Happy Poongal ....

Only in Tamil Nadu everybody gets free to celebrate Poongal, the festival of the harvest ! And they all want to go back home to celebrate it with their family.

From the 13th of January a real exodus back home starts...... busses, trains are all booked full, reserved a week before.

Travelling this period in Tamil Nadu you better reserve in front by appealing for a tourist quota, a number of seats reserved for foreign passenger but it doesn't insure you to get a place on a train !

I took my chance in second class without any reservation and had to skip 3 trains overfull. Only after 3 hours of waiting there was a small place to fit in with my lugage on the train at 21:00, still I had to step over all the people sleeping on the ground and sitting where you normaly put your lugage, like these boys were sitting here in the lugage-rack.

One more night without sleeping ..... travelling for 8 hours up to Madurai ... tomorrow Maaddupoongal or Festival of the Cow ... Jallikattu or like they say in the villages, manju virathu !