On the Top of the World

Train Travelling in India
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We decided to go by train from Pondi to Trichy. But the lady in the train station was not really helpful and told us we had to go to this town, Villapuram, by bus and then get the train there.

So we woke up really early (6:30 am) and got to Villapuram early only to find out that we had to wait for the train at least 3 hours... Thanks a lot Miss Helpful Indian Railways 2007! Trains don't seem to run that often and again we didn't know we had to reserve seats at least with 24 hours in advance... (our fault it was very clearly stated in the guide)

Crazy old Vincent with Helena!
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So we just got these unreserved tickets and hoped we could get a seat. In the end this was great, we got seated in 2nd class with this 4 really great indians. There was this lady Ivette whose mother was indian-portuguese, her husband Christopher, a former railroads worker, Vincent a friendly and knowledgeable Maduraian and the fourth had a really difficult name, Tamil, but he was the one who called us to seat.

We had this great chat, and the 3 hours flew. We talked about christian Indians, religion, economics, India and its problems, politics, you name it!

Rock Temple View, Great sight!
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We came out in Trichy with Ivette and her husband and bid them well, as we headed to this hotel zone, trichy junction. We tried out several hotels, and most looked at us and said they had no rooms available... Oh well, I know we didn't look our best but come on, at least we take a shower more than once a day, which is much more than most people here can claim...

Lunch was unforgetable, we went to vincent's garden restaurant. There were latino clients in the house, spanish (catalan excuse me), italians and us. Vincent was this crazy old man, who insisted to know where we came from, to write down on this memoires book, and also that we had some sort of fish ("very fresh, very fresh"). We were not the only ones who thought he was crazy, some spaniards said in the book that he ought to be studied in Oxford. In the end he asked for a good tip ("because I'm an old man, Sir"), "fare enough Vincent, you're an old man, so is my Grandpa, but more than that you're a character so here you go".

Golden Dome at the Rock Temple
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So we ended up in this cheap place, reasonable and not that noisy. We then headed to the center by bus. This is a great experience. It is fully packed and people are hanging from the door. There is a ladies section, therefore I couldn't go with Helena... The ticket boys were shouting all the time and hurrying people either to get out really fast or get in while the bus was already moving... The music was loud.

We were told to get out next to this catholic church, so we agreed they had made a mistake and understood temple looked at us and wondered they are white so they must be christian. I was about to ask someone where the rock temple was when: BAM. There it was on top of a hill, in the middle of the city. We walked through the chinese bazaar, amazing and went through a tunnel.

Climbing to the Rock Temple
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There were I don't know how many stairs to climb. It was great, the view is really amazing, and the inside is too. Worth the effort, that's for sure!

Afterwards we went to this cool temple outside the city claimed to be the biggest in South India, don't know if this is true but sure was big... It seemed it had a hole city inside its walls and it had 7 layers of walls. We went to the fourth, but then decided to call it a day, besides after the sixth only hindus are allowed.

It was night already so we headed to the hotel, ate really close to it in this nice place New Sanganna. We also bought some cookies for the next bus journey. To find this really good and CLEAN bakery it is very easy just look for the only garbage bin in the central square of Trichy Junction!

We had a good night's sleep. We would go to Madurai at the 6:30 bus.