Tourists and pilgrims throng to the temple town of Madurai to visit the famous Meenakshi Temple. Madurai is well connected by air, rail and road and there are a lot of people who visit this temple town every year.
The city provides different accommodation options to suit all budgets. Accommodation options may range from four star deluxe hotels to guest houses. You can use a Madurai map in order to select a hotel that’s located near major tourist destinations.
Hotel Germanus
Hotel Germanus is a relatively new hotel which was established in the year 1999. It has 85 well appointed centrally air conditioned standard rooms, deluxe rooms and suite rooms. All rooms have attached bathrooms, satellite television connection, direct dial facility and 24 hour room service.
The hotel also provides dining facilities to its customers. The hotel has a multi cuisine restaurant, Utsav, which provides diverse cuisines and delectable dishes. Another restaurant is The Rooftop, which provides Chinese food, sea food, traditional and international cuisines. The hotel also boasts of a 24 hour coffee shop and Cloud Seven – a well stocked bar. The hotel has a health club which helps all guests in staying fit. It also has an area etched out for private yoga practise.
Hotel Germanus provides conference and banquet facilities to both corporate as well as other guests. The banquet halls are equipped with internet and audio visual facilities to aid corporate events and meetings. The largest banquet hall is the John Bushell Hall. The smaller ones are Stevens Hall, Michael Hall and Bishop Vishvasam Hall.
Hotel Rathna Residency
One of the budget hotels in Madurai which is located very near the railway station is Hotel Rathna Residency. The hotel lies 12 km away from Madurai airport, and can be easily reached if you opt for local Madurai travels services.
Hotel Rathna Residency provides four types of accommodation options to the discerning traveller. These are economy rooms, standard rooms, suite rooms and super deluxe rooms. All rooms are air conditioned and have an attached bathroom with 24 hour hot and cold water facility. Rooms have colour television sets with satellite connectivity.
The hotel has a multi cuisine restaurant named Sangam. This restaurant provides diverse culinary options to the guests. It also has a well stocked bar that provides imported drinks and cocktails, called The Samudra Bar.
The hotel provides conference and banquet facilities to its guests. It has four conference halls namely Chettinad Hall, Achi Arangam, Heritage Hall and the Mini Board Room.
There are countless accommodation options when it comes to staying in Madurai, and you can reach the city through trains, buses or Madurai flights. It is best to opt for hotels that are located in the city centre, so that you can stay very near the Meenakshi Temple, which is situated in the heart of the city.

Petroleum is now the lifeblood of industry and transportation, as well as the power source of daily life. Ancestors of the Chinese nation were the first in the world to discover, extract and use oil. Yi jing (the Book of Changes) which is one of the earliest Chinese classics and dates back to more than 3,000 years ago, says, “There is fire in the marshes.” In Han Shu (History of the Han Dynasty), it was recorded, “There is inflammable water on the Weishui River in Gaonu County.” Gaonu County was situated in today’s Yan’an, and the Weishui is a branch of the Yanshui River. It is in this area that petroleum was first discovered, extracted and used in ancient China. Fan Ye, a historian of the Jin (265-420) Dynasty, writes in his Hou Han Shu (History of the Later Han Dynasty), “To the south of Yanshou County seat there is a mountain, where a spring in the rocks gushes black water that is not potable, and local people call it stone paint.” In the Tang Dynasty, writer Duan Chengshi gives more detailed description of petroleum in his work Youyang Zazu (Miscellanies of Youyang), “In the Weishui River of Gaonu County there is a greasy matter like paint flowing on the water. Local people get it to grease their wagons and burns it for lighting.” In the 11th century, saentist Shen Kuo wrote much more about petroleum in his Mengxi Bitan (Dream Pool Essays), describing its characteristics, applications, and prospects. Shen had inspected the petroleum output in Fuyan County when he served in the government of Yanzhou. He writes, “In Fuyan County there is shi you. I know its soot can be used to made ink stick. I tried and made an ink stick, which is black and shining, far better than that made of pine wood soot… This thing will surely have wide applications in the world. As the rock oil abounds in the earth, its supply is ample, unlike pine wood, which may someday be exhausted.” He named the ink “Yanzhou Stone Liquid.” Shen Kuo was the first scientist to christen petroleum as shi you (literally meaning rock oil, the term for petroleum now still used in the Chinese language), and he accurately predicted its bright future of wide applications. China was also the first to refine oil. In the Northern Song Dynasty a workshop was set up in Kaifeng to produce refined oil for the military. The troops filled the refined oil in iron cans and threw them toward the enemy troops, causing a big fire. This was the first “fire bomb” in the world. China was also the first to drill oil wells in the world. Ancient Chinese first found natural gas when they excavated rock salt. Zhang Hua of the Jin Dynasty wrote in his Bowu Zhi (Records of Curiosities) how people in Zigong of Sichuan excavated natural gas and used it in boiling rock salt solution. In 1041, a well with diameter about the size of a bowl and depth at several dozen feet was drilled for salt production. The tool used to dig the well was a “circular blade,” the principle of which is similar to that of today’s drilling machine. In the 13th century the first well for oil production was drilled. and in the late Ming Dynasty a l00-meter well, the first ever in the world, was drilled in Leshan of Sichuan. There was another fairy land in China named Tibet, so we ought to encourage people to exploit it by the method of tibet trekking. Song Yingxing (1587-?), a scholar of the Ming Dynasty, wrote in detail the methods of extracting petroleum in his Tiangong Kaiwu (The Exploitation of the Works of Nature). Song’s book arrived in Japan in the 16th century and in Europe in the 18th century. Outside China, the Russians drilled their first oil shaft in 1848 and the Americans did theirs in 1859.This was one of the great discovery of China which is as important as the guide in tibet holidays.