FOURTH DAY : 2006.08.24

Today we started in a convoy from the hotel to the temple in Thanjavur :

As everywhere in India we had to take off our shoes at the entrance of the temple. For a few rupees they were willing to guard them. We had to find out who was the „white lady.” It was grey haired old the elephant of the temple who gave us a blessing with his trunk for a few rupees. Of cpurse he immediately handed (or trunked) over the cash to his master. For a few more rupees you could even ride the elephant.

There was a huge „Nandi” bull statue. The teple itself was not colured, just natural sandstone coloured.

Tess Chance the lonely competitor from USA shows her claws to the press. We hurried on for todays leg.

Or to say our todays „hard drive”. The interior of our rickshaw was decorated by two nice portraits. At first sight we tought he was an opera singer. Only later did we get to know that he was the former prime minister of Tamil Nadu state.

We met families earning a living from roasting and selling cashew nuts.

After meeting a village rickshaw fleet, we crossed Indias safest railway crossing :

And arrived to the next task to find out how many cannonballs are int he old fort. There were none.

We found a beautiful temple not far away :

Dont forget one of the important traffic rules of India : „Every vehicle can carry as much passengers or load as much they can.”

Arriving to Madurai we had to cross the city int he afternoon rush hour. That wasn’t simple at all in a city with a million inhabitants. Todays hotel the Madurai Taj Garden Resort was so beutiful that it deserves a full page ….

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