Chennai

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Chennai

Day 2 - First day of tour!

After what seemed like an eternity I arrive in Chennai and the start of my journey. The hotel is reasonable but the level of poverty, dirt, dust, grime, smells etc that overwhelm all the senses is just impossible to describe! I met the rest of my group and it is a pretty mixed bunch - English, Aussie, Kiwi, German - even a Lithuanian! The diversity of ages is pretty broad as well, the youngest being 22 and the oldest at 61, but so far the introductions have gone well. My travelling buddy is a Kiwi girl, Holly, who we have decided is my long lost twin sister - only separated by location, time, space..... we are very similar people (almost SPOOKILY so!) and it should be interesting to see how we go.

After all the intros we did a walk around the area, followed by our first introduction to the local train system (aaaahhhhh! Let's just say hand sanitiser is going to become my best friend!) and had a wander around the Marina Beach. By this time it was getting dark, so you'd expect this to be the 'quiet time' but this in India - even at 6pm there are people EVERYWHERE and apparently the beach itself gets 200,000-300,000 people every day! It is a mix of vendors selling street wares, families and people all over, including a boy with a monkey that is trained to pickpocket - fantastic! Our fearless leader, Charls, is very informative about what we should and shouldn't do, how to approach people/beggars/random situations as we go - I think he will be our lifesaver on more than one occasion!

After the beach we walked through the beachside area, where women sell left over fish etc on the side of the street - it is an interesting sight to say the least and we hear stories of how their 'encroachments' (aka houses/shanty) are being destroyed by the govt on Friday nights - either burnt or knocked down - as a way of trying to remove the local fisherpeople from the prime seaside real estate. What a world!

We also witness what I think we will have to become immune to - people freely weeing on the streets (maybe I should be happy we haven't seen anything further yet!) We were going to start a game of "how many people can we see urinating" but Holly and I got quickly bored, as there was just too much competition.........

And so back to our hotel via the local train - it was packed (of course) but our first taste of the 'two way zoo' - people staring at us just as much as we are looking around - interesting concept!

The night was finished off with dinner then drinks at Zara, a spanish tapas bar that could have been anywhere in the world (like my Japanese meal on Puerto Rico - random!). Closing time equals time to go home -  no more Kingfisher beer tonight! 😉

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