Chennai & Madras: my first big Indian City

We were going to skip Chennai (formally Madras), other travellers and the guidebook spoke poorly of it, but I'm glad we included Chennai.

My reason for wanting to include Chennai was a bit week, I wanted to see the movie 'Life of Pi' at the cinema in 3D. The story starts out in Pondicherry (where we visited last week) and also visits Mummar(where I was the week before. And although I had wanted to see it for pure entertainment purposes, I also wanted to see it while the city was fresh in my mind. I thought it was a rather good depiction of the town as it must have been when the movie was set.

Seeing the movie here was a complete hoot. Mobile phones kept ringing, but although it would have been annoying at home I found it simply cultural here. The cinema was busy, although it was 1pm on a Tuesday. The audience got completely into the film- they laughed heartily, slapped their leg in enjoyment and watching 'with them' was a complete pleasure.

Aside from that we also went and found a franchise of the Australian coffee chain 'Gloria Jeans'. I wanted to see if it was like they are in Australia (I never go to one at home but I've passed them often enough) or 'Indianized'. It was very much like the Aussie versions, and although there was no flat white on the menu the young man understood my request and made me one. It was very nice to have this.

Then we took an evening stroll along Marina Beach. It was nice. At one point we found a the concrete painted with a figure of 8 and 3 ladies doing 30 minutes of walking the figure 8 (it occupied a space of about 5m x 4m) for their exercise. Soft exercise I'd say. We joined in, but soon got bored and tried to jazz it up a bit, much to everybodies amusement.

Traveling within Chennai has meant passing many slums. These are interesting to look at: a smelly stench with rubbish everywhere, and huts and more huts and people and more people among the squalor. Catching the train back from the beach the train stopped at a station in a large slum area. We were impressed by the sheer volume of people who go off the train here (it was the commuters coming home from work) and how they were so tidy and seemingly clean comparedt to their surroundings and what they were going to.

We also visited the old British fort museum, but I found it most uninteresting.

Chennai is my first big Indian city and we are glad we came. Our stay of 2 nights has been sufficient and interesting.