Saturday 18 January

Chennai

Our flight arrived in Chennai on time – we landed at 05:30, which was around 12:30 at night in the UK. Getting through security took quite a while though, long queues and as well as checking passports and visas, foreign visitors needed their photo taken from a neat little camera on the desk and we also had to press our fingers and thumbs on a glass fingerprint scanner (someone at the next desk seemed very unhappy about that!). By the time we’d gone through security our bags were on the carousel at baggage reclaim – so getting out from there was quick. Chennai airport is huge and there were statues of gods and deities all over – some brightly painted. We think that harvest festival has been celebrated recently and there were some lovely displays around. Once out in the road outside the terminal building we were hit with the warm air – we’re expecting 28°C later. It was a short walk to the metro station – dodging dozens of men asking us if we wanted a taxi. 

At the Metro station we hit a problem when we tried to buy our tickets – the card machine rejected my payment … fortunately we have a backup international card … that was refused too! Argh!! Panic and fury – I’d contacted all our banks before we left to tell them that we’re going to be in India, so they should make any payments here. Fortunately we also had some pounds and there was a bureau de change nearby so we bought IRR10,500 for £100 and purchased our metro tickets. When the train arrived and the doors opened Matthew was about to step I when I noticed that we were by a women only carriage – I managed to grab him and steer him along the platform! 

We arrived at our hotel at about 06:30. We’re staying in the Hyatt Regency in Chennai – it’s huge and much posher than anywhere that we’d normally choose stay at. We’re staying for two nights  – but we paid for an additional night so that we had somewhere to sleep when we arrived this morning. I saw from Matthew’s spreadsheet that the rooms + breakfast cost almost £400 … eek, that B&Q Garden of the Year prize money isn’t going to last long at this rate! We’ve noticed that there were bag scanners to get onto the platform at the Metro station, which seemed slightly odd … there was one for our bags to allow us into the hotel too. Maybe it’s the future everywhere. 

Once our bags were out of the hotel scanner they were grabbed by a porter who told us that they’d be brought to our room for us. I’m not at all comfortable with people carrying our bags for us, but perhaps that’s something else that we’re going to have to get used to – I quickly googled how much to tip hotel porters in India (30 rupees per bag, apparently!) I was utterly mystified about how he would know which room to bring our bags to when we’d not yet checked in! We did check in though and our bags arrived shortly after  – he was sweet and very welcoming and told us that we could ask him anything at all about Chennai. 

It was about 07.30 now and we wondered about going to sleep, but buffet breakfast is included in the hotel cost and they’d just opened. We weren’t confident that they’d still be open by the time we woke up, so we decided to have breakfast and then go to bed for the rest of the morning.

Any vegan will tell you that navigating menus is a nightmare, at least with a buffet breakfast we could make sure that just about everything we eat was okay. But there was way to service and they were wonderfully helpful  – they brought dosas – lovely crispy pancakes filled with spice potato and told us that this was a traditional Indian breakfast. Delicious!

When we had got up and showered Matthew said that he wanted to go to Semmozhi Poonga botanical garden and Kalaignar Centenary Park which is opposite the botanical gardens – both about a 20 minute walk away. We headed off on foot and quickly regretted that – pavements around here are in a terrible state – very uneven and non-existent in many place, so it’s necessary to walk on the road, but traffic is crazy – lots of people on scooters and lots of little yellow tuk tuks! When we arrived at the botanical garden Matthew was surprised and delighted that they were holding a flower show there at the moment! The whole place was full of families wandering around enjoying the flower show and having picnics and watching the performers in a little arena, (including a magic show). We did notice that lots of women were dressed exquisitely in gorgeous saris and looked fantastic, whereas lots of men didn’t look like they’d made much of an effort at all! 

The flower show had fountains, lots of plants in pots and included some big structures: a peacock, a crocodile, two swans, three tall women in big dresses made of flowers, a car, a boat, a steam train – all constructed from flowers in little pots.

We did a couple of laps then went to look at Kalaignar Centenary Park on the other side of a main road.

Getting into Kalaignar Centenary Park park opposite was tricky – entry tickets were only available online by scanning a QR code and completing a form. The form wouldn’t accept Matthew’s UK phone number, so we had to ask someone to help us – they bought the tickets on their phone and we reimbursed them. The park was very nice, quieter than the botanical gardens, and was home to several lovely stray dogs.

The big draw in Kalaignar Centenary Park is the musical fountain, but that wasn’t playing until 6:30 – we  decided that we couldn’t wait that long, so made our way to look at a famous Christian  cathedral nearby.

St George’s cathedral in Chennai was built in 1815 mainly to serve British colonists in what was then Madras. The design makes St George’s look very like St Martin in the Fields in Trafalgar Square in London.

The cathedral was extraordinary – filled with some huge marble statues and memorial plaques for (almost all) British men who had died in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The whole place is a bit dilapidated now and seems very incongruous in the fast-paced surroundings of modern Chennai.

We needed to get ready for a concert that started at 7, so we walked back to the hotel to rest up. There was a little light rain as we walked back to our hotel, so we arranged for a taxi to take us to the Kamarajar Arangam hall – a big auditorium not far away. The taxi took ages and arrive and we were worried that we’d be late, but we needn’t have been concerned, it didn’t start until almost 8. We were expecting some Indian classical music being played by an ensemble of musicians with some dancing – the event was billed ‘Agre Pashyami- divine dance drama’ – but what was presented was a series of extraordinary traditional Indian dances in gorgeous costumes and makeup with narration about Hindu gods and some associated stories. We couldn’t follow the narrative very well, but the dancing was spectacular and the music (off-stage) was brilliant. 

After the concert a late dinner back at the hotel. Matthew hadn’t done a RED (run every day) January run, so he went to the hotel gym to do that.