Last Days in India

Kerala continued to bring danger. Following on from the taxi driver of the last entry is the electricity system of Fort Cochin.


We were only in town for one night, between Varkala and an overnight train to Chennai. With there being absolutely nothing else to do we went for a few beers (or special tea as it was again being called) with a couple we bumped into at the station (having already seen them at the airport in Mumbai and in Varkala). There we were, minding our own business at an outside table when the junction boxes on a pylon over the road from us decided they had had enough and exploded in a big loud and bright way. Naturally I missed the best of it as I was sitting facing away but even when I turned round it still looked like a giant firework doing its thing far too close for comfort. A power cut was the result until a team of electricians arrived in a van and had it fixed about an hour later.


Other than that, not a lot happens in Fort Cochin. On the day we were leaving we hired bikes and went for a ride down the peninsular, getting plenty of friendly smiles and waves along the way. And that is all we did.


On arrival in Chennai it was raining monsoon style, an unseasonably late time of year for it. We opted to stay in the budget area near Egmore Station for ease of getting to the airport on the following night, so once we were on the right street Tom took up position in a restaurant with the bags and a Dosa while I scoured the area for a room, trying to dodge the downpours, the puddles and the persistent rickshaw driver who had seen us while we still had the bags and was keen to take us to his choice of hotel an apparently short distance away. He was actually quite helpful, confident that I would fail to find any available rooms he was happy to bide his time and even offered to lend me his umbrella while I searched. I didn't fail, securing what seems to have been the last available budget room in the area.


We didn't set ourselves targets to do much in Chennai, the main thing was to visit some local markets and get some christmas presents to take to Australia. It didn't work out though as stalls didn't set up with the weather as it was and we weren't keen to explore further afield in the conditions.


Having missed Om Shanti Om in Mumbai we decided to put that right and caught a rickshaw to the Sathyam Cinema. The film was entertaining and the cinema was incredible. I've never seen or expect to see another cinema like it. Marble floors with underfloor lighting, big reclining leather seats, monstrous sound system and a whole bunch of other luxurious touches, all for Rs120 (₤1.50). I'm starting to sound like a salesman for them but it was overwhelming good, like they've taken a designers initial unrealistic concept and instead of the usual watering down process "We can't do this", "It's too expensive", "That'll have to be scaled back" they've gone with "Ok do it all, but grander". When we left the cinema the heavens had really opened, we got lucky finding a rickshaw available and were in no position to bargain too hard with the driver, who could charge a premium as there was a cinema full of people leaving and not many rickshaws about because of the risk of breakdown or hitting unseen objects on the river-like roads.


After a few beers in a quiet bar we used the local commuter train for the journey to the airport. The train station isn't quite at the airport, it's across the road, a 0.5km walk. Sounds simple enough until you factor in the torrential rain, the night time, the lack of signage, the size of the road and the lack of pavements or crossings. So it was that with half a dozen indians going the same way we were walking along the edge of a busy highway for ten minutes, rucksacks in their almost waterproof sacks balanced on a shoulder or on the head, avoiding the knee deep mud off the edge of the tarmac and the hazards of the vehicles on it. We arrived at the terminal building thoroughly drenched and grinning like fools. I wouldn't have wanted to finish India any other way.

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