Chennai

We left Puttaparthi around 11:30 for the 4 hour drive back to Bangalore and the crazy drivers in this country did not disappoint. Many near misses and a diversion due to a road accident provided some exciting and hair raising fun on the trip.

The Richmond Hotel in Bangalore, the same one as we stayed at a few days ago upgraded our room and we even had a massage chair which I think Charlie wore out. Our sensitive stomachs were ready for some solid food so we ventured to the restaurant for some light Indian food before an early night.

Up at 4:30am and a cab to Bangalore Station to catch the 6am Chatabdi Express to Chennai some 5 hours away on the Bay of Bengal. I'd done this trip when I was here with Ian 2 years ago and it was a highlight of that trip. It was just as good second time around as the sights of rural India flashed past and I think Liz and Charlie enjoyed it too. I bought along the video camera and shot about an hour of footage so plenty to see when we get home.

Arrived at Chennai Central at 11am... stinking hot, dirty, crowded, noisy and porters and cabbies touting for business. A cabbie tried to extract an outrageous sum to take us to out hotel, but I told him I'd been here before and knew the prices so his first offer was substantially reduced.

If Liz and Charlie thought the traffic in Bangalore and Puttaparthi was mad ... well Chennai is like the Dakar Rally, Formula One, Le Mans and Saturday morning at the Lennox Shopping Centre Car Park all rolled into one! Most of the time we had our eyes closed and, as Ian will confirm, the drivers here take the award for the worst in the world. Stop lights mean nothing, pedestrian crossings mean nothing.

However, we did arrive safely at our hotel, the Residency Towers where we were enthusiastically greeted by my friend Bala Krishnan who, when Ian and I were here, was a doorman but has since been promoted to Front Office Supervisor. He put it down to a letter I wrote to the hotel manager after my last trip, praising his service and efficiency and to some positive encouragement to aim high. Seems it worked.

Anyway, we have been treated like royalty and have a wonderful room with everything we could wish for. So we're here for 3 days and Bala has invited us to visit his family down the coast at Pondicherry on Sunday so that should be a good day out.

Chennai is much hotter than anywhere else we've been so Charlie and I are going to settle down with a Kingfisher and Liz will have a G&T and we'll watch the madness below from our quiet room. I'll post some more pics when I can. Thanks to all who have sent emails and SMS messages... it's nice to hear from home even though we've only been away a week.