Turning up the heat in Chennai
Trip Start
Nov 04, 2007
1
25
62
Trip End
May 03, 2008
Chennai (Madras),
India
Friday, January 18, 2008
Well we survived our 20 hour train journey to Chennai! We decided not to go in search of the Arribada, where thousands of Olive Ridley Turtles arrive on a couple of beaches in Orissa for a few nights in January to lay their eggs. It would have been amazing but we knew that it usually happens with a new moon (they need the tides to be just right) so the chances are that if it was going to happen this year (and sometimes they just don't arrive) it would either have happened a week ago, or wouldn't be until the beginning of February. It just didn't seem worth hanging around waiting for something that may have already happened. Ah well, so close. The babies don't hatch out for another couple of months, so we certainly weren't waiting for them (although thousands of baby turtles would be so great to see!).
Our train journey actually turned out to be 22 hours, and wasn't too bad at all. The train left Bhubaneswar at 11.45 - and as it started there we didn't have a mad-rush to get on and find our seats. We were in '3AC' class, which means Aircon sleeper with three bunks (bottom, middle and top). However, we'd been allocated the seats along the walkway and they only had a bottom and a top - which was nice! It meant that when the bottom bunk was folded as seats we could sit there quite happily, not worrying whether anyone wanted to get in or out of bed - if we'd been in a three-tier section we wouldn't have been able to sit once the middle bunk was pulled down. There was also no-one in the six other seats in our section for most of the day, so we had a really nice quiet time reading books, listening to music and watching the world go by.
Marina Beach, Chennai
Then a big Indian family with children got on, and things got a bit noiser - but I'd take them over pervy staring men any day! The trains aren't quite as comfortable as in Thailand, but there is a lot more food being sold - including someone walking up and down with a canteen of steaming Chai every hour or so, which was great. We'd bought some samosas, biscuits and crisps before we got on the train - unsure of what the food would be like, but in the end we ate lunch, dinner and breakfast from the train catering and they were fine (well, the first two were...breakfast - bread and veg cutlets - was a bit soggy). We went past some lovely scenery, which I attempted to get photos of through the grimy window but I think I shall add them later as I don't think this computer will cope. So, refreshed and ready for the day ahead we arrived in Chennai at 9.30am this morning. Ha ha ha. The toilets on the train were fine until someone threw up all over the western-style one. And we hadn't had showers or changed clothes (there were no curtains in 3AC so we couldn't really change) so we were very glad to get to our hotel and partake of their marvellously hot shower. This is probably the nicest hotel we've stayed in so far in India. The people are friendly, the room is big and clean, the sheets are probably clean (an improvement of 'very likely dirty', which is what we've been getting so far!), there is air conditioning (Chennai has a reputation for being pretty toasty - it certainly seems to be so far) and there is hot water on tap.
Monument at Marina Beach, Chennai
In fact, all in all it's about the standard of one of the normal rooms in SE Asia, with a lot less character, for the price of the most expensive. It's amazing how quickly you adjust your standards! Still, we're saving loads of money on food...Hugh:
Chennai is definitely the smartest city we've been to so far, and not too crowded. The first afternoon we went for a walk around town to see what was there. There is a pretty massive beach at Chennai with lots of people playing cricket on! Also along the beach front are some modern monuments, which was quite refreshing to see as we'd not seen such nice modern-ness so far. It was also good to see that someone was actually taking some care and thought over the city. The people are also very friendly indeed. Just walking along the beach front we ended up talking to lots of locals who just seemed interested to say hello and ask where we're from. (And, in a very welcome change, I didn't feel threatened or leered at! Woo hoo - Ros). The other very good thing (for us anyway) is that most of the restaurants in Chennai were completely vegetarian! Strangely, the restaurant we ate in that evening also had a branch in Rayners Lane - which we will have to track down when we get home.
We settled down for a good night's sleep. After spending the previous night on a train we needed it! However the local Muslim population had different ideas! At about midnight we were awoken by the sounds of drums and singing over loudspeaker in the street below our room.
Mohurrhum Festival, Chennai
We went onto our balcony to find some sort of carnival taking place below! It was so ridiculously loud I can't even describe - I've been in quieter nightclubs! Roz's earplugs did little to block out the sound. The procession also seemed to be doing circuits, because we're sure that we saw the same people go past several times. There wasn't any escape so we just had to grin and bear it. We managed to drift in and out of sleep for a few hours - we think it finally stopped at about sunrise. The next morning the woman at our hotel told us it was the Mohurrhum festival. At least we've learnt something!The next day (after attempting to lie-in, but having the hotel knocking on our door for the usual newspaper/tea/breakfast/'anything-else-sah?') we took an auto (their name for tuk-tuk) to one of the local film studios. Chennai has a relatively big film/TV industry, and the AVM studios that we went to let people just wander around. We were hoping to see some epic film sequence with lots of dancing, singing and colourful costumes, but that wasn't to be. Although there was some strange comedy-quiz show being filmed. They tried to make us sit in the audience seating, but not knowing how long the show would take, and not being able to understand Tamil we decided to stand at the back so we could make a quick escape when we'd seen enough. Everyone was very friendly though and we had a long chat with a guy who was working there on an internship - he even gave us some tea!
