India: Kanyakumari & Madurai
Our fourth and last week in India: the last 4 weeks have flied…so fast! We finally reached the Tamil Nadu state and first stopped in Kanyakumari, the most southern tip of India where the Indian Ocean and the Arabian sea meet. There is nothing specific to do there but we liked the idea of not being able to go further. For our last stop, we ended up in Madurai to visit one of the most incredible temple we saw in India, the Meenakshi Temple!
Kanyakumari is a little town. We liked its colorful fishermen houses. The two main attractions there are the Vivekananda Memorial, a temple and a memorial built on an island close to the shore, and the statue of the great Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar. Madurai is a busy city with never ending traffic. In its centre, one can find the famous Meenakshi temple. It is colorfoul and has a typical architecture. Visitors are more than 15’000 per day! There is also an interesting Gandhi Memorial Museum. As we were close to Indian Independance Day, we couldn’t miss it.
we did specifically enjoy
- Kanyakumari: we liked spending time on the Vivekananda Rock watching the sea and the unceasing tourists flow released from the feries. It is nevertheless a peaceful place and we came twice on the small island, we even stopped a few hours to read in the shade of the temple.
- Madurai: of course the temple was the main goal of our visit!
accommodations
- Kanyakumari: Temple Citi hotel, a large and clean room which we enjoyed very much however the employees acted weird a few times. Have a look at Mag’s tripadvisor review here if you want further details.
- Madurai: West Marret Hotel: good location close to the train station and the main bus terminal. Room was confortable and had (a lot of) movie tv channels in english, yeahhh!
restaurants
- The Ocean restaurant in Kanyakumari. Beautiful view over the bay and good food at a reasonnable price. Service was perfect!
- The Surya Rooftop in Madurai, overlooking the 4 towers of the Meenakshi temple, this is the place to spend an evening! Also the food and the staff were nice.
Best Kept Secret Tip
Even when in a fancy restaurant, avoid at all cost fruits platters. Otherwise, you may get a free and extremely efficient diet program…
Very nice video and soundtrack, what’s the music?
And very funny story about waking up early in India π
Big hello from the admin team here at Campus Biotech (here too we have some sun ;))
Enjoy guys
Sabine
Hi Sabine,
Thanks for the nice message! Yep, India is kind of noisy… all the time! I’m not sure we would have appreciate it for short holidays π Hope the admin team is doing well (on a new floor ?). Did you manage to have the approval for a barbecue in the 6th ???
Cheers, say hello to other from us,
Daniel & Mag
Edit: I forgot the question about the music. We got it from the Youtube library of “creative commons” music (no copyrights). https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/music. The author is “puddle of infinity” and the song is “Smile Quiet Looking Up”.
Hello! i’ve had a busy summer and didn’t have time to catch up on your videos but i’m doing so right now π
the landscapes looks incredible and very colorful!
amazing videos as always! and i love the airplane commercial part at the end hahahah
take care,
Johanne
Hi Johanne,
Thanks for the nice comment ! India was quite refreshing, in term of landscape, colors, smells, people… It was quite an adventure π
All the best for the start of the school year, do not climb too much (I did not practice since 6 month, you guys will be way ahead of me when we come back),
Cheers,
Daniel
Heyyy guys…fantastic video….seems like u managed to hav fun even under scorching hot sun.
Magali,you look damn beautiful in bindi (lil round sticker on ur forehead).Flower in ur hair was like icing on the cake.
Last but not the least,we loved the small gig at the end of this video…u guys are really humourous
Dear Richa,
Already a month since we left Bengaluru! π
Yes we tried to entertain ourselves during our last week in India. The bindi and flowers were gifts from a nice lady at the Meenakshi temple.
Was damn hot that day, was difficult to walk around barefoot. A festival just started and the chanting was spectacular, loved it!
Happy you liked our little joke at the end of the video. We filmed this in the Spicejet plane while leaving Madurai (not sure Lufthansa has any flight connecting Madurai to Colombo ah ah ah!). Was afraid that people seating behind us would be offended but they didn’t even notice our little trick.
All the best to you and your dear husband,
Big hugs
M & D