madurai (tamil nadu), sunday 20 january

the deep south has been an intense experience. we are now in madurai, in tamil nadu. we arrived this afternoon from cochin, checked into our hotel and went for lunch. it was my first true south indian meal and it was fun. we went to a proper restaurant that only served thalis, which is basically a meal served on a big plate with rice and several little portions of various dishes. this thali was served on a big banana leaf instead of a plate---very eco-friendly, given that these leaves and all the leftovers they give to the cows. the place was full of locals and, as they say, in india do like the indians! this meant that i ate only with my hands, like everybody else, mixing the rice with each of the different curries, gravies, lentils, yoghurt, etc... and then just pushint it inside my mouth with three fingers, licking my fingers every now and then (since they don't have any napkins). the food was excellent but i was a bit anxious at the end... just wanted to finish and wash my hands. at the end, i folded my leaf in two, but the person sitting next to me instructed me to fold the part of the leaf near my body into the table, and not the other way around. don't know why but it was a great meal and a whole cultural experience, all for rs 25 (60 cents!).

after lunch, we went to the koodal azhagar temple. i really like walking into these temples and seeing these very pious devotees pray in the middle of all the chaos. i admire them. they just kneel in front of one of the deities, bow, and mumble prayers, while passersby jump them to avoid them, kids scream, tourists take photos, and people argue about non-religious issues loudly. we walked around the main sanctuary and then went to some other area of the temple, where we found the long-sought elephant guarding the entrance to an "only-hindu" sanctuary. unfortunately, its keeper didn't let me take pictures, but it was super cute, a mix of gray and pink in the ears and face, and with a red and white mark on its forehead. i approached it, it extended its big trunk towards me, sniffing me. i gave it a 2 rs coin, and it proceeded to lift its trunk and put it on top of my head as a sign of blessing, then gave the coin to its keeper... amazing!

the rest of the day was still a very indian experience, although not as pleasant. we walked around the town, stopping by the many little shops, seeing kids being exploited---performing tricks on a rope, drinking south indian coffee in local corner chai and coffee places. we went back to the hotel to rest for a little bit and see a bit of the australian open, and to our surprise we saw a couple of little cockroaches in the bathroom and another couple on a candy that i left on my bedside table for 1 minute or 2. a bit distressed, i complained at the reception and asked them to do something about it. then, my friend's uncle picked us up and took us to the meenakshi temple, the main attraction in madurai (to see pictures, click here).

this temple is massive. as usual, we removed our shoes, but this time it was weird because in other temples in the north, you usually take off your shoes just inside the temple but here you remove them outside, then you had to walk on the street for a bit up to the entry gate. i got lost pretty quickly inside the temple---except this uncle knew his way around. he asked me to wait for a bit at some point since non-hindus were not allowed inside the main sanctuary. i truly don't understand this rule very well but i respect that they want to have their own space for praying, where tourists are not photographing every single corner of the inside temple. however, i do feel that their rule is not enforced correctly and that they actually discriminate against whites (or, rather, non-browns) blatantly, since they never deny the entrance to brown people, irrespective of their religion (how can they know?). same thing with the fees foreign tourists have to pay to enter temples and basically all touristic sites. probably they charge rs 10 or even nothing to indians in order to entice them to go (or simply avoid that they don't go)... but the irony is that everywhere we've been, you find the names of these people written on every pillar, on every wall, together with phrases like "suresh loves kavitha" and the like...

anyway, the chief priest of the temple came to me and asked me to leave, even though i was just standing by the entrance, waiting for pipi and the uncle. i explained that my friends would be right back soon and that i didn't want to lose them, but to no avail. fortunately, as i walked outside, pipi and the uncle came back. once again, we got lost amindst the crowds. the only sign that told me that we were actually heading somewhere was some trumpet/horns/drums music that became increasingly loud. we then arrived at a courtyard where the music was coming from. three camels greeted us, fully dressed as if ready for carnival. further ahead, there was an altar and several people going in circles around it. the leaders of the matachin-like procession were an elephant, fully painted with bells hanging around its neck and swaying sideways as if dancing, and a cow, also fully painted and wearing a colorful costume. it was a marvelous sight and i wish i had taken lots of pictures but unfortunately the uncle only allowed me to take a few. as expected, he rushed us through the temple and didn't let us enjoy the whole thing. it is somewhat understandable, however, since he had just come back from a long trip and was tired, plus he must have seen those things hundreds of times, if not more. anyway, he then left us, we then attended a ceremony where they put the god to sleep (don't know which one of the many), and then headed back to the hotel.

on the way back, we stopped at a restaurant much recommended by our guide, the hotel staff and our rickshaw driver. why? we still don't know. the place looked quite dingy and dirty. we still stayed only because of the many recommendations. we talked about the different concepts of dirt in india and in mexico. i told pipi that a place like that, with used napkings and straws on the dusty floor and a few cobwebs on the walls would be considered dirty in mexico and i don't think anyone would recommend it, regardless of the taste of the food. similarly, it is surprising how people here throw garbage everywhere, and garbage, used platic bottles, and cow dung seem to be part of the landscape, and no one would imagine it otherwise. in udaipur, when i asked our cooking instructor (who runs a lodge and a cafe and seems relatively educated) for a trash can to throw away my chewing fum, she said nonchalantly, in india, we throw everything in the street, but just make sure you put it ON THE SIDES of the road, not in the middle, because THAT is dirty. and in the middle of all those chewing gums and other garbage, people walk shoeless---and not only out of need.

anyway, sa we were saying this, pipi pointed at a giant cockroach on the wall---the flying kind. he asked the waiter if he could do something about it and so he did: he took a clean plate of the neighboring table, which was already set, used it to take the roach away and put it in a little hole in the corner. "don't worry, sir, that's where cockroaches go and it won't come back." then, he proceeded to put the plate back on the same table! we then saw another dead roach on the floor, next to pipi's foot (which wasn't there before, so all of a sudden a dead roach appear next to his foot out of nowhere!), and i didn't have the stomach to finish our meal, so we went back to the hotel.

the worst was yet to come. back in our hotel room, i went to the bathroom to see if the hotel staff had taken care of the little roaches that i had reported (three times) earlier. of course they hadn't, and the 2 roaches had become 6... 7... 8... three on my bed, one inside my backpack, another one on pipi's shirt... every item we lifted had one or two. for a minute, i felt so grossed out that i even wondered why i had come to india---and i'm usually not scared by one cockroach or two... but the mere thought of all the filth somehwere nearby which must have been the source of that many roaches was disturbing. anyway, we made a little scene and they gave us another room, where i lie now and i hope i'll have a good night's sleep.