B****r Chennai!

I was off to Chennai because I’d found a CouchSurfing host – an Indian woman and her husband, not much younger than me. That would be interesting. What an opportunity!  To stay in a real Indian household!

I had no idea what a confusing city Chennai is. It makes Bangalore look like a market town. Busybusybusy with chaotic housing and business districts jumbled together with shanty towns and piles of uncollected rubbish. I thought I’d got used to all that, but this was in a different league, especially after Pondicherry. 

When I arrived chez my prospective host, she told me she didn’t plan to put me up, but had booked me into a local hotel, the only one in the area. I hated it.  The traffic screamed and hooted all night. The shower didn’t work. I had to get up at 2 a.m to ask the manager to turn down his Bollywood DVD he was whiling away the night with, and the traffic and hotel clamour began well before 5.00 a.m., mainly men loudly clearing their throats, spitting and coughing. I stomped round the area looking for another hotel, but there wasn’t one, good, bad or indifferent (indifferent would do).

Some of Chennai’s endless traffic.

Later,  I quite enjoyed being whisked round the city by my CouchSurfing host – highlights were the ancient banyan tree in the Theosophical Society Gardens …

Rather more of the banyan tree
Banyan Tree in the Theosophical Society Gardens…well, a tiny part of the tree, anyway
Gate by the banyan tree

… and sundry Catholic churches pretending to be wedding cakes. Lads on the beach playing cricket.  Though I wasn’t allowed to pick my own photo opportunities. ‘ Here! Take photo here!’

St. Mary’s Chennai.
Inside St. Mary’s Chennai.
San Thome Catholic Cathedral: dating from the days when Madras (Chennai’s former name) was part of the Portuguese Empire.
Inside San Thome Cathedral
Oh… I can’t remember …
Um….I’ve forgotten. Another European style civic building.
A Hindu temple in Chennai. Which one? Can’t remember.
A game of street cricket
A family relaxing on the beach in Chennai

But at the back of my mind all the time, when I wasn’t fighting sleep, was the dread of spending another night at that awful, awful hotel. I was dropped off after our day out at 4.30 and fully intended to take a nap, but clamour prevented it. I gave up and went and rang dozens of hotels – no vacancies. My CouchSurfing host’s plans for the next day included a taxi to Mamallipuram, with, or apparently without her. 

Night came and endless hours of listening to traffic and my fellow guests throat-clearing and spitting. So at 6.30 I got up, wrote and delivered a note to my host, and got a rickshaw to the Bus Stand. Let me tell you it’s not easy when three different people give you three different bus numbers, and three different stops, and the bus destinations are only in Tamil script, but I was determined to get to Mamallapuram good and early, so I coped. Chaotic Chennai traffic eventually gave way to palm trees, lagoons, and views of the sea, Finally I was happy.

Advice for my fellow hotel guests,but seen in Mammallapuram.

Mamallapuram struck me as a more congenial place to be. It’s a small seaside town, albeit touristy, With Added Culture. It’s a World Heritage Site with fantastic temple architecture and sculpture which I’ll share images of in my next post.

Walking down the street, I suddenly thought ‘I don’t HAVE to go back to Chennai tonight’. The first hotel I called at had a room, monastically simple, but clean. Outside my room was a shady courtyard, and as I started to talk about Chennai to the American tourist relaxing there, I just burst into tears. I didn’t know just how badly the noise and exhaustion had been affecting me, but I DID know that a night at the seaside was just what I needed.

View of Mamallipuram from the Shore Temple

Author: margaret21

I'm retired and live in North Yorkshire, where I walk , write, volunteer and travel as often as I can.

41 thoughts on “B****r Chennai!”

  2. What a terryfying and terrific story. Will have totake a looooong trip back to your fotmer posts soon. Just a friendly HI for now and a rare moment of sunshine sent to you from Switzerland. A bientôt,

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      1. Oh, I just might send you a mini-vid of my today’s wander about in lovely November sunshine. Didn’t know that there could be sun in November….. My son sent a photo back from his terrace, it’s snowing up there in the mountains! So we had a moment of grace!

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  3. Well, Chennai reads like an endurance test. Sleep deprivation is a well-known form of torture, no wonder you were exhausted and emotional on arrival at the gentler seaside of Mamallapuram. Just don’t get this cultural difference believing in benefits of throat-clearing and spitting, if nothing it must spread disease surely?

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  4. On such an epic and adventurous trip I suppose it’s inevitable that there will be light and shade, good days (nights) and bad, but this sounds quite grim, especially as you would already have been increasingly tired just from the good parts alone. How nice that Mamallapuram provided some respite. Looking forward to the return to Chennai, though it doesn’t sound good!

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  5. The whole time I was reading, I was thinking, “I would’ve burst into tears” (and I *never* cry!) I was thinking you were so strong and stoic, and you were, but then you, too, burst into tears and I knew you were human! Mamallipuram must’ve seemed like absolute heaven.

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      1. Absolutely. Boxing Day walk is the Downs above the sea and New Year’s Day is beach level. Both involve a cosy cuppa, or more.

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  8. Ah – hopeless hotel…not sleeping is a terror. Having those sounds around making it even worse. The sea is the solution –

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  10. All I can think of is “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. Thank goodness you were the kind of person to do something about it and get away. As you said, you didn’t HAVE to go back to Chennai. It’s all down to experience and learning whilst travelling, isn’t it?

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    1. I think what was hard fo me by then was cumulative exhaustion. I hadn’t slept well at any point, and being a solo traveller means you’re always on your toes. But I certainly learnt a lot!

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  11. Isn’t it great when travelling that the realisation that you don’t have to stay in an unpleasant place sinks in, and you strike that blow for freedom and simply leave and move on!

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