Indian Friday: The Bus to Chennai, and Hello Chennai!

My diary, revived from my trip to India back in 2007. This second part details my solo travels during the last three weeks or so.

The Bus to Chennai, and Hello Chennai!

Friday 30th November, and just a little bit of Saturday 1st December.

Today I couldn’t face an Indian breakfast, which is unusual for me, so I went to buy the jacket I’d been looking at for a couple of days and then to Hot Bread for breakfast. Final packing, and another massage from Lakshmi, who is of course very beautiful. She says she can say the days of the week, and times, and ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, so our communication was limited. A flurry of ‘Goodbyes’- Pascale it seems can speak Italian so we had a chat and he said how much better my Italian was than my French (Unsurprising. At that point we’d been living in France for a month). Balu got me a rick to the station and negotiated the price – RS. 30.

The bus was the sort you see in all the pictures. Unglazed windows with bars across, and an engine that had probably been put together c.1953. If the coach were a human body, you’d probably call it ‘lived in’. As it was in fact a bus, I’d say it had demonstrated a long history of near misses. Oh, and it may not have been cleaned since 1953 either. But the big excitement was a motorway. Well, perhaps not a motorway, but a toll road anyway, with dual carriageway, a hard shoulder and a central reservation. The road surface was indifferent, but so superior to anything I’ve previously met here that I can understand why everyone told me it was a fast road to Chennai. Anyway.

  • 2 lanes doesn’t mean slow and fast. Everyone uses both lanes indiscriminately and over or undertakes at will.
  • Goats use the ‘fast’ lane.
  • Cows use the central reservation.
  • Bicycles going the opposite way to the prevailing traffic use the hard shoulder. As do pedestrians,
  • Men pushing handcarts use the main highway.
  • The hard shoulder is also for bus stops.
  • There are zebra crossings. God knows why, nobody ever uses them.
  • Pedestrians cross whenever they want to. Not at the zebras, obviously.

So I was vastly cheered to reach the outskirts of Chennai a whole hour ahead of schedule. I was immediately seized upon by a rick driver who suggested RS. 250. Ha! Mind you, I never got him below Rs. 150. He said he was helping me, which meant that he took the wheelie case, me the rucksac.

I didn’t realise what a chaotic city Chennai is. It makes Bangalore look like a market town. Busy busy busy 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.

My CouchSurfing host (‘Call me Y…y’) plans to spend the weekend with me, but said she can’t after all put me up. So she booked me into a local hotel, the only one in the area. The Manager and I immediately fell out when he first of all denied the booking, then I declined to pay 3 days’ money up front, and it’s gone on from there really. I rang Y and walked to her house which is very close and met her sister and parents. She said there were no other hotels and she would ring and sort it out. So I reluctantly agreed to go back.

After a short rest I went over to Y’s. I’m not sure why I can’t stay, especially as I’m obviously unhappy. The excuses seem a bit specious. Anyway, I helped her make supper, masala dhosa, chatted a bit, then came back to the hotel. 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. Men loudly throat-clearing and spitting. Bring back the Call to Prayer! I complained about the shower, because I’ve stopped being nice (Response: ‘Well, is there water there or not? Yes? Well then!’).

I’ve been stomping round the area looking for another hotel, but it’s true, there isn’t one, good, bad or indifferent (indifferent would do). We’re meeting at 10 ish, to spend the day exploring Chennai, and tomorrow is action packed too. Monday shopping, then hit the airport early for a 4.00 a.m. flight home. Think I’ll go and see what I can find for breakfast: it’s only 8.30, but I’ve been around a long time today already.

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Author: margaret21

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

31 thoughts on “Indian Friday: The Bus to Chennai, and Hello Chennai!”

    1. I was getting tired, and less able to cope with difficulties. I do have SOME good memories of my last few days, but poor old Chennai didn’t get my vote for a great holiday destination.

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  4. Thanks for reminding me it’s Friday. I’m in that no man’s land of travel, breakfast at Ibis, Leeds. First ever Flixbus experience coming up. Almost rivals your travel experience- I think not! Disenchantment not yet set in here but it’s early days xx

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  8. I hated Chennai. Busy, noisy. Dirty (though I find most of Indian cities are). We were there as guests of an IT company and the hotel we were in wasn’t the greatest though not as bad as yours sounds, plus we weren’t paying. How can someone offer you a bed and then pull out at the last moment? By the end of all your travels it is unsurprising that you were feeling a bit cranky. Isn’t this where you fell ill? Maybe Yummy wasn’t as yummy as her name.

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  9. I love your list of observations on the Indian ‘motorway’ – it echoes my own experiences, especially the use of multiple lanes! Your accommodation experience however leaves plenty to be desired, and what a shame at the end of such a good trip!

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  10. What an absolute nightmare, especially after you’ve had such a good holiday up to that point…. Your description Of the Indian motorway was very much like my experience of the motorway in Cuba except for the fact there was almost no traffic on it! So horses and carts pedestrians et cetera wandering about didn’t really cause any issues.

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  13. I didn’t go too Chennai but had some pretty “interesting” experiences in traffic in Delhi, which I generally found overwhelming. It was interesting to see it, but I was also happy to move on. I hope the rest of your stay in Chennai was more positive.

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