Mad-Madurai

After 6 hours on a local bus we arrived to the hustle and bustle of Madurai, a third world metropolis with a massive temple complex in the center.

The temple was carved with thousands of gods, as is usual for hindu temples.

Some the of carvings were rather naughty...

Even as non-hindus we were allowed to wander around inside the temple grounds and check out some of the artwork and carving up close.

We're not really sure what this one's supposed to be...

This is a shrine for the elephant god, Ganesh.

There were many bats that have taken up residence on the temple ceilings.

This is a shrine for the monkey god, Hanuman.

There were many people there to worship, some seemed to be praying at the various shrines and others were there to carry the hindu blessing ritual called Darshan.

This is a carving of the cow god, Nandi.

This is one of the many representations of a Shiva Lingam (aka penis).

The Southern Tip of India ~ Kanyakumari

Kanyakumari is the most southern tip of India, and was the first stop along our temple tour of Tamil Nadu, or as we like to call it, Temple Nadu.

We visited a Gandi Memorial, and we given a brief description of his life by the watchman of the place, which was spoken in terrible engish and interupted by him yelling at people to take their shoes off.

Here it is possible to put your toes in 3 different oceans at once, Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. There were many people that seemed to be very excited about this, and so many pilgrims walk huge distances. barefoot, to reach this place.

This was the view from our hotel room balcony that we paid a whole dollar extra to enjoy.

Hum-Drum Trivandrum

It was time to return to the hustle and bustle of the real India and its public transit system.

We took a train down to Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala.

                                            

                                         

We ate at a restaurant that was just one tall cylindrical structure, with a spiral path going up through it.

There didn't seem to be too much of interest here, apart from a zoo.

Here we saw a leopard and tiger for the first time in India, as well as some other animals.

A crocodile.

A black bear.

An elephant getting a bath.

A hippo.

An Indian Bison.

Some spotted deer.

After spending the day in Trivandrum we decided to head south to Kanyakumarui, the first stop in Tamil Nadu.

The Tranquility of Varkala

After a brief stop in Alleppey for lunch we took a train down to the coastal town of Varkala.

The main tourist drag of Varkala is right along a large cliff that overlooks the beach.

We stayed in a hotel on the cliff called "Mother Palace" where we spent a lot of time relaxing and swinging in our hanging basket chair.

While we were here we both got traditional ayurvedic oil massages, these pictures were taken right after...

We spent a lot of time swimming and boogie boarding at the beach here.

Another great thing about Varkala was the amazing seafood dinners, that are a fraction of the price that you would pay in most places.

Sorry ocean!

We were persuaded to purchase some specially made Indian garments from a local tailor...so now we can look like proper Indian tourists!

We said goodbye to our little beach paradise after 6 wonderful days.