St Andrews Kirk. An oasis in the centre of Chennai
Safely arrived in Chennai (Madras until recently), we found somewhere to stay. The city is mainly a transport hub and not as noisy or chaotic as some we’ve visited.
Our sightseeing was curtailed by the discovery that most sites were closed on a Friday – the day we arrived. We’d scupulously planned to avoid Monday as that’s the day sites are closed everywhere else in India we’ve been to -India Wins Again.
We contented ourselves with a walk round the centre and a visit to Higginbotham’s (reputedly India’s biggest book shop) and trips to St Andrew’s Kirk and the marina. The beachfront at Chennai is very broad – a factor that was important in protecting the hinterland from damage when the Tsunami struck.
We had lunch and breakfast at a popular chain restaurant which still managed to create the sense of Indian surprise that it had customers and they wanted feeding. We could only get served by sitting at a table marked ‘no service’.
Chennai being closed on a Friday did do us a favour – it prompted us to set out for Mamallapuram earlier than planned, which was good news because escaping Chennai proved somewhat more stimulating than had been planned. Of which more in the next blog.
September 5, 2008 at 2:42 pm |
You guys were lucky the govt could not close beach’s on
anyday. You could have seen a tamil movie after cathching hold
of a traslator. It would have been worth the experience.