Temples and touts

Meenakshi Temple
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Excerpt from Becks' diary:

Wake up in Madurai. Busy city, though not as unbearably hectic as the book made it out to be. It is not really a tourist town and our hotel seems like the smartest place around.

Lunch at a great banana leaf thali place. The waiter seems genuinely honoured that we should have chosen to eat there and comes to check on our enjoyment of the lunch over and over again.

Streets up to the temple are lively and noisy. "Official" touts try to lure us into "government shops" from where, they promise, we will have a no strings great view over the town and its main attraction, the Meenakshi Temple... yeah right!

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Ben needs to change into trousers to visit the temple and we head back there in the early evening. Many of its remarkable and famous coloured towers are covered in scaffolding and inside the temple's architecture is perhaps a little underwhelming. However, this is made up for by the mystical and awe inspiring effect of the thousands of worshippers streaming through the place. There is a heavy smell of incense, flowers and people, which adds to the magic and I begin to wish I knew more about this religion.

Outside we get a freshly squeezed pineapple juice from India's street stall answer to Jamba Juice - delicious! Followed by a sweet from the confectioner's on the main street on our way home. Dinner is at the rooftop restaurant which seems as good a bet as any other in the town and does not disappoint.