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Other entries in Madurai

Madurai

I'd like to fully retract what I said just after landing in Coimbatore, namely that there is no hassle/staring etc in the South. That seems to be the case only in Coimbatore and Kerala. When we (a German guy I met in Kanniyakumari and I) stepped out of the station after we arrived in this city in the late evening we were in for quite a nasty surprise... I believe that persistence and the general pain-in-the-ass-ness ;) coefficient of Madurai's touts puts them on par with those in Agra. Or, perhaps, it's all relative and I only see this as such because I'd just spent some time in peaceful Kerala. Rickshaw drivers is one thing, but one tout followed us for good 20 minutes while we walked down the streets of Madurai trying to locate a hotel we wanted to stay in. That bguy kept walking either right beside us, or two steps behind and was continually mumbling (loudly, though) in something that I guess was supposed to be English: [something unintelligible] hotel. 200 rupees (or something like that). Whenever we'd go inside a hotel to check their rates, he'd inevitably follow yelling something to the receptionist. And, as these touts get comission for bringing people in, that probably explained why we found the prices to be higher than we expected. All our attempts to communicate with that guy i.e. telling him (initially) "no, thank you", yelling at him telling him to finally fuck off, and walking up to two Tamil guys and asking for our first lesson in Tamil language (how to tell somebody to, ehm..., get lost ;)),  failed miserably. Basically, we couldn't go into any hotel without that prick shadowing us. There have been many situations in India in which I really felt like kicking somebody's head in ;), but none was as effective at eliciting those feeling as this one :). Fighting the urge to slug him in the jaw, we decided to go into a restaurant :). Then he finally gave up and went away, and we got some tips about cheap hotels nearby from the restauerant's staff. A win-win situation, only that we won both things :). We got rid of our Indian shadow, and we found a hotel.

I'd come to Madurai to see one particular place: the Sri Meenkashi Sundareshwaram Temple, which is one of the largest temple complexes in India, and it'd also give me my first glimpse of a "southern-style" (whatever the proper name is) temple with all its gopuras (towers) etc. I went to the temple, which was only about a 10min walk away from my hotel, in the late morning but I didn't spend as much time there as I thought I would (want to). There's only that much time you can spend staring at the gopuras and the colourful sculptures. The inside of the temple complex (designed to resemble a giant mandala) is interesting as well, though non-Hindus are not allowed to enter the most important and,presumably, interesting temples. You do get to see one major "temple". I don't know what it's called,. but there's a statue of something that looks like a cow, without horns but with big lips (really) in the center, and there's a golden pole right next to it. Hindus are prostrating themselves on the floor in front of that. There're a few smaller temples/shrines in the same hall as the cow-thing god. The one I fonud most interesting had a number of figures, each with a name of a heavenly body (moon, Saturn etc), assembled together on a low, square, stone platform. There're people walkinbg clockwise around it. Now, that's a great form of prayer - you get to do some exercise at the same time ;). Outside this hall, you can see many wall and ceiling paintings - those on the ceiling in the corridor leading to the Golden Lotus Tank are especially nice, as is the Lotus Tank itself. It's possible to see a number of the complexes gopuras simultaneously from the edges of the tank. Just outside the temple there's a market selling all sorts of kitsch, religious souvenirs plus candles, flowers etc. 

After less than two hours, when I had seen everything that I wanted to see, I left for the station to find out how exactly I would be leaving the city. Well, I found that I wouldn't be leaving Madurai just yet, because the train that was more-or-less suitable to my needsa would be leaving only the next morning. OK, so I got the rest of the day to kill... why not try to finally find a pair of sunglasses? Buying sunglasses here is an act that requires a lot of faith. Faith in manufacturers ;). You have no way of knowing whether there's any decent UV filter in what you buy. Besides, there're so many brands with similar names: Fasttrack, Firsttrack, Funtracks - which ones are real, and which ones are fake??? They all look and cost the same. To minimize (or maybe I'm still naive about India) my chance of getting just a piece of dark plastic in return for my money, I opted to browse/shop only at opticians' stores. After visiting a few, I realized that there was just no way I could know how good their sunglasses really were. I certainly couldn't rely on whatever came out of the opticians' mouths. In my mind, they were Indians first, opticians second. Realizing that I'd probably never be certain of glasses' quality, and knowing that I couldn't go on forever without a pair, I chose to do the following: I started looking for the most expensive and "professional"-looking optician's store I could find; one that wouldn't look out of place back home. Once I determined which one it was, I went in, found a pair I liked and bought it straightaway. That was the end of it :).

Speaking of shopping: I came across a great store here in Madurai. It's called Shoppers Shop, and it's on Town Hall Road, about 50 meters from the train station. Inside you can find all sorts of food you haven't seen from leaving home: all sorts of chocolate, Toblerone, cartons of juices, cans of ham, mayo, Hershey's chocolate syrup :). All sorts of Western goodies. And it's air-conditioned, too :). I had my heart set on a carton of apple juice, but they didn't have one in the cooler, so I had a can of ice-cold Nescafe classic instead :). I do miss a gladd of cold apple juice. Or, just a glass of cold juice. I do like the Indian fresh-fruit juices, but I wish they kept the fruits in a fridge. BTW: around here, when you ask for a juice, they put whatever fruit you chose in a blender, and then serve it to you in a glass. Yeah, yeah, I know, it's better and healthier than the liquid you get from a carton, but slurping warm mango or papaya pulp through a straw on a hot day isn't that refreshing. Though, to be fair, the Indian method works well with grapes and watermelons :). One Indian drink that definitely is refreshing on a hot Indian day is a bottle of cold Limca. Limca is a lemon-flavoured soft drink but, unlike in the case of other soft drinks here, Indians haven't put a few pounds of sugar into each bottle ;). Soft drinks like Sprite seem to be much sweeter than they are back home... There's an Indian drink called Slice... Now that's really disgusting... unbelievably, sickeningly, sweet... Yuck! :). BTW: ever since coming to India I have been getting craving for Coke/Pepsi on a regular basis, even though I don't really drink either one back home. A few other people I've met said that they'd noticed the same thing. Maybe it's just my stomach appealing for something to kill all the bacteria... :)

One thing about India(ns) surprises me: they do have a real sweet tooth but, apparently, they haven't been able to come up with any decent (at least, from my Western point-of-view) or varied sweets. So far, I've found two sweets I kinda like. First is Gulab Jamun, which is a small (+-3cm), spongy thing that's served hot and it tastes like it's been made out of sugar that was then soaked in honey, and which is then served in a hot sugary syrup. Yeah, it is sweet :). I can't remember the name of the other sweet - it's those golden, coil- or pretzel-shaped things (maybe 4-5cm in size). you get them cold, but I've had them served hot as well (as part of "Indian breakfast"). Taste: I think it's a sugary "outer shell", that has a more syrupy sugar and honey mix inside. It's impossible to eat more than one :). I've visited Indian sweet-stalls, that you can find pretty much everywhere, and I also bought some sweets from stores and, to be honest, they were all the same. There's hardly any difference in taste (to me, at least). Each "sweet" (typically a small cube) is a very greasy mix of milk and sugar. Milk and sugar is all I could taste. I bought some "coconut" balls once, but the milk-sugar combo completely overpowered whatever coconut taste was there. Actually, the best of such sweets I've had (in terms of taste and texture) was served during my flight from Amsterdam to Delhi. I mean, it was still veeery sweet, but you could actually discern an some taste in the general sugariness :). That's why I stick to chocolate bars, and Western-style cakes (when available :)).

Recently I mentioned how every city has selected one thing with which to constantly pester you. In Madurai, believe it or not, it's the tailors who are the pain in the ass. Each one wants to make a copy of your clothes for you. No, I don't want another pair of everything I have! :). Though, I suppose I might save a little on laundry that way ;). They should put up a sign at the station: "Beware of tailors" ;) 

When I was at the station earlier in the day, and I sat down for a minute a young guy/boy approached me. His opening line: => "hi, I collect American coins..." => "Really? Me too..." :)

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