India: Chennai

We woke up early at 0715 and we were still slowly making our way into the Chennai port. We showered and got ready and met up with some people for breakfast.

We watched us pull into port on the starboard 5th smoking deck. I don't quite see the huge appeal in waking up early to see us pull in. You don't even need to wake up that early. I've seen us pull into several ports. It was so hot and humid out. And I had to wear a tshirt and cover up my shoulders and spandex yoga pants to cover up my knees. So sticky. The boys were all told to wear pants and were in jeans. I can't even imagine that.

At 0900 we had a diplomatic briefing. It was all fairly repetitive between the previous night's Pre-Port and every other diplomatic briefing we've had on respecting culture and not debating politics or religion. Throughout the briefing we were called by ID number to go up to get our passports and papers and go through immigration.

My passport is slowly filling up with stamps and visas. I'm ecstatic about it.

It took forever to get through immigration on the ship and it took even longer for the ship to get cleared. We planned to just wander the city for the day and chill and get back early since we'd all be leaving for Delhi early the next day.

The 7 of us plus 2 other guys went out together. We were told not to wear flip flops but stick to sneakers because Chennai is so dusty and dirty. The crew even covered over the rugs and all the stairs with cardboard and plastic so we wouldn't track it all back in and ruin everything.

It was about a mile and a half walk through this run down street and port area to customs. Everything was dusty. Pools of oil puddled on the ground. Huge trucks were parked on the side of the road. Poor people were already asking us for money. I felt bad ignoring them, but we can't give them money or they'll all mob you and don't let you go.

Once we got through customs we were mobbed by taxi drivers and auto-rickshaw drivers offering to take you around for the day. We tried getting past them but it was nearly impossible. After walking down this street further we decided we needed a ride into town as it was about 8 km away and we were already dripping sweat. We let Nolan in charge of getting us rickshaws. They're meant to squish 3 people, so we got 3. Nolan picked the guys out. The other drivers who weren't chosen, of which there were many starting grabbing at him. He set them straight.

The guys made sure that one of them would be in a rickshaw with the girls in case anything happened. Nolan hopped in with me and Nic while Brandon went with Becca and Tania. Mason went with the other 2 guys he knew. We told the guys specifically that we wanted to be dropped off in the city and to follow one another so we'd be together.

Indian traffic is unlike any other. These auto-rickshaws are everywhere, like the motorbikes in Vietnam. There were more cars here and not quite as many motorbikes.

The smells of Chennai were quite powerful. And not in a good way. They smelled like rotting sewage and eggs. This smell was everywhere, but most powerful by bodies of water. This water was rancid and dark and full of trash. Trash littered all of the streets in huge piles. There were homeless people everywhere. Some were begging and others were sleeping under these trash heaps on the sides of the roads.

Needless to say our driver pulled over on a whim and we were not with our friends. We gave him a hard time and waited a few minutes. But it was useless. We had him drive us to the city bank where Becca had wanted to go. The city bank and Citibank are two different things, he took us to Citibank. We asked if this was the only one. At first he said yes then remembered there were a few throughout the city. There was no way we were gonna spend the day with them. Fails.

We paid our guy 100 rupees and tried to be on our way. But he wouldn't let us go. He kept offering to drive us around for the day for shopping and to visit temples. Nolan was eventually able to detach us from him. We just wanted to wander like we do in every city on our first day there. How crazy is it that I can make a statement like that? I think its absurd.

We saw a shoe store so we went in. Nolan wanted to buy a cheap pair for India so he wouldn't ruin his good sneakers over the course of 6 days. It was hotter inside this store. They'd had a power outage. Nolan found some black and red sneakers for about $20. It felt amazing to leave the stagnant air of the shop. The men working there had been really nice, but it was too hot.

It was past 12 so I wanted something to eat and Nolan wanted a beer. Nic wanted to go to a temple so we figured we'd get all 3 if we came across a hotel. We couldn't find anything. Every sign that said hotel didn't lead us to anything helpful. The buildings of Chennai aren't more than 5 or 6 stories. No skyscrapers or high rises.

We were feeling pretty let down and lost. Out of nowhere our driver shows up. He tells us he can take us to a good Indian restaurant that's clean and that we'd enjoy. We agree to let him take us there and hopped back in. He drove us for about 10 minutes winding through the backroads of smaller, more rundown buildings and scraggly trees. In the middle of one of the streets there was a hole in the middle with a tree growing out of it. Saahil (one of my friends who goes to UF who's Indian) had told us about sacred trees that the Indians built their roads around...somewhat. They had to swerve to avoid them. The same was true with cows. Cows are sacred in India and they're allowed to roam free through the streets and city wherever they please. Traffic and people yield to them and cannot force them to move. Saahil told us that once a cow got to the airport and through security and into a gate. Everyone let it go. So funny.

We saw a huge cow or something in the cow family with massive horns tied to a tree. It was just lounging on the sidewalk. We saw a few skinny donkey-like beings. They had huge heads and tiny bodies. There were even goats and stray dogs everywhere.

Our driver took us to a restaurant that had AC and it was clean. 2 huge factors in determining where to eat for us. We don't know Indian food very well so we ordered lots of cheese naan. We love bread. I got some chicken curry mix with mine. I got it extra spicy. Nic got mixed veggy curry. India's perfect for her and her vegetarianism. Nolan didn't want any food. Just beer. He had a few King Fishers. Same guy/company that owns the King Fisher Airlines here.

Lunch was really good. So much better than what I'd expected. Curry=delicious. Indian food is way better than Vietnamese.

Nic and I decided to scope out the bathroom situation. We've been getting warned since Japan about how nasty Indian bathrooms would be. So were quite fearful. This bathroom wasn't bad. As I came out to tell Nic this, Mason and the 2 guys walked in from another door from the restaurant next door. We all freaked out and got super excited to see them. As if we thought we'd never see them again.

Even Nolan was stoked to see them. He doesn't usually show much emotion. We paid and decided to get our drivers to talk and take us to the same place.

They had to go to an ATM so our driver took us to see a temple quickly. Shockingly it was the temple Nic was dying to see. We didn't know the name of it, but it's big and blue with thousands and figures all over the roof of it. It was amazing to see in person. It's over a thousand years old. It was closed until evening so we could only walk around the outside of it. That was all we wanted to see anyways. It was in the middle of the crowded area of vendors and markets.

I took a picture of it on my phone. It should be up on facebook now. I didn't bring my camera with me today. I wanted to just soak in India without feeling the need to document it. This was one of the best decisions. I wish I never had to be tied to my camera again while traveling. But alas, mom and dad would kill me if I came home with no pictures to show of my adventures.

We went over a street to do some shopping. Remarkably we found the 3 guys. The 2 guys were getting man dresses with pants from a silk shop. Nolan was set on finding himself a bottle of whiskey. Our driver told us you can't just buy alcohol from a liquor store. They don't sell it on the street. Drinking apparently isn't done that much here. But he said he knew of places to get it under the table. He told us it would take 10 minutes. Nolan was gonna go alone, but me and Nic didn't think he should be alone in case we all got separated. At least if we were in groups of 3 we'd be good. We told Mason we'd be back in 10.

It took us 10 minutes to get to the first side street vendor that Vikram, our driver knew. He told Nolan to wait, he'd be able to get it cheaper because he's from Chennai. Nolan didn't believe him for whatever reason and thought he'd rip him off and went anyways. This was a fail. He was telling the truth. Now they had to find another place. This took a little longer and Vikram kept having to pull over and ask people about it.

Eventually he was able to get a hold of some for him. Wonderful. We could then head back to the boys. Almost 40 minutes longer than we'd told them. They weren't there. We knew some people there. They said they'd left 20 minutes earlier. Oh well, we were one our own. Nolan wanted to see a cobra fight a mongoose. The boys had told us about this.

Vikram found us a guy on a side street. Nolan paid to hold the snake and take pictures, but he wanted even more for them to fight. He was asking for $60 for the fight. This was ridiculous to Nolan. Mason told us later that that was what they paid. They refused to negotiate. This didn't go over well with Nolan. The cobra kept darting out of his basket. The guy kept the mongoose in a bag, tied up. This disturbed Nic more than anything. So we didn't stay long. Plus by now Nolan was drunk and starting to be belligerent.

Vikram took us to a store where we could get scarves, jewelry, essentially everything we'd been saying we wanted for the past few hours. It was a government owned store and "supposedly" had better prices. Probably not, but they nicer stuff than the street vendors and were a legitimate store.

Nic and I poured through the hundreds of cashmere scarves they had on their second floor. Nolan wanted to get one for his mom, but didn't want to pay the price they offered. These were fixed prices, non negotiable like on the street. He couldn't seem to process this though and got pretty angry. Nic and I kept shopping and trying on all the scarves. The men who worked here were so nice to us and seemed to get a kick out of our joy for scarves and shopping. We even splurged on some silver bracelets. These are absolutely beautiful. He gave us some discounts because we bought so much. We probably spent almost an hour in there. Eventually we just needed to leave and stop spending money.

Nolan bought himself a necklace. By now he had made friends with a bunch of the locals outside and was smoking cigarettes with them. We rounded him up and got back in our rickshaw. He continued pounding back the whiskey. It was almost 1630. We decided to head back to the ship and see if the others would be back soon. We'd done everything we'd wanted to and more.

Vikram took us back to the gate to the port and customs. They can't go beyond here. We had agreed to pay $5 for the day. I handed him $7, feeling good that I'd given him a tip. He got mad and said we owed $10. He was nice and all, but we'd agreed on $5 for the day. If he'd asked for $10 from the beginning we probably still would have agreed, but on principle you can't falsely lead people on. I gave him another dollar and said that's it. Nolan was infuriated by this and started yelling at him. We just had to walk away. Just as in Vietnam and everywhere else where they go back on their word. Just walk away and hope they don't come after you.

He didn't bother. He knew he'd led us on. We got to customs only to remember that Becca had Nic's passport. No one had a phone except for me and it was a mile and a half back to the ship. Before panic could set in Tania, Becca, and Brandon appear out of nowhere running at us screaming with joy. Apparently they'd been really worried about us. I can't imagine why. This is why we'd said a guy needed to be with each set of girls. So there's be no need to panic.

We got through customs and walked back to the ship retelling our adventures from the day. Glorious. Nolan could not walk straight at this point.