Madurai

When someone says Madurai, naturally everyone thinks of the Meenakshi temple, but as we discovered there is more to the place. We decided to go to Madurai , just to pay respects to the goddess. We had no reservations and we were like we'll just crash in any old place . We had'nt realised that Madurai had grown and is a major town now. boy were we in for a surprise !

Madurai as we found out was the third largest city in Tamil Nadu ( but that does not mean that any of them will talk to you in English , though they can speak Queen's English). We (again) were in a time crunch , so we were like we'll visit the temple nothing else. We did just that but the goddess had other plans for us.
We landed in Madurai , checked into a sad looking place near the main bus stand not realizing that there are decent hotels in the center of the city. We decided not to go to the Temple in the evening and decided to try out the shopping which Madurai is famous for.

Madurai is a city built around the Meenakshi temple . There are concentric lanes around the temple  dedicated to shopping . There must be at least 3 kms worth of only Gold & Silver shops around the temple . I have never seen so many shops selling only jewelery standing next to each other for kilometers together. It was amazing . But we cant really buy anything .. are you kidding me ? but there are other things you can buy , fun things . Madurai has an awesome flee market in one of the old buildings in front of the temple. You can get any brass ware imaginable ,any kind of junk jewelery, any imaginable tailoring supply, painting on cloth , beautiful clothes .. its amazing. But remember to bargain hard. Madurai is known to be the Pirated Blue Ray capital , you get every imaginable Blue Ray rip off at dirt cheap prices. There are CD shops next to the Periyar Bus stand which sell only these. Its worth it.

Around the temple is where you get the best food and tea and coffee in Madurai . Bloody cool I say ! Though the weather is hot and humid , you will enjoy the tea and 'muruku' ! There is no chat culture in the city but their local 'Sundal' is awesome. They have their own awesome ginger milk and snacks which are delicious. There is a famous place called Modern Hotel which serves the best food . Try the parota there . In T.N for some odd reason people do not eat a full meal in the evening, they eat snacks , heavy ones at that. We went to a place called Madurai Hotel, got the best damn South Indian 'thali' in the city .. Bless them !

We went to Madurai a day before the 'Subramanya Kalyana' . Since all the boards are in Tamil, we had no clue. We decided to skip the temple and visit the temple in the morning. The next day we arrive all clean and decently dressed to the temple , to be told by the police around the temple that the temple was closed for the day as Devi's Son was getting married, she was being taken there to bless the couple. In all my life , I had never heard that Subramanya was married ( I donno if anyone else knows that) . So what to do now , after moping around a little we decided to follow the Devi . She was being carried to a Subramanya temple outside town to bless the couple . It was a 'jatre' or a 'mela' . As everyone in India knows , any kind of procession is bad , that too the ones involving the gods are to be avoided , due to the sheer crush of it all . We were like its ok lets go , took a bus to the temple on the outskirts and we plunged right into the crowd. The temple was older than the Devi temple so you can imagine ,the crowd, the fumes of the Kalyanam and the bats in the temple was like aaaaaaaaa ... but we bribed our way into the shrine , got that Darshan (yey!) and came back in a crowded bus . Adventure of the day done .

We traveled only in the buses and the local shared autos in the city , they are cheap and well connected. Worth it. SO the dirt, the heat and the bats .. all was worth it , but my only regret is that I dint really see the famous Madurai temple, it is an architectural master piece . There are many other places to see in Madurai , palaces, museums  but we dint have the time ,but its supposedly worth a visit :)