Second City

The events in this post took place on Oct 6th. After morning adventures in Mahabillipurim, we returned to the Le Meridian in Chennai. 

After getting back to the hotel we were ready for a lazy Sunday afternoon. So we changed and met up poolside. Some drinks and a menu, please! Except wheres that waiter? A long time passes, we flag one down. We order. An hour passes. No drinks, nothing. We pack up, go inside and start complaining. Forget the food: we'll take the buffet. Of course now they all spring into action and we end up with our food plus items from the buffet.
I tell this minor incident to set the stage that we are now irritated and tired and are pretty much ready to go back to our rooms and do work.
But still a last complication: Ro had brought an item for her friend Gurjeet. Gurjeet couldn't make it so he was sending a friend. Now we were waiting on this guy. So we were crabby and stuck waiting in the restaurant for an extra half hour or so before the contact arrives. He finally does and I was expected a quick hand off, hand shake and head out.
But he's personable and warm and wants to know if we'd like to see the city. Now, we have both spent over a month in Chennai on different occasions. We've seen it, and to quote a popular guidebook "there isn't much in Chennai to be enthusiastic about." So, we look at each other and perhaps surprise ourselves by saying "Sure. Let's go."
This made all the difference. Now we were touring the city and being driven through it by someone who was not shy, spoke excellent English and was full of energy. He said that his energy and directness were more typical of Northern Indians whereas the Southerners tended to be quieter and more reserved. He was right up  our alley.
So, we went to a history museum which was mostly artifacts from the British rule. Some interesting oil paintings and an exhibit on coins, but pretty small and ho hum. Next we tried to go to an art museum but it was closed. But on the way around, we saw a bunch of young men playing some pick up cricket in a school yard.
This was much better than the museum. We stopped and watched. Our guide explained the points of the game and we cheered on a sixer here and there. So this is what you want to see: real life, not some stuffy artifacts. Right. After that the trip changed.
We drove through streets where stolen cars were ripped apart, and markets where the locals go. We got the answers to questions that had always eluded us. Like where would a typical employee of our vendor live? How would they live? What was typical?
And remember this street?

I wrote about visiting it in 2010. At the time I was a little grossed-out by the flies on the fish and the shanties they lived in. Did our guide ever shop there? Are you kidding? This is the freshest fish! They catch it right there.
We got out of the car and watched some men taking small mackerel out of a net. We chatted with them briefly on the bustling street, dodging stray cricket balls here and there. Now we were getting somewhere; our guide was a manager at a large corporation. He was well educated and going places and you bet he shopped here. Pretty much everybody did.
And as for the shanties? Don't feel too sorry for those guys, our guide advised: you go in those huts and they have 50" plasmas. They make good money selling fish and they own oceanfront property. If they built it up, the government would tax the heck out of them.
We went from here to a second beach. By now it was getting to be dark.
First, Rochelle had her fortune told by a hamster. This guy:

In other places we had seen people with parrots. We had thought it was just to have your photo taken with them. No: these were fortune telling parrots. All along the beach were fortune tellers of different kinds. The hamster had a deck of cards. He would move them off the stack until he found the one that told the correct future. For Ro, it was the card of Lakshmi: goddess of wealth. The guy read from a book about what that meant, with stops for our friend to translate. It was fairly accurate if a little broad, as those things tend to be.
And remember these things? Back in the St. Thomas blog, I referenced these as music machines. They are not. They are astrology forecasters. You put in data about your birthday and such and it gives you your horoscope.

So now we were hungry and it was time to eat. We drove off to a hot spot called Zaras. It was a tapas bar that played 70's Western rock. They almost didnt let us in because I wasnt wearing socks. The cricket world cup was on and the place slowly filled up with tall, hip Indians. We had a great time, noshed and headed back.
We owed a lot our guide, who showed us the real Chennai in a breezy fun way. He was a self-described travel enthusiast who kept a tent in his car and had once been offered a pilot on a travel show for the BBC. It would have been a great show, if this impromptu afternoon was any indication. Thank you Gurjeet, and thank you Nilesh!