Chennai experiences...filling in the gaps

While we are here in Kollam (Quillon) passing time before our trip to the backwaters this afternoon, we thought we would try to fill in some of the gaps since our time here. Photos will have to come later though as we are having difficulty finding a computer with a working CD drive!

We arrived in Chennai shortly after 10pm on Thursday 7th December. Without any problems getting through immigration, we collected our bags and headed out the doors for our first whiff of the Indian atmosphere. We were pleased to find that the air was not quite as humid and stinky as we were expecting, and we went in search of a taxi to our hotel. This was of course going to be the first haggling experience of the journey, so Lorraine confidently assumed her air of "Indian authority" and quickly proceeded to get the best deal available (so she thinks!) and shortly after we clambered into our taxi headed for a hotel. The first hotel we went to was fully booked, the second wasn't, but upon investigation of the rooms, we beat a hasty retreat back to the taxi. Even in India, there have to be some standards! We finally settled on one further down the road, and the lengthy check-in process became our first introduction to the at-times extraordinarily frustrating Indian bureaucracy! After what seemed like half an hour in the hotel lobby, we finally managed to reach our rooms where we all collapsed gratefully into bed.

The next morning, after a little sleep-in, Astrid and Lorraine were ready to hit the streets (seasoned Indian adventurers that they are)! As the boys were still asleep, we decided to go on a reconnaissance mission to check out good eating places nearby. Having found a restaurant dishing up the local cuisine, we went back for Shanks and Christian, who were by now fully roused. This was to be their first "taste" of India, and we all decided to settle on a firm favourite - masala dosa. I remember getting a masala dosa with Shanks at a restaurant in Perth once - this set us back about $AU25! Here in India, for the authentic version, we paid about 50c! The price of food, and everything else, still amazes us all sometimes. We eat out 3 times a day, and the most we have ever had to pay to feed all four of us is $AU6.00! India is still the place to be for the budget traveller!

Later in the day we checked out a large modern shopping complex called Spencer Plaza, as Astrid was trying to find a camera battery for the digital camera she purchased in Singapore. On the way back to our hotel we looked at another hotel and decided to switch, as the latter one was cheaper and much nicer! On our second day in Chennai we went to George Town, a bazaar area in the older part of Chennai, then T. Nagar - another market area, where we had lots of fun haggling for some nice cool cotton tops. Later in the day it was time to start thinking about organising a car and driver for the remainder of our trip. We decided that it would be a good idea, given our short time here, to hire a car and driver, rather than relying on public transport to get us around. This gives us 100% flexibility with our plans and our timings, and the total cost for a 17-day trip for the four of us came to Rs 25 000 or $AU10.50 each per day!

One thing that has touched all of us is the warmth, friendliness and helpfulness of all the people we meet. Sometimes we may meet with curious glances (especially Lorraine), sometimes with excited shouts of "Hallo" from little children eager to shake the boys' hands, but when the people realise that we are also friendly, keen to eat the local food and observe the local customs, we are treated almost as VIPs and people, especially at restaurants, bend over backwards to ensure that we are being well looked after. We have all decided that we are going to try to fit in as much as possible with the locals - whether this is learning some phrases in the local language, abandoning cutlery and eating with our right hands only, and eating where the locals eat - not the flashier upmarket places which tend all too often to end up becoming clustered with non-Indians!

We will attempt to fill in the trip from Chennai to Trichy in the next post!