So our shipping saga continues. If you didn’t know we were in the midst of a shipping saga here is a brief recap – originally we planned to ship Elsie to Mumbai, we were to fly in on October 24th, she was to arrive on the 25th, couple of days to clear customs and we would have been heading off to the Pushkar camel fair. That all fell apart when the shipping company decided to cancel the Mumbai stop, consequently they didn’t load the vehicle and instead back scheduled her to the next vessel (one month later). Had they told us any of that before the ship sailed we would have asked them to load the vehicle anyway and to offload her in Chennai – but they didn’t. We didn’t want to have such a long delay so switched Elsie to the next Chennai vessel due to arrive on November 13th. A three week delay but that meant we would get to see a bit of South India by train hence our “Elsie-less” journey from Mumbai to Goa, Goa to Bangalore and finally Bangalore to Chennai. Unfortunately the 13th has been and gone but the vessel hasn’t. Latest news is it arrives tomorrow (Wednesday 20th) so we are hoping to be on the road on Friday but frankly we’re not holding our breath!

We arrived in Chennai four days ago and are staying in a super hotel (the Ramada in Egmore). This particular Ramada is much like any other except that the staff are exceptional, nothing is too much trouble and they make these cute animals out of towels:

The front desk manager is a lovely lady called Sulekha who seems to solve problems as if she had a magic wand:

The facilities are great too which is fortunate because right now I’m spending about three hours a day in the gym. So as ever even this latest delay brings with it a silver lining, we seem to be the only people using the gym so we get exclusive use of excellent equipment and the steam room and I get a complimentary thirty minute stretch session every morning.

I took this little clip of the view from our window (with thanks to the Black Eyed Peas):

So what does Chennai have to offer? Well we decided to go to the eye hospital which was established in 1819 making it the second oldest in the world after Moorfields in London. There were some fabulous buildings and one operational ward with a few patients recovering from surgery. The ward was spartan to say the least:

We also went to the museum in the eye hospital but unfortunately the power was off so we couldn’t really see the exhibits. Also the curator seems to have stopped curating some time around 1947!

From there we made for the Government museum. Almost the first things we saw were this colony of fruit bats hanging in the trees in the grounds:

and this cannon:

Being a bit of an anorak I decided to look up “The fall of Tranquebar”. Turns out that all that happened to Tranquebar in 1845 was that the Danish sold it to the British so hardly a fall. But then I suppose if the sign had read “Cannon pinched during normal business transaction” it might not have been so interesting.

The most interesting exhibit in the museum seems to have been us – we were there at the same time as a huge party of school children most of whom plucked up the courage to come up to us and ask “What’s your name?” before running off amidst peals of laughter!

There was a small hall hidden away at the back of the grounds which we stumbled across. Inside was a photographic exhibition and all the photographs had been taken by a ten year old boy, Vishwak Shenon, who was there with his mother. Here he is:

We also went to the beach, I had heard it was several miles long so had high hopes that it might be good for running – sadly not, there doesn’t seem to be anywhere in Chennai that would be good for outdoor running. If you watched the recent Rick Stein India series this was the beach he came to to see the fishermen, it isn’t as glamorous as he managed to make it seem but it is interesting. The day we were there it was packed with people but there were solitary spots:

If you are a “Foreigner” the rickshaw drivers will always try to take you to a craft market or “government store” primarily because they get a small kickback for taking you and a big one if you buy something. Now and again we take the bait mostly because we quite enjoying cruising around the city in an open air rickshaw! We spent several hours one day tripping around and looking at Kashmiri carpets many of which seem to be a) massively overpriced and b) Chinese. Buying a carpet here is not for the faint hearted!

We also went to Fort St. George which was the original fortified base established around 1653 by the East India Company. The fort housed the best museum we’ve seen yet and this fascinating sign:

which pointed the way to this once grand house:

Today I went for a stroll around the local area. From outside it all looks pretty dire:

but once inside I soon realised that whilst some of the common areas are a bit grim the people keep their own little piece of the world as clean and tidy as they can. They are also all really friendly and want to talk to you, make you chai and have their picture taken! Here are a few shots I took:

 I love that spice grinder! satellite dish!

Anyway “moving on” here are a few signs we’ve spotted around Chennai: