11th of January
At 9.00pm, our taxi arrived to take us to the 35 km /1 hour / 800 Inr journey to Villapuram Train Station. We found out that Pondi does have, after all, a train station, but it is very limited in scope and does not reach the great Southern Network.
The taxi driver was young and savy, but as we left the city centre in the evening, we got arrested by a policeman who asked me where we were going (Train Station) and where to (Madurai). Finally, he asked if it would be ok to search our luggage and I said yes with calm and no hesitation, so he let us go without searching.
10:30pm - on arrival, the building did not look at all like a train station; we had to go up a long concrete ramp before we could reach the reservation office, and the officers looked at our e-tickets suspiciously. Our train was not on the luminous billboard, but I was reassured by the officer that it would come tonight on Platform 2.
I have to admit that I would not have liked to find myself in such place at night alone. There were a lot of small food sellers waiting endlessly for the next train to appear, there were people sleeping on cardboard on the ground, beggars, but also school groups, no westerners at all on this occasion.
We made our way to the platform 2, and doubled checked with the station master who said it may arrive on platform 1, and to go at the beginning of the platform in order to reach First Class 1AC wagons. It was impossible to work out how far we should walk, and the trains are incredibly long (much longer than the TGVs), but it was easy to switch platform, so we decided to walk up a bit. When the PanIndia Express (our train) arrived – on platform 1 -, it was easy enough to switch platform but we had to run with the luggages because we were far away from our wagon. A military man helped us out to board the right wagon. It had been impossible to figure it out by ourselves with all the good will in the world. I reinforced my concept of keeping the luggage weight down.
It took us only 10mns before we could be in bed sleeping. We were escorted to our cabin immediately. A man brought two pairs of sheet each, a nice woollen blanket and fluffy pillows. He made our beds on the generously large leather bunk benches, and we fell asleep immediately. We could put our luggages under the lower beds. The light went on again at 5.45am, and the train arrived in the station (terminus) at 6.15am. An incredible amount of people came out of that very train, it was smelling horrible as we walked along the wagons. People had done the journey sitting at night all the way from Chennai.
Madurai, the 12th of January
The strip of tourist hotels are located only 200 m from the train station, so we decided to walk. This was the theory, but Madurai traffic is extremely busy: that was our biggest town so far, and it was hard to make our way through the crowd with our luggages.
With much difficulties (we tried 3 hotels nearby), we found a suite (2 rooms with one common bathroom) for 2200 Inr all inclusive with breakfast at the Keerthi Hotel. The tourists in the area are mostly Indian who want to visit or pray in the famous Shri Meenakshi Temple, so the kind of services are more designed towards the Indian clientele. For example, breakfast in our hotel was definitely Indian Breakfast and 100% vegetarian as seems the case in the restaurant around this area. The kids went one level up in their acculturation.
We were lucky to be let in our rooms immediately, and have this breakfast. The beds were queen size, and the rooms clean and of modern style, in great contrast with Hotel de l’Orient for sure! The staff was very friendly.
Around 10.00am, we took an auto rickshaw to visit the famous Sri Meenakshi Temple. It is best seen from the roof of the antique stores surrounding the temple, but our rickshaw stopped at a nice angle. We were immediately surrounded by touts proposing all kind of services with a lot of insistence, including one who wanted us to put our shoes in his ‘friends shop’. I glimpsed a more official and organised area to leave our shoes in, we only had to give 5 rupees for that when we collected them. The entrance fee for the temple was 50 Inr for tourists + 50 Inr if you wished to take photos inside (a permit), 10 Inr for Indian people entry fee and some parts of the temple were only for Hindus.
The good thing about this temple is that it was ‘one of a kind’, made of 30 000 or so colourful statues representing deities and alternative forms of deities endlessly. We saw people talking in the ears of some of these deities, bringing offerings made of food on banana leaves or fresh flower necklaces, people kissing the grounds, even a live elephant inside blessed me with his trunk!! The kids were mesmerised by the atmosphere and the amazing variety of gods and were busy taking lots of photos with their own cameras where it was allowed.
After that, we went to the Tirumalai Nayak Indo Muslim palace dated XVII s, built by an Italian architect. The architecture is very impressive and the place hosts a sound and lights show every evening in English and in Tamil, but we skipped that because we would be too tired tonight. The palace seemed very peaceful as it was not counting many devotees, I could glance many young couples looking for isolating spaces in the large window frames of the palace. I don’t think it was a religious place, which would explain the lack of interest by people.
We took another auto rickshaw (35 Inr) – the kids love it / Oscar seats on my laps since it is only designed for 3 passengers in the back – to our hotel and shortly after, the rickshaw took Oscar and Paul to have a hair cut at the local barber. They were treated extremely nicely, we even had to take pictures of them all and we'll send one back to the hairdresser.
In the evening, we had a sumptuous meal on the rooftop of the Supreme Hotel. We found a spot in the roof garden corner so we could enjoy an unchallenged view over the town, with Shri Meenakshi Temple in the distance.
Wedding Night every night for a God and a Godess
One interesting fact I read in Le Guide du Routard is that the statue of Shiva is taken every evening at 9pm from the Sri Sundareswara sanctuary (forbidden to non Hindus) to Meenaskshi's sanctuary, so that the two Gods can spend the night together.
Why? The energy produced is believed to revitalise everyday all the universes' energy!
We also booked our taxi to take us to Kanyakumaru tomorrow morning (235 kms – 4 hours). We cancelled the train two days ago (got refund) because we thought it would be too much for the kids. We even considered the bus (6 hours) but decided otherwise when Oscar started complaining his stomach was aching. He has not complained since then, but I think it is better not taking the risk of being ‘stuck in a bus’. The fare is only 3200 Inr (80 Aud) for a taxi all the way.
....better go and supervise the kids brushing their teeth with clean water, they tend to get a bit too relax about such things now.
