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Other entries in Madurai

Raindrops keep falling on our heads....

Haha so the minute we stepped out of the internet place we were greeted with rain and never ending thick clouds totally covering the hills. And it didnt look like it would be moving for a while......so we did what we seem to be doing best lately.....jump on another bus outta here!!! We decided to head east across india to the other side, and there was a town we wanted to visit on the way (around 5 hours) in Tamil Nadu called Maudrai - it supoosedly has one of the biggest most impressive temples in south india. We got the first bus (after waiting a few hours and cursing all the Indian people that keep lying to us  - no one out here will tell you no, or i dont know - you ask directions and they send you in any direction if they dont truly know, just cos they cant seem to admit they dont have a clue! They also seem to have promised us great weather for everywehre we've been......its all lies!!! Finally got on the bus and a couple of hours into the journey we came to the border with Kerala and Tamil Nadu - the scenery from here was just awesome - the  lush green mountains of Kerala in the background and the the dry sweeping planes of Tamil Nadu that seemed to go on forever....and the really amazing thing - the thick clouds that comepletly ruined the views in the Maduarai just came to an abrubt stop at the border - it must have something to do with the altitude and different air pressures in the mountains compared to the drier planes,. but it looked just amazing, like the clouds were suddenly like, "nope, Tamil Nadu, not going there!!"  After about half an hour waiting at the border and a bit of cursing the bus driver for standing around smoking and not driving the bus someone informed us that there were road works on the one road down out of the mountains which meant it would be shut for another few hours. Damn boring sitting waiting to move again! BUt when we did, it seemed the driver was in such a hurry to get down (probably before it got dark - there are obviously no lights on the roads up there!) so we were literally going break-neck speed down......but they were right about the road works - they were still building the road! IT was so narrow and windy we were literally inches away from the side of the mountain where the road just crumbles away to sheer drops.....me and Vince actually joked about what the newspapers would say in the coming days......"two tourists perish amongst a bus full of Indian nationals as the bus they were travelling on falls hundreds of feet down the mountains in southern India"......ok so not funny, but it really was a crazy drive!!!! But still here today so nothing to worry about!!

We arrived in Madurai quite late and found a room in the worst place i have ever stayed in - it was just awful!! Really cheap, but no window, the walls were kind of stained with god knows what, the "bathroom" was more like a dungeon with a whole in the ground, and it was so noisy full of Indian people talking really loud late into the night and buses and cars screaching past outside.....I was feeling so down about the place i couldn't even eat any dinner! It was just horrible!!!!! Even slept in my clothes cos we didnt really trust the bed! Probably in actual fact it wasnt that bad, but compared with the room we had in Munar the night before, it was just eugh!

So we got up early to go see the temple - and it was amazing!  Really really impressive, so many colours so many intricate carvings on all the walls, and inside it was really big (six hectares) and as many as 10,000 visitors (pilgrims and tourists) come there in any one day. They even had an elephant inside which (for a few rupees) will pat you on the head with its trunk (giving you a blessing). Vince also saw a bady elephant walking round, but i missed that one!

After a quick breakfast (these Idly things seems to be growing on me - i can really handly spicy sambar for breakfast now!) we got on another bus to a town called Kodai - bakc in the hills (but different ones so we thought there was a better chance of seeing the amazing views it supposedly has.....) after 4 hours or so we got there (the drive was cool with some good views) but the whole town was again covered in cloud (at least it wasnt raining) but we couldn't see a thing. We spoke to two french guys who said it had been like that the past 3 days, so after some lunch and buying some of thier speciality "homemade" chocolate (pretty good!) we relucantly got on another bus back down out of the mountains heading for Trichy (and hopefully better weather!)  We were both kinda pissed off at this point - feeling like we were gonna waste another whole day on another bus.....and even contemplated buying some magic mushrooms from this guy offering them at the bus stand - haha no way, we didnt take any - Vince said it would be crazy!!!!  So we just had two coffees instead while we waited for our next bus to leave.....

Arrived in Trichy about 6 hours later and after trying a few places we got a nice room (it was kinda late) and headed out for some really really cheap 9and great!) food before falling asleep! 

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