Days 9 and 10: 36 hours in Chennai

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We had a 14.00 flight to Chennai from Jaipur international so our morning consisted of packing and then getting ourselves on the plane (packing is not my favourite activity, and flying definitely isn’t Meg’s.) It was only a short flight (2 hours) and by 17.00 we were set up in our room at Zostel Chennai. Zostel is a chain of hostels (or so Meg tells me I do little to no research on this thing.) We had to go bare foot indoors but had a proper shower, so swings and roundabouts.



We ventured to the beach just as the sun had gone down and found that the beach is elevated which prevents any tides from creeping up. Local food stalls are set up along the beach which to begin with we thought was amazing, until we started walking along the beach and realised we could quite easily be walking down a corridor in sccoby-doo. Same 4 stands. Over. And over. Until the end of time itself. We didn’t get anything off the beach as it didn’t look particularly good, but we did stop at a shopping mall on the way back, sneaking up to the rooftop terrace (fancy) for some biriyani but the stall was closed. McDonalds was open though (Oh we did.) McKebab for me. McAloo Tikki for Meg. Burgers were actually alright to be fair. Ain’t no Big Tasty mind. We got a tuk tuk home and then settled down for our first evening, as tomorrow was what we had come to Chennai to do.



Our original reasoning for coming to Chennai was to do the half marathon, which was unfortunately cancelled. Conveniently, in Eden Park just on the outskirts of Chennai on the same day was the Devil’s Circuit, a gruelling 5k obstacle course which looked like a barrel of laughs. Obviously we weren’t going to miss out. After we arrived and got our bibs of an excellent, although horribly overworked woman on the desk, we suited up (put on our free t-shirt and our weird head guard things) and got ready to compete. We got a shout out from the man with the mic at the start line for being some of the only non-indian folk competing. Anyone who has done this sort of event before know there’s a community style bond to these kind of things but this event was a whole new level. It was crazy. Bat shit crazy. There was a stage with martial art shows, a rave disco with a load of middle aged Indian men dancing in a line. All sorts. The organiser on the mic who gave us a shout out preached to each wave for a solid 15 minutes, inciting chants of “Booyah!”. The race itself was harder than any I’d done before, about a third of the obstacles I was never going to be physically capable enough to complete (got up that ninja wall though didn’t I.) Each of the tougher obstacles takes about 15 minutes to have a go on because people sit on the top and wait for others, helping each other up.



Understandably after this we were nackered and after showering we got about half way to the beach before our stomachs got the better of us and we ended up in a pizza hut across the road. Chennai is considerably more westernized than the other three places we have been to. We had a Soy Masala pizza and then Meg was absolutely shattered. We headed back and Meg napped whilst I tried in vain to catch up on tis bloody thing. That was it for the rest of the evening. That also completes our tour of India. These are the stats.



Days: 10



Steps (total India): 152606



Bites amassed: 16



Photos with Foreigners: 17



5 genuine top tips for India:



1) If the place you’re staying has a metro, use it. Failing that get an Ola.



2) Even the grubbiest looking street vendors dish out some absolutely classic food.



3) If loud background noises don’t suit you, go somewhere that is not a city, as the constant beeping will drive you absolutely insane.



4) If you have a student card make sure you take it. If you don’t and your younger brother looks a bit like you, then take his instead (hindsight).



5) Bring multiple plug adapters, some use European plug sockets, some Asian, some universal. It’s a complete lottery so play it safe.

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