So, now the real ‘intrepid exploring’ was to begin – going off the main tourist trail and taking our first Indian Railways journey, just over 6 hours from Varkala to Madurai.

We’d splashed out on 1st class for our first train ride at a cost of £15 each. Steve had booked directly on the Indian Railways website, something that apparently foreigners can’t do, so we were a little apprehensive especially as he’d subsequently booked a further 9 tickets before we’d checked that everything worked! We’d heard that your carriage & seat isn’t printed on the ticket confirmation for 1st class, instead displayed on a board on the station platform. There was no sign of that so Debbie trotted off to speak to the Station Master (aged about 12) and all was soon sorted – a few taps on his iPhone and he could tell her the seat numbers and that our carriage was 3rd from the front of the train. Indian trains are very long and we had to leg it down the platform to get to our carriage shortly before the train started moving – there’s no hanging around. The guard in the 1st class carriage knew our name anyway and pointed us to our seats. We were sharing with 2 others, Italian and Indian guys both going all the way to Chennai (15 hours overnight). Ours were the top 2 bunks but apparently during the day everyone sits on the lower bunk until it’s time to sleep. The Italian guy helpfully decided that his bedtime was 2030, an hour before we were due to get off, so we had to climb up onto the top bunk for the last part of the journey while our companions settled down for the night. We weren’t expecting Indian 1st Class to be particularly good, and it wasn’t, but the highlight was the ability to pre-order food online for delivery to your chosen station en-route. Debbie was beyond excited at the prospect of a Dirty Domino’s but didn’t quite believe that the system would work. Oh she of little faith – as soon as the train stopped at the chosen delivery station, there was the Domino’s man knocking on our window, already knowing which seats we were in. Unbelievable! The only thing wrong was that Indian Domino’s don’t appear to do garlic dip for the crusts 🙁

Apart from the miraculous pizza delivery the journey was pretty uneventful and passed quickly, with the train arriving almost on time at just after 21.30. We bravely walked to our hotel – it was less than 400m from the station – dumped our bags and found a bar., the first one we’d seen since Goa. Quite a seedy place at the back of the hotel opposite, with a sign on entry warning that ‘drinking alcohol may be injurious to health’. Sod that, we’ve just survived our first Indian train trip and were gasping for a beer – 2 large Kingfisher please. We don’t think that women frequent bars in this part of India – Debbie was the only one, but do you think she cared?

Our accommodation for 2 nights was the Grand Sabarees Hotel. ‘Grand’ is a bit of poetic licence but it was brand new, well located and absolutely fine (if a bit generic) for a bargain £27/night including breakfast. Traditional South Indian fare – we are used to curry in the morning now – and bread/jam for fussy Westerners. We learned a little too late, if they offer ‘bread’ take it! After already refusing, we looked on enviously as huge crispy dosas were delivered to other tables 🙁

Madurai is one of the oldest cites in India, dating back to at least 300BC. It’s big, with over a million inhabitants (probably not that big by Indian standards actually) and is busy but not overwhelming. The important Meenakshi Temple is the main attraction for tourists and Hindu pilgrims – and is to South India what the Taj Mahal is to the North. We set off in the morning to visit, only to find that bags & phones weren’t allowed, so we returned in the afternoon minus bags, phones and expensive Merrell walking shoes (Steve didn’t want those getting nicked when left outside the temple, and Debbie prayed that his swanky old sandals would be!). There was actually a free shoe cloakroom and it was a little disturbing to see a rat running across our sandals in the rack. The temple is huge and amazingly ornate – the South ~tower entrance goes directly into a quadrant…… Lots of areas only open to Hindus, and there was obviously something going on during our visit as the queue of worshippers to enter the inner sanctum was huge. Not allowed to take photos so we’ve borrowed a few from Wikipedia.

Madurai was the place in which Mahatma Ghandi first adopted wearing a loincloth and the city has an impressive museum dedicated to him. Unfortunately it was closed for renovations, with some interesting takes on health & safety being exhibited by the guys painting the outside. Some of the exhibits were available in a temporary building, so we learned more about the history of India from the Indian perspective i.e. what utterly barbaric bastards the British were. Our visit coincided with the arrival of 5 coachloads full of primary school kids, with a couple of hundred of them being paraded past the exhibits, staring and giggling at the blonde foreign woman, and occasionally getting a clip around the ear from their teacher.

Dinner was at a Tripadvisor-recommended place just down the street from the hotel – packed with locals it seemed to be the busiest place to eat in the city, and for good reason. A delicious veggie meal of Mushroom Manchurian, Paneer Hariali, spicy rice, a garlic nan and bottle of water (no booze here), set us back a fiver in total. We need to remember that we aren’t on holiday, it’s not about ‘going for a meal’ every night, but sometimes the most delicious food comes when you are just grabbing something quick/cheap to eat. Let’s hope we are as lucky in finding good inexpensive food in Japan.

A big city has to involve some shopping, so:

Debbie noticed an optician promising specs in an hour – and since she’d recently decided that she really needed varifocal light sensitive glasses on our travels to avoid the need to carry both sunnies and ordinary glasses, she wanted to take a look. Steve was pessimistic that they’d be able to do what she needed in an hour but he was very wrong. An eye test to check her year old prescription, it turns out her distance vision is no longer perfect, and we were assured that they could indeed get the required lenses in the frames of Debbie’s choice within the hour. She went expensive on the frames but the completed spectacles came in at an absolute bargain £88 and were perfect. In the UK they’d have cost 3-4x that and, in Debbie’s experience, have to be sent back 2-3 times (6 is the record) to get the varifocal right. We had our photos taken (for the optician’s Facebook page), we were offered special coffee and given a variety of freebies and finally got out of the shop. We swear that we could hear whoops of joy – Debbie thought she’d got a bargain, the optician was probably popping the champagne, a win-win and that’s how it should be.

Steve was almost out of clean clothes, and as our next hotel was a little more upmarket he went in search of a shirt. Mission accomplished at the rather smart gentlemen’s outfitters down the road from the hotel – a folded shirt in a box for 6 quid

Our next destination is around 80 miles away (as ever!) but on good roads, so only a 2 hour journey at most. The hotel’s travel ‘service’ – phone yourself, here’s the number – wanted to charge us the mileage there & back and their rate seemed steep compared to what we’d paid for taxis so far. No worries, there were hordes of taxi guys outside the hotel and we got much better quotes from a couple of them, finally settling on the 2nd cheapest. Isn’t that the rule with wine too? The next morning our guy was there sure enough to transport us, but so was the cheaper bloke in the crappy little car – we had a bit of a job explaining that we hadn’t agreed to engage him and that he’d just given us a price. Oh dear.

Anyway, our brief stay in Madurai was interesting, next stop Karaikudi…..