We left Pondicherry after a good breakfast in French bakery; first an hour by private transport to Villupuram and then continuing by train to cover the 300 km to Madurai – a train journey of a good five hours.

We made it into Madurai in the late afternoon; after a bit of freshening up in the hotel, we had an orientation walk to get glimpse of what was ahead of us tomorrow.

The walk finished at a cinema, where we had the opportunity to see Lingaa and as such get an introduction into Kollywood cinema. The film – of course – was in Tamil with no subtitles provided … one could follow the story, but obviously did not get the details on all the discussion. For my taste the film has been far too long (at nearly three hours), the story could have easily been told in less time …