Merry Christmas from Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India

As soon as we arrived in Madurai we liked it. Perhaps it was because it was 28 degrees, but also it has a lovely vibe. Perhaps it is also because we are blowing our budget and staying in a semi-swanky hotel. Hmmn.

It is a large city, but not too developed. Only a few high rise hotels (all with roof-top restaurants) and a massive temple that rises above the skyline and dominates the city. It is not very touristy, despite the 10,000 daily pilgrims, and the shops here sell everything from pipes, to water tanks, to door handles, to jasmine garlands, to combs, to tailor-made clothes...you name it.

We both had some clothes made as Christmas pressies to ourselves and are planning to spend the afternoon in a sumptuous hotel using their swimming pool and having their Xmas lunch buffet. Of course, in India, you never REALLY know if things are going to be sumptuous or not until you actually get there (the Indians are very creative in their artistic licence when describing their hotels) so let's cross our fingers.

We're missing family and friends on this day as we know you are all getting together and we feel a bit lonely but we've got each other and at least here you can buy beer, so although we got woken up at 5am (AGAIN) by the bloody singing religious dudes here, we can get pissed in true British Christmas stylie!

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Take 2



We went to a roof top bar and drank beer on Xmas afternoon. We asked a guy if he could show us how this toy spinning thing worked and suddenly the entire kitchen staff came up and all had a go! This guy was the best though, he put it straight into his hands.