Jan. 17 : Madurai, India

Tuesday, January 17 :: Madurai, India :: 70km today / 2668km total

I finished my ride from Delhi to South India today with a brisk 70km into Trivandrum. Even early in the morning I was sweating from the heat. The true Southern tip of India is 80km away, but I feel no need to ride there. I've had it with the heat, and am aching for cooler, more moderate temperatures. Yes, the Canadian in me is starting to revolt. It's time to head North. Fast. I will travel by bus and train up the East coast to Calcutta, then further North into the Himalaya.

Trivandrum held little of interest for me, so I hopped on a bus for an 8-hour ride to Madurai. What a nightmare that was. Firstly, the movies. Now, I do like some Indian movies, but I was in Tamil Nadu, and the Tamil movies shown were a bit... different than their Hindi/Bollywood counterparts. Tamils seem to be shorter and more pot-bellied than other Indians, and so seem to be their movie-stars... maybe it's just Western steroid/plastic-surgery film star conditioning but its hard to buy into an action hero whose belly is significantly larger than his pecs, or to empathize with an aged, rug-wearing, triple-chinned love interest 20-30 years older than his petite, cute female conquest.

Then there were the bus stations and pitstops. Now, generally in India if you are looking for a bus station, train station, or Hindu temple, the proper procedure is to stand still, close your eyes, sniff the air, and follow the scent of urine to it's source (for some reason mosques and churches seem to escape the pee... I'm guessing its either due to smaller volumes of worshippers, and/or the fact that they don't keep large beasts inside). Well, the pitstops along the Trivandrum-Madurai route were particularly exemplary of this... I could smell an upcoming pitstop from the bus while we were still driving towards it. I said "Oh God No" to myself as the bus braked, and rolled in. All the men piled out of the bus and started peeing. Everywhere. I had to get out of there, so walked out to the road, and upwind for a bit. I'm not sure how the women stand it, or how they deal with Indian men in general (the men have many odious personal habits that the women do not seem to have - Indian women seem quite cultured and refined compared to their male counterparts).

Late into Madurai, and into a Hotel across the road from the bus station.