We land in Chennai at 10 pm and wait ages for the bags thinking of what to do if the bags did not arrive. After a while we worked out how to get a pre-paid taxi and we had our first experience of Chennai driving!!! We arrived late in the hotel and crash out for good nights sleep.
Our first breakfast in India: spicy Dosa (rice crepe) with spicy coffee (!). Yum, just what you need to wake up in the morning. We set out from the hotel to the train station(s) to find out about the Indrail pass (rail pass). We decided to find somewhere to eat but we walked in completely the wrong direction and soon found ourselves lost (which is easily done in Chennai). After coming to the agreement that we were completely lost, we hail an autorickshaw (tuc tuc) taxi to the famous Saravana bhavan restaurant with "high quality vegetarian food!". Here we experience our first real Indian meal of thali (many types of sauce with rice), eating it in the traditional way using the fingers of our right hand (its harder than you think!). After this delicious and huge lunch we set out to find the recommended shopping area from lonely planet, in Nawaz Khan Road. Jacqui was looking to buy a salwa kameez, a local type of dress. We asked a taxi driver to take us there, he had no idea where it was. Instead of saying "no", he in turn asked another guy then 5 other people came too. On the way, he was still lost and stopped to ask several people how to get there. After about half an hour of tuc tuc, he stopped in a random place (not where we wanted to be) and asked us for more money that we had agreed at the start. We were a bit annoyed by this, so we paid him a bit more and decided to walk. Luckily, on the way back we found some nice shops and Jacqui finally found two salwa kameez that she liked. After shopping we walked back to the hotel, we passed several events with loud music and lots of people. Also passing the most disgusting river we’ve ever seen, that you can smell before you see it. Full of rubbish and human waste, yuk. We passed a quiet night in the hotel with a bucket "shower" with luke warm water. The next day we leave the hotel and Chennai and set out to the bus station to find out how to get to our next destination.
Chennai was a fun place for shopping but it’s the fourth largest city in India and its really hot, busy, dusty, smoggy (can’t see the sun) city.
