Wednesday, October 18

We go to the Meenakshi temple, on the southern bank of the Vaigai River in Madurai, where we manage to arrive on the busiest day of the year. A festival has just begun and the queues to get in spread down the road and round the corner.

We hand over our phones and cameras, take off our shoes, and join the queues. The male queue moves much faster than the female one, but eventually we all get in. We wander around but get refused permission to enter the darshan.

Outside again, I photograph some of the carvings before we head back to the Madurai Heritage hotel, which seems like a delightful little town inside a considerably less delightful big town.