Madurai, India
9° 56' N 78° 7' E
Mar 28, 2006 10:30
Distance 207km

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India - Madurai to Pune

Text written in: English

This last week has been flat out - travelling through 4 states and heading onto the fifth tonight, so will make this short and sweet and let the photo's do the talking (if I can figure out how to get them on here...)

Went to Madurai in Tamil Nadu to visit Sri Meenakshi Temple, a very colourful, intricately carved temple with a number of smaller gold tipped temples within the grounds.  Also had fun with the locals at one of the street markets - they all loved showing us what we should be having and how to eat - didn't have the heart to tell them it wasn't our first time at a street stall...

Then caught a bus to  Ooty - it was strange arriving in a ton in India where everyone is wearing beanies and jackets!  After threatening my sleeping bag for 2 weeks about it not being needed and I was going to find him a new home, I was regretting every word I had said :)  Ooty is another hill station full of friendly people, more horses than cows and this particular one specialises in habd made chocolates - pretty sure it is because it is the onle place in India they won't melt... We had a look at a thread garden where 50 people worked for 12 years to make a garden from thread without the use of needles, I think they said 600 million meters of thread were used, very impressed by the realism. 

Moving onto Mysore in Karnataka we found accommodation just before dark and when we came out for dinner we realised we were staying in Compton - next day we "Got straight outta Compton" and moved into a nice, secluded spot for Nik's birthday, it was above a restaurant that had live traditional instramental music played every night.  Here we caught a bus to Chamundi Hll to climb up and down the 1000 steps to Sri Chamundeswari Temple.  Indian Pilgrims must d this once in their lives and the ones we saw were putting tikka (coloured powder) on each step individually!  Makes the trip very long...  At the top, there were lots of monkey's stealing people camera's - quite entertaining to watch...

We treated ourselves to a flight from Bangalore to Pune in Maharashtra, where we are now, relaxing before moving ionto Ahmedebad, Gujaray to try and get to Rajasthan...

Still searching for :

711's (Kwickeymart) and

Indian Minor birds

Will keep you posted :)

 

 

 

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