We arrived in Madurai early Friday morning.
We had not slept well in our non-AC First Class bunks (the train did not have our usual AC
2-tier). Our compartment had been invaded around 1AM by a family with loud voices and two
noisy kids. By the time they decided to settle in another compartment, we were wide awake.
So we rented a retiring room at the Madurai train station and tried to get some sleep. We
were awoken to sign another form for the room. Then we were awoken to be told that coffee
was available. Then we were awoken because they wanted to fix the fan in our room (that
worked, but was very noisy).
So we gave up on sleeping, and Rita visited the Sri
Meenakshi Temple while I worked on the pictures for the Quilon report (which is still
unfinished). In the afternoon, we took a public bus to Kodaikanal and had an inexpensive
but very uncomfortable four-hour ride, the last half of which was on winding mountain
roads as we climbed to 7000 feet.
Kodaikanal (or Kodai for short) is on the southern crest of
the Palani Hills amid steep green slopes. It was initially founded by American
missionaries who set up a school for European children in the 1840s. It is now popular as
an escape from the heat of the plains. I found it to be a great place for long walks, and I watched the sunrise three out of four
mornings as I resumed my habit of early-morning walks. I’ve included pictures of some
of the places I visited on my walks. Even Rita did some walking, with a visit to the lower
end of town and a climb back up on one day, and a walk around Kodai Lake the next.
Rita and I took a ride on a "Honeymoon Boat" and
were paddled around the lake by a boatman, Venice-style. We found a variety of restaurants
including an Italian one run by an Indian who had spent several years in Italy. We visited
the "Eco-nut" shop run by a woman we had met on the bus, and talked with her and
her husband about the problems India faces.
Kodai in December is cold at night (I saw
some frost in the early morning) and cool during the day. (We rented an electric heater
from the hotel to keep our room warm—8PM to 8AM, 240 rupees per night—so Rita found Kodai much more comfortable than Ooty.) It’s an
excellent climate for walking, and there are many interesting, uncrowded, and clean places
to visit. I walked for hours each day and my feet are now pretty sore, but I’m very
happy. [Whatever rings your chime, Mr.
Downs.]
We arranged a return trip to Madurai (to
catch our train to Madras) on a private bus that was much more comfortable than the public
bus. The travel agent told us that our train left Madurai at 8:20PM, not 7:25PM as shown
in the railway schedule and on our reservation. The bus would get us to Madurai at 7:30PM
so, if we took the bus, we had to depend on the agent being correct about the schedule
change. We decided to risk it since there was another train to Madras in the morning if we
missed the 7:25 (or 8:20?) train.
When we got on the bus, the driver told us that the train
did leave Madurai at 7:25, but stopped at the Kodai Road station at 8:20, and the bus
would stop at the Kodai Road station at about 7PM. We decided to get off at Kodai Road and
hope our bunks had not been given to someone else when we didn’t show up in Madurai.
It turned out that the travel agent was correct. The train left Madurai at 8:20 and picked
us up at 9:02. Our bunks were waiting for us.
On to Madras.
