A quick update

Hey, so sorry I haven't written in the last few days. No good excuse it's not like I've been really busy or anything. We stayed in Madurai for two nights. It's a fairly big city (2 million I think). The main thing there is this huge temple complex. It's a pilgrimage city, like Kanyakumari. My mom and I went to the temple. It was pretty amazing. There was a lot we couldn't see because we aren't Hindu. I liked the city but my mom was ready to move on. I was offered 'mary wanna' and 'massages' many times (in the presence of my mom (ama)). No, these offers aren't why I liked the city.

We left Madurai on the 12th. We took an overnight train to Chennai (farther North). We were dumb and booked the train through a travel agen that was based out of the hotel we stayed at in Madurai. He seemed nice but he screwed us over big time. Instead of taking the express train (a straight shot from Madurai to Chennai) we took the passenger train (meaning it stops every 10 minutes!). We clearly asked for the express. So this guy made a nice little bit of money off us. Oh well at least we learned.

The train ride was crazy (and 11 hours). We were in the sleeper car third tier. We didn't really know what this meant untill we actually got on the train. It means you have three bunks stacked on top of each other. So it was very very tight. I ended up sleeping jammed in between my backpack and the wall. Despite that I'm really glad we took the train. We were the only whities on it so it's not the 'preffered' mode of transportation for westerners.

Once we got to Chennai we took a taxi to Mamalapuram (spelling is probably terrible). It's a beautiful artist's community on the ocean. It's about an hour south from Chennai. We are staying in this really fancy resort place. It's kind of embarrasing how nice it is. It's right on the ocean and has a pool. It costs rs 1,200 ($25). We will probably stay here for five more days.

So that is where we are now. I'll write more later. Just wanted to check in with my invisible readers.