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Published: October 1st 2011
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Mumbai
Awaiting our flight to Chennai First Stop Chennai
The flights from Birmingham through Dubai to Mumbai and on to Chennai were pretty good and pretty uneventful. It was just as well we didn't aim for the earlier flight on from Mumbai as it took so long to change terminals we would have missed it by hours.
It goes without saying that there was
quite a contrast between the Emirates terminal at Dubai where it took us 20 minutes to walk through the duty free shops to our gate...... and that is without stopping to browse........and the domestic terminal at Mumbai which
is surprisingly plush inside but where you drink your cafe latte overlooking the
”slumdog millionaire” slums alongside the runway!!
Well. Welcome back to India.!!! We both slept most of the shortish, flight to Chennai (which used to be called “Madras”) but were soon rudely awoken as we were flung headlong into the Chennai traffic with an Asian Lewis Hamilton at the wheel......... Arghhhhhh! Not only did he drive like it was the Chennai GP, he had no idea where our hotel was and just about stopped short of telling us it had burned down last night and he knew
Press only???
Outside Chepauk cricket Ground. a much better place anyway!
Hotel Tri Sea Residency spotted, we booked in, bought 2 large bottles of water and slept for 14 hours solid. Tri Sea has a plush foyer and 2 restaurants (veg and non veg) but the rooms, it has to be said, are a little basic
but very clean. (We will not mention the three cockroaches we killed after dinner tonight, but we come from Spain and they were only little ones anyway!).
After a very late !!!! breakfast we forayed out to find that we were just down the road from the Chennai Cricket Ground where Chennai Super Kings were at home (to whom we never found out) .There was big business going on in Super King's flags and face painting, which funnily enough we declined!
Just a bit further on we came across Madras University which is housed in some wonderful buildings. on the other side of the main road is Marina beach which has to be one of the biggest beaches in the world if only for the fact that it is about a quarter of a mile from the pavement to the sea (there is no tide). There are
Marina Beach
All life goes on here. permanent funfairs and stalls all the way down to the sea and apparently it is a shame that we aren't here on Sunday, as most of Chennai decamp to the beach for what must be a pretty BIG Sunday Market. Ann was one of the few who dabbled their tippy toes in the waves of the Bay of Bengal (one more sea to cross off her list). There were a few children in the waves being supervised by their fully clothed mums, loads of people sitting and chatting and enjoying the cool breezes and lots of guys on horse back offering you rides along the beach, “Plenty room for 2 madam”. “Yeah poor horse”. We did comment that the horses were beautiful and surprisingly, in the best condition we have ever seen working horses like these.
On day two we set off on foot for the Fort St George. It is the old British barracks dating back centuries but what remains today are from “Clive of India” time with his house and the parade grounds etc, now used by the geological survey offices and apparently the Indian Military and a
LOT of police together with a Museum and the
Bay of Bengal
Ann adds another ocean to her list of paddled in. It's quite warm actually. very old St Mary's Church. Not allowed to enter the Clive Building as the guy inside recognised the fact that David wasn't an officer. How ever did he know that, I ask? It is a bit surreal to have all this inside walls where people are now living/working in pretty squalid conditions, surrounded by more banks and ATM's than you can shake a stickat. Welcome back to India!
Chennai is a huge city of 5.6 million people and capital of the state Tamil Nadu (60 million people). It has some lovely Indo-Saracenic architecture along the beach area. It has been dubbed the Detroit of India and in many ways I suppose, encapsulates modern day India in as much as it has slums alongside great wealth and history and at the same time is rapidly developing into a modern day city with fashion, cars and technology at it's heart. It is not really the sort of place we came to see but we needed a resting place and leaping off point for the parts of Tamil Nadu that we really want to see.
To date we have only seen one other white person ( a nice french lad staying
in our hotel) but actually don't feel out of place or uncomfortable and not too much staring going on YET!!!! Lots of head wobbling. Good food. Stinkiest river in the world and the biggest thunderstorm ever. Fortunately it was overnight!
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martin toni
non-member comment
Nice to hear your news. We left Cadiar this morning and had a small firee inside front driver side wheel due to overheating brakes by the time we got to berjat. Oh well, onward and upwards!!