Madurai.

We visited the Synagogue on Sunday afternoon and wanted to ask why there were so many chandeliers, but some American guy was there asking about Black Jews in India, so we didn't. In the evening we went to a tourists' Kathakali show (at the Culture Centre), which is only 1 and a half hours instead of all night. It was very strange, but fantastic!The control the actors have over their faces has to be seen to be believed. The costumes and the 'acting' are hugely exaggerated, giving it a supernatural feel. Which is how it should be because the stories are all about Gods from the Ramayana.

We'd both have much preferred to see a 'real' performance in a village somewhere but there's no way of finding out what's going on. I thought the performance we did see came across quite amateurish from a theatrical point of view - because the two actors kept falling out of character when their bit of the dance finished. One of them spent all of the time fiddling with his costume. Maybe it's always like that - we have nothing to compare it against so we'll never know.

...

So after a lovely nine hour journey we got back to Madurai yesterday, black with soot from the roads and absolutely knackered! We've got some of our Round-Trip tickets and are waiting for the rest tonight. Madurai becomes worse every time we see a different city. It's dirty and unlooked after and the people just aren't as friendly here. In Ernakulam we met a man who we thought was well dodgy until we actually got talking to him properly. He wanted to take us to his village so we could see how 'the people really live'. He was also a fellow Christian and wanted to know all about England's religions and what I thought about AIDS and divorce. Admittedly, he was desperate to get out of India and thought we could help him, but he invited us to his church and didn't mind so much when we said we couldn't give him any money. In Madurai it's all about changing money, drugs or tailoring.

God knows what I'm looking for out here, it's not: backwater poverty tourism, bad dress sense, chilli-less food, clean animal-free streets, quiet or being able to trust people. Maybe - maybe not. Perhaps Ooty will help me.