Grt Grand - Chennai Chennai (Madras)

... problem with bad advice from the hotel owner however. I was going to catch the train at 6.30am because the next one wasn’t till really late after that. That would have given me plenty of time to get to Colombo, find the bus to the airport and get through traffic along with any other problems. He then insisted that I could take a bus straight from Kandy to the airport and it would be a lot cheaper and quicker and no hassle of finding the bus in Colombo. My flight wasn’t ...

YO!<br><br>Its 08:10am on a wednesday morning in Chennai .........and ive just stumbled out of bed and to the internet cafe ........on what feels like my last day of freedom for a while.<br>Later on this afternoon ......we will be heading for a meditation centre just out of town to be inducted into a 10 day Vipassana meditation course..........the course proper starting tommorow morning at 4am!!.<br><br>I have known about Vipassana (and its benefits) since my last visit to india ...

... gives out immunities through the day that if you participate in you can't be killed. They include wearing two different shoes, wearing a cape, wearing your shirt inside out, and wearing something on your head other than a hat. You have to kill the person in public in the shipwide game but in "smurf-assasins" (our hall mascot is a smurf) you have to kill the person in private. I have yet to see either of my two targets so I have not done any ...

... hotel a few streets away. With no other options we jumped in and drove around Chennai for the next hour going from one closed or full hotel to the next. After the rickshaw driver had exhausted all his options he produced his trump card, a brochure for a very nice hotel and made a phone call. It turns out they had plenty of free rooms and off we went down a dark alley into the unknown. By 3am we had paid up-front our ...

Chennai At the departure lounge in Kuala Lumpur I met an Indian Managing Director of a shipping and warehousing company who does business in Dubai. As it turns out - he had heard Muhammad Yunus speak in Dubai - as well as his associate from India - whose own name is Muhammad Yunus J. This Muhammad Yunus met us at the Chennai airport and provided me a private driver to my hotel. This was most appreciated by this somewhat nervous traveler ...

... argh! it didnt help that when i got back one was on my bedroom wall! eeek! I was kept shuddering when walking around afterwards! The shopping was amazing around there. You could shop for ages! all good, indian, tourist junk :-) I went to sleep after an interesting discussion about Hinduism with Mohan..hmmmm..lay wide awake for ages looking around for lizards!

... where they were drying. Were you staying at the Silver Sands hotel on Negombo Beach on the 14th January 2007? Maybe you saw something suspicious and can help with our inquiries? We've set up a dedicated taskforce who will be working round the clock from our Colombo bureau. The number to call is 0800-4000-9689. We'll be waiting for your call. Despite the nature and seriousness of the ...

... and have already screwed me over? India is too big, too hot, too smelly, too impoverished, too confusing and too crowed to be stuck there, floundering in your own ignorance about the place. I entered India dead in the water and I left never wanting to come back. I think over time the resentment will soften and maybe one day I will consider returning. Until then, I'll lament what I saw and what I didn't see, lament who I met and didn't meet and wonder where the real India went.

... second because they were caught cheating in the beginning. Dodgeball was at some point in the morning, I think while I was watching Twister, we didn't place in that, Purple came in first, Red second, and that's all I know about dodge ball. I also didn't watch the Water Drop, and I don't even know what that was. I've lost track of the order, but the wet clothes contest was at some point, this was in the pool, and each team of four people had to put on the wet white crew jumpsuit type ...

... at the bottem, with gold colored designs on it. Hopefully it's cool by the time I get the shirt and the skirt-thing that goes underneath it. That's right, we're not anywhere near done yet. We have to go get fitted so they can make our shirts, and buy the skirts. In all our travels, we got to ride around in this great bus. It was carpeted with vevet carpet on the sides and walls, and it had linoleum on the floor. How cool is that? One of a kind for us!