’s just navigating the different webpages and texts and tickets to find the information that can be a little bit confusing!! Once we got onboard we were excited to find all the bunks had a pillow, sheets and a blanket that all were (seemingly) freshly washed. Josh took the top bunk and I used a scarf/shawl to give a little extra privacy to me on the bottom, and it all worked a treat. We were getting ourselves all sorted when we both realized we were moving already - neither of us had even noticed the train had started!! We got tucked up and both fell asleep easily, only wishing it was a longer ride to enjoy our comfortable bunks. We woke about six hours later as it was starting to get light to views of the trackside palm trees of Kerala.
