(hold your mouse over any pic for a description of what it is)
The temple tour I just went on was pretty cool, although I didnt actually get close up and personal with any of the temples..
Day 1 – Kolkata to Madurai
Day 2 – Madurai
Day 3 – Madurai to Tirupati
Day 4 – Tirupato to Madurai
Day 5 – Madurai to Raipur to Kolkata
An easy flight with normal weirdness, but nothing too out of the ordinary, the overnights were interesting, the first stop in Madurai was at the Taj hotel up on the hill overlooking town. Its a 1930′s old colonial hotel with the feel of a grand old hotel. Most of the rooms are located in cottages which kinda look like houses.I wish I had a sound recorder as sitting up on the hill all you could hear 24hrs a day was the sounds of blaring hindi music coming from the many puja displays throughout the town. The place was also full of peacocks which was kinda cool and they werent at all scared of the human guests in their back yard.
Tirupati was a strange place, this is the home of the countries richest temple and its the temple that makes you rich. But there aint no way you can get anywhere near i, and like all these temples you have to pay a lot to get in. Tirupati on average sees 100 000 people a day, and on a peak day there is 500 000 people there, you could see this when you were there as the line area to get in went for miles and miles.
The temple itself is on top of a 3000ft high hill that you must drive up, and the driver does this at breaknexk speeds, prior to entering the road up the hill the car is fully searched. mainly its searched for contraband like liquor and cigarettes!
Then on the last day we moved onto Mumbai, which I had never been to before… its a very very cool city, modern, fairly clean and although it is full of slums it didnt look poor. But I think it didnt look poor as it wasnt full of street vendors and beggars, unlike Kolkata!
Here are some pics:
