Me, taking in the view and avoiding he smells from the third class train window. (Tamil Nadu)
Chennai Beach front: Perhaps the widest beach I have seen.
Chennai slums: Living among the litter.
Baby monkey in a Temple water trough.
Showing posts with label Chennai. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chennai. Show all posts
Tuesday, 12 February 2013
Thursday, 31 January 2013
Cleanest toilets in India
I forgot to mention that the Sathyam cinema in Chennai had wonderfully nice loos. Louise has been to India 14 times and she reckons they are the cleanest she's ever seen in this country.
Toileting in India is something else. Men seem to urinate where ever they please, so that in many areas the stench is horrific. Women are more often forced to pay a couple of rupees to use a public facility that although much used would be lucky to see a weekly clean.
A particular bugbear for me (and Louise too) is that the loos are always wet. This is because Indians wash instead of using paper, and in the process they seem to get water everywhere.
Visiting a public toilet means:
• take a deep breath, it might be bad outside but you probably want to cover your nose inside.
• enter the toilet facilities.
• if there is a queue, maintain position - an Indian woman will barge right in front of you if you don't be serious about this. She will even push.
• secure your bag on you (there is never a hook, and if there was it'd be attached to a filthy wall),
• enter cubicle, discover it has no latch to hold it closed.
• roll up the trousers legs (otherwise they will be about to touch the floor and wick up water while you squat (it's harder with bags attached but whether it's a western loo or an eastern hole in the floor, you probably don't wanna touch it)
• use foot to hold door closed while you pull trousers down... Careful not to lower them too close to the wet dirty floor
• swap foot holding door to hand to hold door and lower yourself into a squat
• be Careful!
• fumble for loo paper (none is supplied - they use water - and if it was it'd be wet like everything else.)
• switch hands for foot again while you pull up trousers.
• Once you're done and the mosquitoes have bitten your exposed ankles and bum you find that you have to touch something filthy (probably a bucket) to flush the toilet.
•You leave, walk down the street and then realise that your trousers are still rolled up! (They don't wear shorts here and nor should any respectful tourist, so no to rolled up trousers too).
On top of this, the Indian loo attendant will often try to charge me more due to my being a tourist, which wouldn't be so bad if they gave me some toilet paper or something for it, but they don't.
It's hard to keep enough fluids in the system when you know that you might be faced with all this. I haven't been brave enough to check out the loos on the trains - I could smell them on the way past, it was enough.
The photo shows men's toilets at a bus stop on the 5 hour bus ride from Vellore to Bangalore. I can only tell what can be seen (I could hardly check it out), walls to the average Indians chest, no roof. It stunk, but so did the field where the other men were going.
Toileting in India is something else. Men seem to urinate where ever they please, so that in many areas the stench is horrific. Women are more often forced to pay a couple of rupees to use a public facility that although much used would be lucky to see a weekly clean.
A particular bugbear for me (and Louise too) is that the loos are always wet. This is because Indians wash instead of using paper, and in the process they seem to get water everywhere.
Visiting a public toilet means:
• take a deep breath, it might be bad outside but you probably want to cover your nose inside.
• enter the toilet facilities.
• if there is a queue, maintain position - an Indian woman will barge right in front of you if you don't be serious about this. She will even push.
• secure your bag on you (there is never a hook, and if there was it'd be attached to a filthy wall),
• enter cubicle, discover it has no latch to hold it closed.
• roll up the trousers legs (otherwise they will be about to touch the floor and wick up water while you squat (it's harder with bags attached but whether it's a western loo or an eastern hole in the floor, you probably don't wanna touch it)
• use foot to hold door closed while you pull trousers down... Careful not to lower them too close to the wet dirty floor
• swap foot holding door to hand to hold door and lower yourself into a squat
• be Careful!
• fumble for loo paper (none is supplied - they use water - and if it was it'd be wet like everything else.)
• switch hands for foot again while you pull up trousers.
• Once you're done and the mosquitoes have bitten your exposed ankles and bum you find that you have to touch something filthy (probably a bucket) to flush the toilet.
•You leave, walk down the street and then realise that your trousers are still rolled up! (They don't wear shorts here and nor should any respectful tourist, so no to rolled up trousers too).
On top of this, the Indian loo attendant will often try to charge me more due to my being a tourist, which wouldn't be so bad if they gave me some toilet paper or something for it, but they don't.
It's hard to keep enough fluids in the system when you know that you might be faced with all this. I haven't been brave enough to check out the loos on the trains - I could smell them on the way past, it was enough.
The photo shows men's toilets at a bus stop on the 5 hour bus ride from Vellore to Bangalore. I can only tell what can be seen (I could hardly check it out), walls to the average Indians chest, no roof. It stunk, but so did the field where the other men were going.
Wednesday, 23 January 2013
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.
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.
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