Madurai. Yes, our regular readers will notice that we've been here before. Well spotted! This is in fact the only significant duplication of our solo travels and the organised South India tour, the reason being that we had to come to Madurai previously in order to get to Kodaikanal.

There's nothing specifically organised for most of the day, so Sarah decides she wants to "browse" the shops in the city. She doesn't want to go on her own though. Clive gives a heavy sigh, and we jump in an auto and head into the city.

Initially we walk through the wholesale produce market, known locally as the "Masala Market" because they sell all kinds of food. The place is jammed with big trucks, all loading and offloading produce, which compete for space with cows munching on vegetable waste. There's nothing for us to buy, unless we want 50 sacks of potatoes, which we don't, so we move on.

We then discover a large building adjacent to the Sri Meenakshi temple which has dozens of small shops in it. They're positioned between the pillars around the outer part of the building, the main central part being empty and locked off. They're all very small, made of wood and almost identical to each other. There's barely enough room for the vendors behind the counters and every inch of space is taken up with stock. They're mainly selling cheap jewellery and haberdashery.

Clive - Sarah's on a mission, a mission to buy bangles. Despite having bought two dozen in Trichy she wants to "blend" bangle colours. There are more bangles here than you can shake a stick at; plastic, glass, metal, with or without decoration, various sizes and in all conceivable colours. The vendor opens boxes of bangles and lays them out on the counter, but Sarah is in absolutely no doubt about the bangles she wants and dismissively waves most of them away. "Don't want those. Red, only this size." she repeats. The vendor certainly has to work for his rupees. Once she's made a purchase it's on to the next shop, which is identical to the last shop. "Blue, l want blue!" Meanwhile I sit to one side as Sarah goes from stall to stall. In the end she has enough bangles to start her own shop!

In the evening we're taken to a sound and light show at the Tirumalai Nayak Palace, a 17th Century building, or at least the remains of one. Only the dance hall remains, but this is impressive enough, being a large open-air courtyard with massive stone pillars supporting a surrounding roofed gallery to a height of 20m. Unfortunately the sound and light show is not at all impressive. The sound component consists of an audio tape telling the story of King Tirumalai and all his good doings. It reminds us of an episode of the Goons with occasional sound effects and even the odd tune. After about 5 minutes everyone's lost interest and you can't hear the soundtrack for the noise of general chatter. Most of the audience are Indians who probably have no idea what's being said anyway. The light show consists of various methods of illuminating the palace, using spotlights and strategically hidden mood lighting, which are switched at random to give different effects. The lights themselves are rather, well, nice, but the switching process appears to be entirely random, and bears no relationship to the storyline. The show lasts 30 minutes, by which time we're no more knowledgeable about King Tirumalai than at the start, but we certainly know what effect a green light has on the top of a stone pillar or a blue light in an alcove.

The most amusement was in fact as a result of a small cloud of midges which was hovering above Sarah's head throughout the show. This, she claims, was due to some hair product which she had put on earlier, and which they clearly enjoyed!