More festivities

I had arranged a trip organised by the tourist office to a free pongal festival about 20kms. From Madurai out in the country a bit. So Marion a German volunteer and I set off.

Tourist Office

We arrived at 8.15 and more and more European faces appeared , more than I have seen in the last week and a half and mostly French and German.

We all packed into a bus like this crazy as some of us had to stand .Anyway it wasn't too traumatic a journey .here are some pictures of the journey there

We all trooped off the bus and followed a very noisy procession to a make shift arena in the village square

Couldn't resist this one ! The guy on the back of the motor bike is carrying his bike honestly anything goes here .

And this was a policeman stopping the pedestrians.

A wee beauty

She was bald and it looked like clay in her hair.

So then the show began

Totally mad and dangerous with no barriers and his t shirt caught fire at one point 

I decided to spare you all the part where he impaled his forehead on a huge spike and walked around with it hanging out ... Grose 

Everyone here wants you to take their photo so for a change I asked if I could take their hands.

At this stage proceedings had to stop as an English man probably in his late 60's passed out  or something . They called a doctor over the tanoy , the poor man was helped away with his distraught wife following . You would not want to take ill somewhere like that that's for sure .

We then followed a procession down to our equivelant of a playing field now as I had seen the lack of safety at the last festival I suggested to Marion that we keep a clear distance incase of a stampede. So some very kind people invited us up to their unfinished top part pf their house and this was the view

And more goat fights but I didn't bother taking pictures as I don't like it.

This was the view form the rooftop instead

Then it was back to the arena is the very hot sun back to the square bit to look at the cows

And finally lunch served on a banana leaf.

To be honest it's now 6 hrs since I ate it so hopefully it's not going to disagree with me because it was really tasty. Getting quite used to this eating with only the right hand 

Lunch.

It was a good day and cost not a rupee.How they managed that with so many starving people in the country I will never know .

Then it was back to the city and just as we rounded a corner before the tourist office there was drum beats bells chinking and a big crowd and at the centre of the crowd was a dead body all wrapped in a shroud with flowers surrounding him, and a woman walking round the body with an urn on her head . The urn had holes in it and something was pouring out as she rounded the body quite surreal and wasn't quite sure what to think after that.

So it was off the bus and back to feed and change the babies .

For the first time I had to make my own way back in an auto, and I am very proud of myself because I managed to give the driver exact directions to my house, so now that I have done it once I won't be scared of doing it again !!! And so far all the locals have been so friendly and not at all threatening in any way which I like .

So that was today's story.