Well, we managed to get the plane alright by ourselves and flew South to Chennai. After waiting for ages at the pre-pay taxi booth at Chennai Airport we finally made it to our Hotel.
When I had made the reservation and paid the deposit for the Hotel Pandian on the internet, I had accepted that it cost a little more. However, it was cited as a 'mid-range' hotel and I figured that as we had only been in the 'budget' range so far, this would be a step up for us. 'Might be a slice of luxury' I believe were my exact words to Ben.
Double the price in this instance seemed to equate to double the dive. In a building not dissimilar to a prison/mental institution the room was a homely cell with stained sheets, sockets hanging out of the walls and a fine collection of filth. The only good point was that we only had to check out 24 hours ater checking in, so we had the room for the whole time until our train left the next day. This was fortunate seeing as when we stpped out the door we both realised we had reached our threshold for big Indian cities. It didn't help that Chennai had been the victim of some heavy rainfall for the four days previous and there was flooding all over the city.
We set off on a walk - my feet were reall itchy, I had a cold, it was really hot, and we didn't have a clue where we were going. We had a cup of chai, it started raining and we headed back to the Hotel for most of the day...
We did venture out again for a spot of food later and had a really interesting eating experience. We went to the Indian version of a fast food restaurant, which is basically a massive hall with loads of tables and plastic chairs. You sit down and eat a bit thali (loads of little dishes and breads, chutneys etc) out of a big tin plate, pay and leave so that the next hungry family can have your seat. As the only two white faces in the whole place (not for the first time obviously) we were pretty fascinating to the locals and, at one point, had a semi-circle of people standing round us just watching us eat.
