From West Coast to East Coast...back to Chenai .

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We check in at Cochi Airport for flight to Chenoa and ask for an exit row legroom seat. When we go through the gate we get new boarding passes that are upgrades to business class ..only a short flight but nice nonetheless. Must make sure we get this on our last flight to Delhi. ...!
Agent meets us at Chennai and takes us to the car and leaves us with our driver for the next few days and whose name we never mastered. Our next 2 nights are at the Ideal Beach Resort. ...which turned out to be not so ideal....which was 60kms south of Chennai. It was a real hi di hi type place but we got a nice see view apartment. Being a weekend the place was full of locals and there was a number of people from an IT company in Chennai there It was funny seeing them in the pool...I was watching them floundering around the shallow end when 1 strayed into deeper water and really started to flounder...as quick as a flash one of the pool attendants dived in and got him to the side!
A big dining hall and not so great ....we meet an interesting Swiss lady on her own about our age who was struggling to find her way in life...she had spent time in an Ashram nearby. As per usual invited her to come and stay with us if she comes to NZ. We will be in big trouble if everyone we have invited comes at the same time...we would have Indians, Danes, English, Canadians etc.
Our driver takes us out to see some local temples and monuments that are 1400 years old...they are really facinating...and he has lunch with us . He tells us a bit about his life...has a wife and 2 teenage daughters and they rent a 1 bedroom house in Chennai costing 3000rs a month with no inside toilet. His drivers salary is 400rs (under $10 per day) and when working he is on call 24 hours a day and while away with clients he is buying meals and paying for his own accommodation or sleeping in the car. So we pay him 500 per day buy him biryani lunches which he seems pretty happy with.
After 2 nights at the Ideal Beach Resort which was not Ideal we are off to Pondicherry 100 kms down the coast for our last 8 nights. Same driver , who sleeps in the car the first night and drives us around Pondi the next day so we can get our bearings and then we send him back to his family but not until he has confirmed instructions for 21 Nov...we will be collected by another driver at midday for the transfer back to Chennai Airport All our drivers have been great...all fiercely protective of their temporary charges.The next 7 nights we are on our own staying in a room overlooking the sea at The Promenade Hotel.

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