The sun was shining bright in the sky, and so was the heat rising. but, there was this thing going in my mind, that it was that moment of the journey, when we can officially say that we are half way through the trip. The distance between my Pondicherry hotel hotel to Madurai hotel was around 350 kms (around 5hrs journey). While traveling this journey, I kept thinking about the journey so far. Thinking bout this also took a look at the beautiful landscapes of India which kept changing from time to time. You can also take a look on this. Though picture cant capture the beauty, it needs to be experienced to do so!
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| A toll plaza en route |
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| The beautiful afternoon sky |
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| The never ending roads |
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| The ever changing demographics on Indian Highway. A bliss to ones eyes. |
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| Every journey leaves a trail behind. |
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| As the evening approaches, the sun bids us a golden farewell with a promise of showing up the next day. |
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| The brilliant Indian Highways, and the ever changing terrains...can be only experience in India. |
Looking outside all I could see was miles and miles of empty roads...and after few miles the changing terrains. Now, I would like to share this phenomena with you all, that during any religious festival in the Southern States, people tend to stay indoors, so be it roads or any place of interests. I would suggest you all to visit it during festival days. However, keep it during the day time, because as the skies turn dark, so does the crowd in these places.
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| As we nearing Madurai, the Sun was also packing it's bag to call it off for the day. |
Continuing with the journey, we drove for 5 hrs at a stretch and by 6 ish we reached Madurai. Now, the place where we were supposedly be staying for the next couple of days, was at the other end of the city. By the time we checked into the hotel it was dark outside.
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| The empty roads in front of the hotel...and it was just 7 in the evening! |
As I had mentioned earlier, that since we were visiting TN during the Navratri festival, this particular hotel was celebrating Navratri festival in their lobby. This was the ninth and the last day of the festival. And, incidentally it was the time for evening prayers, when we arrived there. We also joined the owner with the festivities. After an hour or so after the prayers got over, we decided to take a stroll outside, but surprisingly not a single shop was open, nor much transport was available either.
So I decided to laze around in the lobby and use the free wifi for sometime, for the next day's planning.
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| Navratri celebrations at the hotel lobby. |
Since we were tired as we started the day early, so planned to call it off early as well. So asked the reception to look for some dinner, which they did some arrangements for. And here after a long time I tasted the famous Kerala Parotta. Meanwhile, I called back couple of my near and dear ones back at my place, only to know, that their Durga Puja celebrations has been washed out due to the continuous cyclonic downpour.
Another day of the trip comes to an end, which helped me unlock a new city in the journeys of my life. and as the word goes, "The more you explore, the more you know".
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Banjara_the nomadic
