Leaving the Bubble - Chennai (India)

Being on this business trip has been quite a surrealistic experience. Besides the fact that India is different from Luxembourg in a million ways, we have been living in a bubble pretty much. I spent all day either in the office or in the hotel. Every day, a car picked us up from to hotel to the office and back again in the evening. In the evening we had dinner together and after that some more working. Even if we would have had time for it, going outside in the evenings was just not going to happen. The area where the hotel was is mainly surrounded by a lot of traffic, construction sights and other hotels and it was always dark already by the time we reached the hotel. Even my adventurous side had to admit going out in those conditions was not a good idea. That is why is was so happy when the weekend came around and we had a car with driver to explore the city.

 

 

First stop; St. Thomas Mount. From this hill you have an amazing view over the whole city. There is a church and several memorials. Like in any place in the city, cows and goats walk around freely and nobody bothers them. It is a really calm place within the crazy city of Chennai.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next, we wanted to go to a temple, but it turned out to be closed until 16.00, so we decided on a beach and lunch break. On the beach we saw the only signs of the Holi festival I have seen that whole day. That was a bit of an anti-climax. It was very different than I imagined. Some girls walked around throwing a bit of the powder on other people and wishing them happy Holi. We were not colored by them and neither did we have any powder. Or did we?

 

 

 

 O wait, we did! We found a whole bunch of bags of colored powder just lying on the beach. That was pretty cool. Unfortunately we did not use them then and when we were back in the hotel it was too late (imagine the powdered mess in all that fanciness) . Still a shame.

 

 

 

 

Considering it had snowed just before we left Luxembourg, it was really cool (or rather, hot) to be walking on the beach barefoot with over 30 degrees and a lot of sun. The beach was full of small stalls, some selling food and some offering rather strange gambling games (?). I really enjoyed that walk, although we were being roasted alive and the sand was burning our feet.

 

All good things come to an end when food moments are calling; lunch time! We asked the driver to choose a local restaurant for us so we got to eat somewhere outside the hotel and try some "real" Indian food.

 

 

Tadaa! They also kindly offered us a jar of fresh tap water. We were trying to be adventurous tourists, but not THAT adventurous. I ordered something at random, which turned out to be weird, but good. But then again, everything there was good. The total price of our six meals was less then the cost of one meal at the hotel, crazy!

 

Eating where the locals eat; check! Time to move on to the next visit. This beautiful temple could only be entered barefoot, so we had to hand in our shoes for safekeeping. The normal shoe "wardrobe" was out of service, according to a quite angry looking man, so we had to leave our shoes with a lady sitting on the street. This all seemed pretty dodgy and we were half expecting to have to return to the hotel without shoes.

 

 

 

The sun had warmed up the ground and it was hot, so very hot. With feet burning even when walking on the "cooler" while line, we strolled along all the beauty the temple had to offer. Someone told us that we had to buy a ticket in order to take pictures, but then he just left and never returned. So that guy never got his money. This paying for taking photos pretty much seemed at random anyway (as many other things). Sadly, we were not allowed to go inside any temples, but still there was plenty to see. Upon leaving the temple, we even got our shoes back - success!

 

The heat and humidity had made the day pretty exhausting, so it was time for us to return to our bubble of luxury at the hotel to go for a swim and have dinner. What a day!

Trip to a Diferent World - Chennai (India)

Yesterday I left home for the longest trip I have ever made until now. And also my first business trip ever. I have traveled around 8000 km over the course of 16 hours and went from winter to summer. I left in -2 degrees Celsius, and arrived at 28 degrees (by night even). I went from one of the smallest countries in the world to a huge and densely populated country. From a city that becomes quiet and calm after working hours, to a city that never sleeps. Luxembourg city and Chennai are different in so many ways. I feel like I have arrived in a completely different world.

First we took the tiniest plane I have even been in to fly to Frankfurt in just 40 minutes. Our second flight was with the biggest plane I have ever seen (there were even 2 floors!) and was also the longest flight I ever took. Spending 8 hours in a small seat is not exactly comfortable, but at least there was good entertainment. Especially the "Flyrobics" was hilarious.

 The hotel is really a bubble of luxury where you barely notice anything of the real surroundings. You do not hear any of the noise and you don't feel the heat and the dust. Everything is controlled by one Ipad and lights, television and AC start working as soon as you enter the room. It smells like flowers everywhere and it is so peaceful and quiet. 

The city however, is the exact opposite. I is crazy and loud. If you thought rush hour in our part of Europe was bad, you have seen nothing yet. A taxi ride in Istanbul is nothing compared to this.  I can say that the ride to the office during rush hour is quite an experience. No driving lanes and no rules. Just ride wherever there is some space. And definitely honk at least once a minute.

 We only had Sunday afternoon before we would start working, so we decided to just walk around and visit a national park. Until now, I cannot say Chennai is a beautiful city. But it is a fascinating city for sure. Also bizarre and surrealistic for that matter. There is so much going on that you would never see in the Netherlands. There is just so much going on all the time.I even saw a man getting out of a bus that was still driving, on the middle of the road.

 

The wiring is really as it is in movies about India. Just attached to anything which happens to be available. It even gets worse in the small streets.

 

Each Brit would get a heart attack from all the health and safety issues going on in this city. Sidewalks are blocked randomly  by all kind of things that are not supposed to be there. That is if there are sidewalks at all.

Crossing the streets is where the real fun comes in. There are barely any traffic lights and if they are there, cars just do not stop for the red light. So basically you just have to find the right moment to zigzag your way through the scooters and cars.

What I liked a lot, is that Chennai has so many funny (and random) signs!

I think this park was not even accessable by cars, so why the VIP parking?

This sign says to wear a helmet. I have seen about 2% of the scooting drivers actually do that.

This one has "Merry Christmas" written on it.

There are not many public bins around. But the ones we did see looked like big plastic animals with "use me" written on it. Why?!

Most of what was parked on out map as the National Park, has guarded entrances which we were  not allowed to enter. The part that was open to the public, was only small. But it was nice.

 

They seem to have a thing for statues in a shade of very fake looking gold. You see many of these throughout the city.

At some point it was all just too much of everything for all of us, so we went back to the hotel or some swimming and chilling. All these impressions require some good relaxing and getting ready for more craziness to come.