bumper cars and holy cows and brand new shopping centers

We have been in India now, for nearly 48 hours. What fun!  We are in Madurai which is a small city about an hour's flight south of Chennai/Madras.  Today I gave up on the idea of walking much in the heat and so we are taking auto-taxis, 3 wheeled open air jobbies, and it is SO fun.  the streets here have almost no cars, and just bikes, motorbikes, pedaled rickshaws and autotaxis... and cows and people!  The little autotaxis turn on a dime and everyone is moving as fast as they possibly can and so the taxi is constantly squeezing in where there is no space then turning on a dime. It feels just like being in bumper cars. And have yet to see anyone hurt. These people do not need video games, they live one every second.  At least the auto drivers do.

For the most part this city feels like a small town the streets can be hectic but nearly everything is 2 story and there are no large boulevards, instead there are big streets small streets and tiny alleys. In the alleys life seems to be very traditional, there are lots of people sitting around chatting and people hand pumping water from the neighborhood source and walking around with large loads on their heads.  And lots of the things we expected to find are here (including cows in the streets eating plastic bags, tasty vegetarian food).  And in the most part, everything focuses on the main temple, which has these amazing tall towers you can see for miles, and  which is surrounded by pedestrian only streets and around it, life is fairly calm. And we have been to many temple processions and have been focusing on the traditions of South India and eating delicious food off banana leaves with our fingers.

But today we got catapulted forward into India's future, by visiting one of the newest stores in town, a five story chain store called Pothy's with glass elevators, escalators and literally thousands of excited women customers.  Oh, my God.  It is like Filene's basement in Boston.  I loved it. they have beatiful clothes, saris and salwar kamise and other nice tops where they take the best of the handloomed fabric and golden borders and turn them into stylish things.  And so many people there ooing and aaing. And lots of people clearly getting their first experience of escalators and elevators. So many that when we went up our escalator, it just stopped when we were 2/3 way up. I think from groaning under the weight of the folks.

Craig and I seem to be just about the only foreigners around most of the time. oh, we have seen a few; but mostly this is off the european tourist track at least right now.  and we are trying not to stand out but given Craig's height and light hair, forget it! To blend in myself -  I have ditched my easy-dry pants and hot weather shirts for salwar kamise - the long top, loose trouser and scarf set that originally were pakistani. having done so, now that I am 2 adys into it,  I feel free and easy and all the women are smiling.  Since we are spending a lot of time in the temple and I could never drape a sari, this is the closest I can get to blending in with the beautiful rose, green, and silver saris of the women.  Here if you wear something muted or short you are gonna stand out.  If you wear something brilliant and flowing then you can blend in.  What I can't do though is match the prettiness of the local women or feel quite comfortable putting the fragrant white flower offerings made of champaka blossoms that they put in their hair.

Our trip into India started when we got on the plane actually -- lots of people on our plane to Frankfurt were Indian businessmen connecting with Indian bound flights there, like we were.  We arrived in Madurai yesterday morning, after landing in Chennai, spending 4 hours in an airport 'retiring room' we rented, and then flying to Madurai.  We did not know what to expect, it's a pilgrimage destination, and this is holiday time. turns out that not that much is happening, just people are happy and going to the temple a lot for special prayers.  In fact, there is not a lot for us to Do actually in Madurai, there are not a lot of touristic things, just the temple, walking, looking and eating.  the restaurants are few, most people eat from sidewalk shops; there are no sidewalk cafes in fact for the most part, no sidewalks! there are supposed to be but everyone's motorbikes, construction gradu, and whatever is in the way... as a pedestrian you share the roadway with the tuk-tuk 'autotaxis' and the cows.  It's been a good place to get acclimated to India, to experience the chaos, start to see little things like the street sweepers.  There is just a little tourist shopping:  on one street, about five different Kashmiri-run antiques, rug, jewelry and souvenier shops cater to foreigners, everyhing else is oriented to the Indian tourists who come, mostly they buy saris and hand loomed fabrics. We like it. So far we just have met local school kids and have exchanged a lot of laughter with Tamil folks.  And try to figure out  how to make out each others' very different accents when speaking English. Our longest actual conversations have been with a very nice Kashmiri sales guy, Aqshik, who runs the Madurai Gallery, who we'd recommend if you come here.

Craig has done an excellent job describing what we have done & eaten.

My one image that I want to remember is going into the Madurai temple complex for the first time.  The place is an enormous walled in area and you go through massive stone walls to come in to a series of huge collonades. so its cool and fresh in there, even though many people may be coming in and out and even thught in the first collonade, there are lots of stalls selling religious gee-gaws and bags and bells and flowers and offerings.  it seems to have nests of these collonades.  it's nearly all roofed.  There are many temples inside it, both big and small,  and only a few areas open to the sky so the impression is of mysterious sculptures, perhaps covered with red powders or wax or ghee, seen in flickering candlelight, while now and then you hear a small music trio creating eerie varying rhythms with a drum, a horn, and sometimes people chanting and in some parts, musicians singing ragas.  There is one area open to the sky for sure, which is the holy bathing spot, should be a deep rectangular tank with steps gonig down in, and along it collopnades and above them, the colored gopuras reaching to a very blue sky at times and sometimes dramatic thunderclouds.  Every temple can be walked around clockwise, along very high ceilinged collonades, and here and there are niches with different hindu gods. there is a meditation room... there is a fascintaing rock carved into 8 or 9 parallel small columns of rock inches thick that when tapped with a phone, play different notes like the notes f a gamelan.  There is every saint... this keyborads getting the best of me and jetlag is making me fade... til later!

 Tomorrow we plan to go on a tour up to the hill country, because our next move is an overnight train to the coast, to Kerala.  Really to see Madurai you only need a day or two! So our 3rd day we will be up in the highlands then on to the Coast.