The temple city of Madurai: part I

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Crossing into Tamil Nadu
The trip down the hill from Kumily into Tamil Nadu was a lot less nail biting than it is going west into Kerala. The dangerous part of the descent took less than 15 minutes after which the landscape becomes increasingly flatter. However, overall the three and half hours bus drive felt more hazardous than anything else we have done whilst in India. It seems like the Tamil bus drivers are even more fearless than their Keralan counterparts; they will, literally, only slow down if an accident is otherwise unavoidable, and the number of near misses were appalling.

Apart from the descent, the route to Madurai is not especially scenic; the landscape of Tamil Nadu is generally unappealing with lots of dust, few trees, large banana plantations, rice fields and dried out rivers.

As we arrived in the first town after crossing the border our predictions of the prevalence of wide spread animal abuse was confirmed. The town was full of stray donkeys, probably released by their owners due to age. Also, it was clear that we had entered the land of bullock drawn carriages. Of course, most of these people don't know any better and are trying to make a living, but there really is no need to tie a cow's head to its foot or to tie a donkey's feet together to limit their movement. Nor is it necessary to hit the bullocks's testicles to make it move faster. And throwing stones at a dog that has lost its mobility in both back legs is inexcusable. These are just a few examples of our unpleasant animal experiences whilst in Tamil Nadu.

Anyway, this first town in Tamil Nadu is called Cumbum; according to legend it was named by a Tamil comedian, Kescarli, who was a keen student of the English language. It not only differs from any of the places we saw in Kerala by the extensive display of badly treated animals, but it also is extremely poor. Many houses are made of mud, bamboo or metal sheets, and people seem to exist at the lowest level of subsistence. And this is the general picture when travelling through the countryside of Tamil Nadu.

Accommodation
When arriving in Madurai from Kumily you get off at Arapalayam Bus Stand which is located a Rs. 40 distance from the town centre. As the bus came into the bus station a couple of rickshaw drivers jumped on the moving bus offering their services. These weren't only transport, but also included an offer of taking us to Hotel Padmam. We rejected the offer and asked to be taken to West Perumal Maistry Street where most of the hotels are located. Padmam is only a five minute walk from there, and it looks like a very nice place where the rooms have balconies. It is also quite cheap, and it gets a good review in Rough Guide. However, no matter how good an offer we will receive from a rickshaw driver, there is no way we are going to accept it.

Before arriving we had made a list of potentially interesting hotels. First we went to TM Lodge. Even though the rooms looked fine, the institutional feel and the Indian toilets were less appealing. We then went to Hotel Chentoor, which is reviewed well in Rough Guide and on some of the Internet sites that we have looked at. Unfortunately, they only had A/C rooms available. As mentioned elsewhere, we prefer non A/C rooms and it would only be a last resort. We then went to Rathna Residency, which at Rs. 500 for a non A/C room is good value for money. We got a room that was very clean, but a bit stuffy. The staff were very friendly, and, as it turned out, the room had a much needed cable TV.

Based upon our experience of Madurai, we would recommend visitors to find a hotel which has balcony rooms. There is not an awful lot to do at night so being able to sit on a balcony, with a view, in the comfortable evening heat will be most pleasant. Though there are quite a lot of mosquitoes in Madurai, insect repellent and coils should keep them at bay. Unfortunately, the rooms at Rathna Residency do not have balconies.

The temple
Madurai is renowned for its Meenakshi Temple. It consists of four towers, a north, east, south and west tower; the one in the photo below is East Tower. The towers are identical even though it took a hundred years to build each one. In between the towers is a large courtyard. The difference between the Meenakshi Temple and most other temples is that non-Hindus have access to most of the temple. Only the sacred areas of prayer, the inner chambres, are reserved for Hindus.
Since we were only staying in Madurai for a day and a half we soon got on our way to the temple which is located 10 minutes walk from Rathna Residency. It turned turned out to be a record breaking tour of touting. There are three types of people selling goods and services in Madurai who apply the technique of touting. First, there are the cycling and motorised rickshaw drivers and taxi drivers by whom you will be stopped every five minutes with the offer of being transported to any imaginable destination, and some of them will even throw in some hash for good measure. Second, there are the tailors who all seem to be able to make an exact copy of whatever you are wearing in an hour for Rs. 40. Third, there are the rickshaw drivers and tailors who will offer to take you to a Government roof with a perfect view of the temple.

We actually fell for one of the latter types. We hadn't realised that in order to get to the “Government roof” we had to go through a three storey Kashmiri owned shop selling the usual mix of stuff from all over India. It was quite impressive and the Kashmiri salesperson we talked to was very honest about the procedure that got us there. Basically, the tailor gets some kind of reward according to how many people he manages to drag to the shop; the nature of the reward seemed a bit unclear. Still, the view was good and we got a thorough look around in the shop.

Eventually, we made it to the temple, which was full of the obligatory pilgrims, and the construction is quite impressive. We spent an hour walking around in the temple and its ground, and bought some postcards from one of the many postcard sellers. Whenever we buy tourist items we attempt to buy from persons who otherwise seem unemployable, which would, typically, be people who have some kind of disability.

Food
One of the positives of Madurai is that it is very easy to find nice food. The Tamil Nadu cuisine is similar to the Keralan; rice meals and different variations of dosa are the most common foods in Tamil Nadu.

As usual, once we found a place that serves well made food we didn't bother with other places; the stay is too short for that. In West Perumal Maistry Street there is a good pure veg restaurant serving North and South Indian food. Both types of food are extremely well made. Especially the coconut dosa with sambhar and coconut chutney is a highly recommended breakfast meal. In addition, the coffee is excellent. Only slight criticism of the menu is that they don't serve fresh fruit juices and that they never seem to have any available soft drinks even though they are advertised and the drinks fridge behind the counter is in full working order.

Fresh fruit juices, which have become an important ingredient of our lives in India, are readily available from street stalls. Our preferred choices are orange, musambi, which is sweet lime fruit, and orange and pommegranate juices. A glass of fruit juice will, from a street stall, typically cost Rs. 15 or 20, whereas the price in a restaurant can be up to Rs. 40.

Another food attraction of Madurai are the street stalls selling freshly made food from where we got the freshest, and probably best, onion bhaji we have ever had for Rs. 3.

During our long period of researching South India, we came across an article in The Hindu about a Danish bakery in Madurai. According to the article, the bakery is making traditional Danish pastries, and Mort being Danish, we had to get a rickshaw out of central Madurai to see if this could actually be true. It wasn't. The bakery was there, but there was a very limited selection of any type of traditional bakery items, and the pastries were neither particularly Danish nor very interesting.
Anyone with an interest in sweet Indian cakes should visit the large shop on the corner of East and South Masi Street selling cakes, fruit juices and pizzas. They also sell curries from late in the afternoon onwards. Brilliant place.

As it turned out, we spent most of our time in Madurai walking and eating, and the temple isn't the only attraction in Madurai.

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This entry was posted by pundabee, on Monday, January 08, 2007. You can leave your response.