I ended up in Chennai!
So very suddenly I am in India! It is a funny story about how I ended up here, I was looking for somewhere warmer! But if you have been to India you may be thinking, why of all places are you in Chennai?!
Welcome to India
I am not going to write about India overall, and how different EVERYTHING is. The food, the smells, the culture, the noise! It really is an assault on the senses, and definitely a culture shock considering where I have just come from! But I could spend a whole post talking about that (maybe I will!) but I would like to tell you more about this southern, costal region I am in at the moment.
Chennai
So the reason I ended up here is again just looking for the cheapest flights when I want to leave. And I even got an upgrade on the flight this time which has never happened before! Chennai itself is not necessarily a tourist destination. It is a business hub. I had an old school friend that works out here a lot. There are not many ‘white’ people around and often I do get stared at for quite a bit. However, despite these facts, this place is absolutely lovely!
Indian Ocean
Chennai has a very busy bustling city life. But I have been staying on the coast. The beaches seem to stretch on forever and ever and there really are somedays where you walk for miles and do not see a single living soul! Which is what I like actually, it doesn’t feel touristy at all. My hotel opens right out onto the beach, the water is so warm, and I find it incredible just looking out across the Indian ocean, knowing that there is nothing else in the way for hundreds of miles. Its a feeling I haven’t felt before.
Not much else to do
I have to admit, that there isn’t a huge else to do here in Chennai. I have been to a few history museums about the navy which were fairly interesting but I felt told a biased tale. There are of course cinemas and bowling alleys around but nothing else much. and again I actually quite like that. Time to myself to just think about things, and not necessarily feel pressure to meet up with other tourists.
Temples
Despite not having a huge amount to offer to tourists (apart from tranquility and peace) there are a huge amount of fantastic temples. Its really hard to know how old some of them are, at least a few hundreds of years I would say. There are not many signs to tell you about them, and the language barrier is quite hard. But it is really nice in a way to not know anything about these huge sculptures and temples, its nice to speculate and wonder about who, when and why they were constructed. I find that contemplation almost as spiritual as being in the holy places themselves.