Mad Madurai

Madurai never sleeps.

We arrived at 8pm, found a reasonably priced hotel by 8:30 and found a place to eat at 9:30 - not the best place ever, but we thought we would run out of choices if we don't order fast. After dinner we walked around to get a lay of the land and saw that some tea stalls and restaurants were still buzzing with activity. 

We passed by a barber shop and asked how much they charge, but the barber insisted that Henri get his haircut tout suite. Henri said, "but it's late! I'll do it tomorrow!" But they barber was just so darn insistent and we had nothing better to do, in fact it would save us some time the next day so Henri gave in. It was so cool because they specialize in "bear carving," among others... 

What was strange was they had a sign that said they absolutely will not "shave armpits." Honestly, who goes to the barber to have their pits shaved? How lazy are you?

The next day, we had traditional breakfast of puri (puffy fried bread) and marched 2 blocks behind the hotel only to be greeted by this sight:

The Sree Meenakshi Temple is the Taj Majal of Southern India. It is dedicated to one of the wives of Shiva who had a third breast, prophesied to melt away once she found true love.

It's so pretty and colorful inside, not to mention HUGE!

The surrounding area is brimming with touts who invite you to see the temple from the roof of their silk emporiums but you can't get out of those places without buying.

There are also entrances to the temple where people have to pay entrance and camera fees; by luck we avoided these entrances and got to enter and take pictures without paying anything.

Babies are brought here, their faces drawn with dots (one on each cheek and one on the forehead), same with their cute little feet, and then they are placed on the damp floor to receive blessings.

Women smelling of jasmine keep the flame alive at the feet of Hanuman with their puja or oil lamp offerings.

This phallic representation of Shiva is the longest lingam we've ever seen. There's even a hole in the roof because it's too big to fit inside the temple. Someone is compensating ;)

Actually, it seems like the temple is baby obsessed, judging by the looks of this tree, weighed down by the offerings of toy babies in carriages.

Outside we saw pilgrims chilling out. This is how most men in Tamil Nadu look like. In fact, their film stars look like this, chubby and mustachioed.

It's such a load off everyone's back when there's no pressure to go to the gym. You can't tell the ordinary guy from the movie stars and politicians.

So I kind of convinced Henri to try to fit in and grow his own Tollywood moustache. New look to be unveiled soon!

Then we got a little lost and then it started to drizzle and Henri was mad at the Lonely Planet map for being wrong all the time.

Eventually we found the Tirumalai Nayak Palace, but it was closed for lunch until 2pm. The front was not so insipiring so we decided to skip it.

Actually, we skipped a lot of touristy things to do in Madurai, they just didn't seem so interesting. Instead we went to the Tata internet office to complain about our wifi connection because we couldn't even open emails anymore :(

On the way back we made a pit stop at Saint Mary's Cathedral. There's an ice cream shop next to it where old men hang out but don' buy anything. It feels like a cover business like the one in Weeds.

Then we saw these guys making silk. So that's how they do it! Old school for the win!

Well, we got a little lost again and Henri cursed the map. This is just an ordinary street with ordinary guys, in their ordinary skirts.

And the ordinary banana trees just loitering about.

 And the big brown Santa reminding us that christmas is near.

In fact these guys were repainting the building just in time to spruce things up before the holidays.

It was just in front of our hotel, but we didn't want to rest yet. We didn't have a bite to eat since breakfast and we wanted some burgers!

The place recommended by Lonely Planet sucked and we were still hungy, so we thought of catching the sunset at one of the rooftop restaurants recommended for its cold coffee...

The view was great, but it rained again. This time, enough to make us run back into the hotel. After the clouds parted, we went back to our chairs and an elderly Indian couple asked us about our trip. They recommended going to their city near Delhi, which they said is a bit like Paris architecturally.

That night, after watching some movies on TV, we went out for a date in one of the rundown restos that look so much in place in a chinese gangster movie. But we're not running guns, are we? Again, it was recommended by Lonely Planet, which has brought us to eat in such disappointing digs since arriving in Delhi... So it was just a bit depressing, but also quite entertaining because the waiter was so unintentionally funny :D