B*gger Chennai!

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Since the last posting I've had a Dark Night of the Soul. I quite enjoyed being whisked round the city by my CouchSurfing host - highlights the banyan tree in the Theosophical Society Gardens, and sundry Catholic churches pretending to be wedding cakes. But at the back of my mind all the time, when I wasn't fighting sleep) was the dread of spending another night at that awful awful hotel. When I was dropped off there after our day out at 4.30 I fully intended to sleep, but clamour prevented it. I gave up and went and rang dozens of hotels - no vacancies. On top of that, it looked as though the plans to visit Mamallipuram were being seriously curtailed, and we even talked of my going alone on the buis.

Night came and endless hours of listening to traffic and my fellow guests hawking and spitting. So at 6.30 I got up, wrote a note to my host, and got a rickshaw to the Bus Stand. Let me tell you it's not easy when 3 different people give you 3 different bus numbers, and 3 different stops, and the bus destinations are only in Tamil script, but I was determined to get to Mamallipuram good and early. Chaotic Chennai traffic eventually gave way to palm trees, lagoons, and views of the sea, Finally I was happy.

Mamallipuram struck me as a more congenial place to be. Small seaside town , albeit touristy, With Added Culture. It's a World Heritage Site with fantastic temple architecture and sculpture which I wish I could immediately show you some pictures of.

Walking down the street, I suddenly thought " I don't HAVE to go back to Chennai tonight'. The first hotel I called at had a room for a mere RS 200, monastically simple, but clean. Outside my room is a shady courtyard, and as I started to talk about Chennai to the American tourist relaxing there, I just burst into tears. I didn't know just how badly the noise had been affecting me, but I DID know that once I'd decided to stay here, a weight fell from me, and I've bounded around feeling I've got out of jail free. And of course I only went there in the first place to CouchSurf, which didn't happen, for reasons that aren't altogether clear to me.

I mooched round being a tourist, getting a coffee on a roof terraced cafe, and in a fairly low key way enjoyed the sculpture all over the place from the beach to sites at the end of town. In among are extraordinary boulders balancing precarioiusly in the manner of Brimham rocks.

At one destination, I found I'd made the huge mistake of arriving at the same time as 12 coaches worth of local university students. I couldn't help comparing them with Emily and friends, in the unlikely event that DMU or any other English seat of learning would bring upwards of 200 students out on a Sunday afternoon to Do Culture. Instead of distressed jeans, subversive T Shirts and Attitude, the girls were sweetly young, quietly standing in pairs separately from the equally demure young male students. Luckily for me they were all made to wait ouside quietly until long after I'd been and gone. Most people seemed to be there to have pictures of themselves and their families taken in front of the more famous sculptures, such as the life sized elephant, so it was all a bit of a challenge, if entertaining.

I'll go back to Chennai at the last possible moment to check out of the hellhole and go to the airport. Luckily there are loads of opportunities to shop here, but for some reason , my card has apparently been blocked, which saves money, but could be awkward..... Mal has rung the bank for me and they say there is no problem, though the shop might have one. But I shall need to go on line tomorrow morning, so will after all read any messages sent before say 6.00 a.m. GMT. I'm sure you'll all be online then.................

And I've bought a toothbrush. Sorted.

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