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.

Pictures from Kerala

Because I can write blogs with my iphone I haven't been uploading a lot of photo's. I will do these from time to time in internet cafes:-

Kerala Backwaters, the houseboats come in a range of styles and sizes. Ours was 2 stories, 2 bedrooms and a large lounging area.

Some of the backwaters passages were small, others quite large, at one stage we entered a lake.

We went to the beach to watch the sunset. The beach dress style is different.

Munnar tea plantations and the women cutting the tea. A foreman watched them from not far away. The women were all older... I guess in the future there won't be anybody left to cut my tea, because everyone went to University and doesn't want to cut tea anymore.

Munnar hills... a beautiful view.

Let the adventure begin!

I arrived in the middle of Friday night. Strangely, although my flight was on time as scheduled it had to wait for landing- because the airport was being cleaned. I figured this was my first introduction to how India does things.

(5 Jan)
For my first days I had arranged to stay with an Indian family friend from back home who was home visiting family for Christmas. In those first days (4 nights) I was treated like royalty. I was shown all the major sights of Cochin - Fort Cochin, the Chinese fishing nets, and the Kathalali dance performance; and spent a day in a houseboat on the Kerala Backwaters.

(6 Jan)
The Backwaters are listed in most the major travel guide companies as amongst the top to do things of the world. It's a series of waterways: lakes and canals, a 900 km network. Typically people travel the backwaters in a houseboat and with a group of 17 from my friends family we did a day trip on a 2 bedroom houseboat (with lots of lounging room up top the bedrooms were largely ignored). I loved it and I thought it was enough without staying overnight.

(7Jan)
The next day we departed from his family and, with a driver, headed to the tea plantations of Munnar. Whereas Cochin had a stifling heat and humidity, Munnar was wonderfully cool. We stayed in a wonderful resort outside of town, away from the constant blasting of horns, and with wonderful accommodations and foods. Unfortunately the tea museum was closed on Monday so I'm none the wiser about tea. We spent the afternoon driving to Top Station for the big views but it was shrouded in mist.
www.camelotmunnar.com

(8 Jan)
The next morning, despite my offers to take a bus, they drive me another 5 hours to meet my travel companion, Louise, in Madurai. The trip involved 17 hairpin bends in 30 minutes.
Louise had gotten tired of looking for accommodation and settled for something particularly horrible and my Indian host was horrified to see where he was leaving me.
As the guide book says, it's dank. It's also grimey and very unclean. But I have used my own sheet, pillow slip, mosquito net., eye mask, and ear plugs. I survived. Today we'll move on and in Trichy we'll find better (I promise!). But hey, this private room was $7 ... I might stretch the budget for something better.

Madurai has a most impressive Hindu temple which we visited already. Most funny is that the place has 4 gates for entrance and we managed to exit at a different gate to where we went in, but didn't realize. Before entering we had to remove our shoes and exchange them for a ticket... And we went to 3 different gates to request our shoes before we finally found the correct entrance way.

(9 Jan)
Today we move onto Trichy. Like most
places in India it has another proper name but I'm an Aussie, so I'll go with to easiest. Today will be my first Indian train!

Photos will be posted later. (I'm writing from a blogger application on my iPhone).