We are on the ground for our last Amazon Heart adventure for the year in our most exotic location for 2006 – Madurai in South India!

Megan and I flew in to town several days early to make final preparations for the event, and met up on the plane from Singapore with Carolyn from Australia, one of our group who had decided to travel over early for some extra sight seeing.

Chennai (Madras) airport was our first port of call in India, and the change from hyper-organised Singapore could not have been more apparent!  The weather is beautiful – warm but not too humid, and we made it through check in for our flight to Madurai without problems.

The final one hour flight went past quickly, and the view coming in to land at Madurai is breathtaking – forested mountains, lakes, water filled rice paddy fields, and coconut groves.  The airport is a single runway with a small terminal building in the middle of the fields and basic but efficient facilities.

We had a short ride into our hotel and the scenery came alive with ox-drawn carts, roaming cattle and the fields of rice and coconuts, gradually giving way to the chaos and bicycles and rickshaws of Madurai.  We made a quick detour past the famous Sri Meenakshi temple before arriving at our hotel. 

After a few hours rest we ate dinner on the rooftop listening to the call to prayer from the Mosque across the road, the chaos of car and bus horns below, and saw fireworks break out across the city night sky for local celebrations.

It is my third trip to India and the beautiful, exotic chaos feels like home.  Tomorrow Megan and I will travel to visit our volunteer project and make final preparations for our adventure this week!