Chennai, Schmennai

Hi everyone, 

From Alleppey Dan and I took a train to Chennai to catch the semi-final of the IPL – Mumbai Indians v Royal Challengers Bangalore. Our original plan was to stay for three nights but Dan got some nasty food poisoning so things worked out a little differently. For the week and a half that we were there we lived Murphy’s Law #1 – “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong”. 

Here is an example of what it was like trying to do anything in Chennai: 

1. Find a tour that you would like to do on Saturday and try to book online 
2. Booking fails. Retry. 
3. Booking fails. 
4. Go to nearest booking office. Saturday tour has sold out so you buy a ticket for the same tour on Sunday. This is somewhat annoying as the Saturday tour was air conditioned, while Sunday's isn't.  Also, you wanted to leave on Saturday night.
5. Receive email two days later confirming your online booking for the tour on Saturday. 
6. Go to tourist office, explain the double booking and ask to do the tour on Saturday. Tourist office says that the Saturday tour has been cancelled as not enough people have booked so you will still need to go on Sunday. Despite the cancellation of the Saturday tour you will need to go to central tourist office to get a refund.
7. Go to central tourist office and speak to a staff member who says she will cancel your Saturday booking and credit the refund to your account. 
8. Upon arriving at the tour office on Sunday you get chewed out by an official for not turning up for Saturday’s tour, thus holding everybody on the tour up. 
9. Go on tour.  Sweat profusely and think wistfully of the air conditioned Saturday tour.
10. Wait hopefully for a refund for the cancelled Saturday tour. 
11. Start plotting coup of Chennai. 

Once Dan was better (and disturbingly thinner) we were able to visit some of the beautiful temples, ashrams and ruins that Tamil Nadu is famous for. It was amazing to walk through the ruins of Mamallapuram, a settlement that dates back to 7AD, and think of all of the different people who must have walked along that path in the last 1300 years – princes, slaves, consorts, priests, stone masons, washerwomen…. 

In stark contrast we also visited the brand new Sri Puram Golden temple which is made from 1.7 tonnes of gold and surrounded by stunning gardens. One of the signs at the temple read something like “Why make a temple from gold, when the money could instead be used to build hospitals and schools for the poor? Because this temple will inspire the building of one thousand hospitals and schools”. Hmmm. To be fair, the temple did greatly benefit the local community - providing food, educational facilities and hospitals. 

The logistics of this leg of our trip were incredibly frustrating, but we do have a much better understanding of Indian history, culture and religion for it. And as Dan says, it will make the highs of the journey that much higher by contrast.

At the IPL semi-final in Chennai. Gayle blazed 89 and my man Vettori picked up 3 wickets. It was the first time I have been in such a large, purpose built cricket stadium. It has about 60,000 seats that all butt right up to the edge so everyone has a great view... unlike our rugby/cricket grounds at home... A good man by the name of Gopi welcomed us to Chennai by gifting us these tickets, a pretty good start to our stay! Unfortunately the following evening I ate some dodgy ice cream (one of the very few things I ate that Soph didn’t) and spent the evening running between the cricket final & the bathroom. Not fun.

So after recovering to my old self, we decided to hit the tour bus and get out of Chennai... our first tour experience was an insanely cramped one. But some of the sights were cool, below is our first encounter with an elephant outside a temple devoted to Ganesha (you guessed it... the elephant god) If you gave him a rupee and bowed he would tap his trunk lightly on the top of your head as a blessing. Such a charming fella.


The next day we headed off to Mamallapuram, an ancient district of ruins and temples. We also dropped by a huge crocodile zoo on the way... and learnt that yes, crocodiles can jump.


This guy was the most impressive, kinda pre-historic and scary looking. Not so scary to the turtles though...

And onto Mamallapuram itself... featuring Krishna’s butterball which is this huge boulder that sits impossibly on the side of a stone bank. Word has it that some British commander was worried about it so he organised a troupe of about 20 elephants to pull it down.... it didn’t budge. Sorry about the super touristy shot, we couldn’t resist.


And on our last day in Chennai, we visited the not so famous.. but very impressive golden temple. Along the way we visited the temples below which were also pretty cool. 

There were no cameras allowed anywhere near the temple, but I do have this relic. Check out the name.