Chennai

Today was the first full day in India after about 24 hours in transit and multiple time changes. The time difference between Canada and India is 11.5 hours so I am starting to feel jet lag. We started the day with breakfast in the hotel then ventured out to explore Chennai. During the first 15 minutes in Chennai I immediately felt overwhelmed and out of my element. There are no real sidewalks and the traffic here is nothing like it is at home. I was totally disoriented and felt as though everyone was trying to take advantage of the fact that I was a tourist, clearly out of her element. Although there are lanes marked on the road, the common way to drive in India is to go wherever you have room and assume that people will get out of your way. The entire road is used to get to where you want to go, even where there is oncoming traffic! Horns are used extremely frequently here, not like most polite Canadians. The message sent by honking your horn is "watch out, I am coming".

                We spoke to a few locals who were very helpful and directed us to an ATM to change money. I took out 9,000 rupees, which is the equivalent of $200 Canadian. It was really funny to see my bank balance at the end of the transaction because it was shown in rupees and it made me feel very wealthy.

                I spent the majority of the day with 6 other girls taking a tour of the city on 2 auto-rickshaws. That was definitely an experience! At first it was really scary and I thought that we were going to hit something with every crazy lane change and swerve that we made but then I realized that there was a system to all of the chaos of the traffic. The drivers of the auto-rickshaws were family (nephew and uncle). Our driver was named Rafi and did not speak understandable English but still wanted to point out things along the way.

                We stoped the Egmore and Central Chennai Government Museam, the second longest beach in the world-Marina Beach, a mall, The San Thome Cathedral. The beach was definitely a highlight of the day for me. At the end of the tour we got dropped off at a good indian, vegetarian restaurant for lunch. We ended up bartering with the auto-rickshaw drivers and agreeing to pay more than we originally agreed, which turned out to be just under $10 each person. After our auto-rickshaw tour of Chennai I feel way more comfortable with India.