Life in Madurai revolves, both literally and figuratively, around Meenakshi Temple. Dedicated to three-breasted Meenakshi, a form of the goddess Parvati, it’s been here in one shape or another since 600 CE, and has a notably female energy quite unlike that you’ll find in most Shiva-centric Hindu temples. Its 14 riotously colored gopurams tower over the city, swarming with stone statues of animals, gods and demons, and its nightly putting-to-bed ceremony is a mainstay of the spiritual life of Madurai.

Though Madurai is, on the surface of it, ‘about’ temples (there are many of them beyond Meenakshi, and they dominate must-see lists), what we think of first when we think of Madurai is markets.

This is ‘the city that never sleeps’, not because of its thumping nightlife (there is none), but because of its nonstop trading. Trucks rumble in from across India at all hours of the day, servicing the wholesale market streets that thread throughout the lotus-shaped city center. Honestly, you’ve never seen anything like it. A whole street selling just garlic, or just chilies, or just onions – and on and on, for miles. Outside the city, too, en route to Chettinad, is one of the largest flower markets in India. Flowers are part of everyday life in Tamil culture in a way that they’re not in the West, and a visit to a perfumery to see jasmine being harvested and processed is one of our underrated Madurai highlights.

Madurai isn’t just the cradle of Tamil culture – one of the only classical cultures in the world still living. It has an old-world charm and an almost medieval, marketplace energy totally particular to itself. And, as domestic tourists from across India will tell you, the food alone is reason enough to come.