South India Tour - Madurai

5 June - Madurai 

Got up at 6:30 am and did a lot of laundry. Went for breakfast and then went to visit the great Meenakshi temple. It is one amazing temple! Such high towers, all about 3000 years old. We had to leave our shoes outside the towers. It is a huge compound that we had to walk barefoot on. A guard stopped Bhaiya from taking video (pictures were ok – but not video), and that erupted in a big fight between the guard and us. There are no rules or regulations anywhere, these guards and priests make their own rules wherever – that is the most irritating part of all the temple visits.  This should not happen in God’s house – but this is India – anything can happen. We got tickets for the camera and finally went in. a priest came with us, we did aarti, sat for a while and then went to walk around the temple.  

   

Went and saw the thousand pillar room. The pillars are arranged in in several rows and some of them are musical. Amazing. On one end of the room were statues of Natraj and Parvati – so beautiful and so serene.  

There are five towers in the temple entrance and they all look alike, so one has to remember which entrance they came from. After one round, Bhaiya and I again went to walk around and admire the temple art and work. We came to the main entrance on the east side where there were many vendors, including flowers. 

In the center of the compound was a large tank of water with lotus flowers in it. And then we saw an elephant! In the temple – he was giving blessings with his trunk. What a sight! We also went to see the flower market – which was a whole other thing! Flowers were being sold by the weight.  The smell was good in some places but otherwise it was a messy and smelly (bad) place. There was garbage all over the place – and this is near the temple! 

Came back to the hotel, had lunch and rested for a while. The air is not as humid, although it’s still hot. Went out for a walk in the evening to see if there was any shopping place. Stopped by at a Gandhi Handloom store and bought a kathakali mask. Had an evening drink on the roof of a high tower of a restaurant. Beautiful view of the temple gopurams (towers). Went back to the hotel, changed rooms to a less noisy one.  Went to sleep…tomorrow we have to get up early for Rameshwaram.