Blogs from Tirupati, Chittoor District, Andhra Pradesh, India, Asia

We left Mamallapuram on 22nd March to catch the train from Chennai to Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh. The part of Chennai that we whizzed through was huge, sprawling and like Bangalore: that unique Indian mix of high tech and third world - shiny, glass fronted skyscrapers, surrounded by indescribable filth and deprivation on the ground. The train journey was uneventful apart from an incident involving a ticket inspector and one of the many vendors who walk up and down the trains plying their wares. The inspector suddenly flared up and lashed out at this guy, shouting and hitting him. Why he did this was a mystery, but what impressed us was the apparently unquestioned authority that these officials wield. Bus conductors too, rule their buses with iron fists. The landscape we passed through on the plain ... read more