Easter Sunday as we arrive in Chennai, India. The weather has turned out milder than I thought – it’s in the low 90s and low humidity. After having to get embarkation certificates from Indian Immigration – they were late getting on the ship, we left for our trip to the city of 1000 temples. First of all, it appeared easier to get on the pier than off the pier – no one was being checked to get past the Indian guards to get on the pier but every bus of tourists was being stopped at the gate so we could show our certificates to the guard.
In any event our trip through Chennai was depressing. The have 4 million people in this city and according to the tour guide 30% live in slums houses even thought he government builds low cost housing for them. Apparently, when they get into one of these apartments, they sublet it to some one else and go back to living in the slum houses as before. It looks like most of the other 70% live in one room houses or apartments and are very crowded. In addition, oxen, goats, dogs run free in the streets and the oxen tend to be decorated….
It took almost an hour and a half to go to Kanchipuran – city of 1000 temples. The tour guide said that there really was only 126 temples but the Indian’s tend to multiply by 10 haphazardly. If a temple has 10 columns they’ll say it has 100 and so on…We visited three of the oldest temples – one to Shiva and two to Vishnu – Chris wants to read up on Hindu religion – she got intrigued by the tour guides explanations. The temples dates back to 800 AD and they were impressive.
Lunch (if you could call it that) was at the “best” hotel in Kanchipuran. It had no ladies toilet – the women were offered toilets in one of the hotel rooms. Chris said that the rooms were stark – low bed, sink, toilet, tv no shower or bath but a faucet over a large tub like bucket. As we left and were boarding the bus Chris gave in and wanted to buy a pair of leather sandals being hawked by two young men for $5. When I gave one of the men a $10 and asked the other man to give me change, the second guy started asking for his money as if I hadn’t given his partner a $10 bill. After a couple of minutes of arguing, the tour guide interceded and told the two guys off in their native tongue. That was enough excitement for the day.
We were taken to a Sari and silk fabric factory and Chris got some material she’d been looking for at a very reasonable price. Of course in getting to the store we walked through an alley where the family oxen were kept!
Well it turned out to be a very enlightening day in many regards and it can be seen that with a population of over 1.1 billion I think we saw what most of India is like. The countryside is sparsely populated and it’s agrarian fields are intermingled with Honda, Motorola, etc. factories and engineering schools. The city’s are terribly dirty, crowded and even on Sunday were clogged with trucks, busses, motorbikes, bicycles and tuk-tuks – as well as horse and oxen drawn carts.
Well we were driven back to the ship through a more prosperous looking part of Chennai which included St. Thomas Basilica and Cathedral which is built over the tomb of St. Thomas. We came past a huge public beach which was crowded, but it didn’t appear that anyone was in the water. Back on board by 5pm and Chris went to Easter services as I got ready for dinner. Afterwards we went to the entertainment which turned out to be a singer who pretended to be Dean Martin and did a good job of it. His looks as well as his voice and mannerisms were well done.
Well on to Cochin.
In any event our trip through Chennai was depressing. The have 4 million people in this city and according to the tour guide 30% live in slums houses even thought he government builds low cost housing for them. Apparently, when they get into one of these apartments, they sublet it to some one else and go back to living in the slum houses as before. It looks like most of the other 70% live in one room houses or apartments and are very crowded. In addition, oxen, goats, dogs run free in the streets and the oxen tend to be decorated….
It took almost an hour and a half to go to Kanchipuran – city of 1000 temples. The tour guide said that there really was only 126 temples but the Indian’s tend to multiply by 10 haphazardly. If a temple has 10 columns they’ll say it has 100 and so on…We visited three of the oldest temples – one to Shiva and two to Vishnu – Chris wants to read up on Hindu religion – she got intrigued by the tour guides explanations. The temples dates back to 800 AD and they were impressive.
Lunch (if you could call it that) was at the “best” hotel in Kanchipuran. It had no ladies toilet – the women were offered toilets in one of the hotel rooms. Chris said that the rooms were stark – low bed, sink, toilet, tv no shower or bath but a faucet over a large tub like bucket. As we left and were boarding the bus Chris gave in and wanted to buy a pair of leather sandals being hawked by two young men for $5. When I gave one of the men a $10 and asked the other man to give me change, the second guy started asking for his money as if I hadn’t given his partner a $10 bill. After a couple of minutes of arguing, the tour guide interceded and told the two guys off in their native tongue. That was enough excitement for the day.
We were taken to a Sari and silk fabric factory and Chris got some material she’d been looking for at a very reasonable price. Of course in getting to the store we walked through an alley where the family oxen were kept!
Well it turned out to be a very enlightening day in many regards and it can be seen that with a population of over 1.1 billion I think we saw what most of India is like. The countryside is sparsely populated and it’s agrarian fields are intermingled with Honda, Motorola, etc. factories and engineering schools. The city’s are terribly dirty, crowded and even on Sunday were clogged with trucks, busses, motorbikes, bicycles and tuk-tuks – as well as horse and oxen drawn carts.
Well we were driven back to the ship through a more prosperous looking part of Chennai which included St. Thomas Basilica and Cathedral which is built over the tomb of St. Thomas. We came past a huge public beach which was crowded, but it didn’t appear that anyone was in the water. Back on board by 5pm and Chris went to Easter services as I got ready for dinner. Afterwards we went to the entertainment which turned out to be a singer who pretended to be Dean Martin and did a good job of it. His looks as well as his voice and mannerisms were well done.
Well on to Cochin.
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