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Madurai has long been a textile center and the
streets around the temple still teem with cloth stalls and tailors' shops. A
great place to buy locally manufactured cottons as well as the batiks loved
by many travelers is Puthu Mandapam, an old, stone-pillared hall just along
from the eastern entrance to Sri Meenakshi Temple. Here you'll find lines of
textile stalls opposite rows of tailors, each busily treading away and
capable of whipping up a good replica of whatever you're wearing in an hour
or two.
Madurai is also a great place to pick up south Indian crafts. Among the best
outlets are All India Handicrafts Emporium; Co-optex - W. Tower Street and
pandiyan Co-op Supermarket, Palace Raod, for handwoven textiles, and Surabhi,
W.Veli Street for Kerelan Handicrafts. For souvenirs such as sandalwood,
temple models, carved boxes and oil lamps head for Poompuhar, 12 W Veli St.
or Tamilnad Gandhi Samrak Nidhi Khadi Gramodyog Bhavan, W Veli St., opposite
the railway station, which sells crafts, oil lamps, Meenakshi sculptures and
khadi cloths and shirts.
The old purpose-built, wooden-pillared fruit and vegetable market, between N
Chitrai and Avani Moola streets, provides a slice of Madurai life that can't
have changed for centuries. Beyond it, on the first floor, of the concrete
building at the back, the flower market (24hr) is a riot of colour and
fragrance.
Glass bangles and other trinkets. Palm baskets, jaggery from palm trees are
some of the specialities.
The streets around the Meenakshi temple in Madurai are the best places to
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