2011 India, Chennai from London

3rd March 2011
Awake around 7 am at home to the sound of barely subdued excitement eminating from the kids as they realised today was the day we would be leaving for India.
I was a bit slow to get going, legacy of a bit too much vine the night before, but the excitement was contagious so I was soon up and about.
Breakfasted on as many leftover bits and pieces as possible to empty the fridge.Strange combo of fried courgettes & mushrooms, scrambled egg and baked beans, some leftover pasta sauce, and some yogurt. I went to the pound shop & grabbed some wind up torches & had a look at some cosmetics because we'd heard from Eunmi's friend Sheila that these could be used for bargaining in India. Eunmi went there later and get some along with bits on antiseptic  hand wash.
After a bit of last minute washing and tidying up the house it was soon time for last minute packing of the backpacks before the taxi arrived.
The driver was a Sri Lankan guy who clued us on a few basic words of Tamil, and arranged our pick up for when we returned.

Pretty uneventful check in,etc. apart from the scanner bleeping at security so I had to be potted down. The first leg of the flight was a bit of a drag due to it being so turbulent, and the 2nd leg was much the same but made worse bu the seats we had(row 35) which either had no tray or jutted out into the aisle, so I'd get clipped by the passing trolley.
About 5 1/4 bottles of vino helped suppress the pain somewhat.








4th March
Arrived at Chennai with Eunmi & I feeling a bit bothered & tired from the turbulence & lack of sleep. As we disembarked it was about 8.15 am and 28 degrees which was a slight shock after our long cold UK winter.
After a lengthy queue through immigration and having to exit via a x-ray scanner and pass yet another bit of paper to another job's worth in uniform we emerged and arranged pre-booked taxi(340 Rupee) to the Sea Shell Residency hotel in the Thousand Lights district. It felt good to be amongst India's chaotic traffic again, free of the constrained order of UK roads. Immediately the smells hit you, a combination of jasmine, urine, herbs and spices and at regular intervals the pungently sour smell of shit, particularly around the slum areas, which you're never far away from in India. The class fortunes are starkly obvious from the start as you travel along the motorways ranging from bigger newer 4WDs, 4 door sedans, 2 doors, Auto rickshaws & Ambassadors, then various classes of motorbikes then pushbikes and people of various levels of dress from business to casual and so on down to those in what most westerners would call rags. At the bottom seemed to be people who were also shoeless, and those sleeping or begging on the street.
We arrive safely at the hotel in our aging Ambassador. It's a very busy street just off the main road and the hotel is easy to spot as it seems to have a permanent set of around 10 auto rickshaws parked outside. The hotel turned out to be pretty good with nice clean rooms and bathroom(no bath, just bucket wash) and AC. Beds a bit small for a family of 4 as only 2 small singles pushed together, but happy enough with it.

After settling in a bit we went for a wander for a wander down the main road to try and find an ATM but the ones we found didn't work so we went into a little local eaterie and had some samosa, puroti, poori and tomato rice, which was quite nice.
All that with 2 bottles of water for 87 Rupees. Back to the hotel after that for a snooze and we all dropped off for a while. I got up a bit earlier than the others and walked for enough toward town to find an ATM and took out 3000 Rupees. Later changed £150 for 9900 Rp(exchange rate £1=66 Rupees) as well.
Hotel told us where to go to buy some dresses (Shamal Kameez) for Eunmi & the girls so we got an autorickshaw to Saravana, a huge multi-storey shop full of clothes.
We seemed to be assigned a personal shopper, a pleasant ypung local girl, who helped Eunmi find some beautiful clothes, then girls' too(4270 Rp). Then Eunmi asked  if there was a place close by to eat, and the same young woman helped us check our bags of clothes into a holding place and took us to the cafeteria at the back of the shop. She insisted on waiting for us outside which seemed to be part of the job. Had some puroti, fried rice, fried noodles and ice cream for around 140 Rp. The puroti was really good. We were the only non-local people in there, and most of the huge shop too. After picking up our shopping we bid farewell to our helper who refused a tip(sounds as though it was a government run shop) and went out for a rickshaw home. 

First on wanted 150 Rp(er, no thanks!), next 80 Rp, so quickly back to the hotel for shower etc. Girls enjoyed that, chucking lots of water around and making a helluva racket.
Hotel reception confirmed our train tickets were ok to travel tomorrow, yay!(but 3 on one carriage, 1 on another, boo!)
 Forgot to mention that earlier I took Ruby for a walk back down to a shop where I saw they sold various packets of nuts. It was quite funny because an old lady emerged from behind a door with one of tits hanging out, much to Ruby's amusement! The younger woman there then got off the phone and we managed to by some almonds, sultanas and cashew nuts for about 300 Rp. Very nice and fresh!
After a quick bucket of wash and watching TV for a bit it was time to hit the pit at around 12am.