Chennai, India

Chennai, India (formerly Madras)

Eastern time plus 10 ½ hours… yes, somewhere in the last few days we moved the clock 30 minutes.

The paperwork to get into India is extensive and held up getting off the ship. We had Visas before leaving home, but everyone also needed a personalized landing card which wasn't available until we got into port and they checked everything over. Then we had to all wait in line to pick them up. The line did go pretty fast once we were given clearance. We also had to have a form that listed all information about any cameras etc you were taking ashore. We also had to go through security leaving and reentering the port, the busses were boarded and all of our documents checked.

We set off in our bus along the beach. This beach was hit by the tsunami with a huge loss of life and is the 3^rd or 4th longest beach in the world. The people on the beach were fully clothed. We decided that they use if for the large open space. Roscoe noticed that many were playing cricket and commented, “No wonder they are such great cricket players”. There were blocks and blocks of these shelters, a huge amount of boats along the shoreline and lots of litter.

It is hard to take pictures from a moving bus and I was mostly looking. This was unbelievable. No matter what you have heard about the mass of humanity and the litter, it is still utterly shocking to see it. The pictures don't do it justice. As Dr Seth said, no matter what you thought, you will never be same after visiting India.

Our tour was of the Chettinad Palace and was almost a complete bust. This was the home of an industrialist family that had the largest horse stable in India and at least until recently holds the record for the most cups won in horse races according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Considering that our guide did not speak English you could understand, did not have a microphone, spoke softly to the back of the bus while we were in the front and did not give us a guided tour or any information about the house, none of this may be true. This is just what I kind of picked up along the way.They dropped us off, had us remove our shoes and enter the house and wander.

Jeff took a quick look and went outside to talk to this really nice couple from Michigan we met on our Singapore Tour. (Stirling and Clare, come to find out they are in the Carpathian Suite on deck 7 with the double doors we always tried to spy into.) Jeff is going up there today to help the man with copying something onto the disc for the Captain.

If we weren't supposed to be somewhere, they said no, no. Roscoe was good with the dollar tips so he and I explored on our own. The dollars seemed to help us get into some of the back areas. We got up on the roof top terrace through another door that I guess was off limits. The bad part was that we forgot to close the door behind us and some others from our tour followed us and were loud. Suddenly we could hear barking dogs coming at us. They sounded mean, must have been watch dogs. (You know how I love dogs.) Anyway we got chased out of there. Roscoe stayed with the dollar while I made a hasty retreat. He got some info on the family from the guy.As we were poking around we came across the kitchen. It was hot, dark and loaded with unfamiliar smells. The man in the back is cooking on a wood stove. They wanted us to know that. I was glad we weren't eating lunch there. It was just too much for me. As was the case with each place we went, the people were very friendly. This woman got upset with us for taking pictures. (Roscoe's were much better; I need to get those from him if I can.) She was gesturing for us to come in and also (took me awhile to figure it out) to put down our cameras. She was very nice and wanted us to join her. This involved a lot of bowing. Not sure if I did what I was supposed to, but she got the message I was trying to be respectful. We were sorry she was so upset and the dollar he gave her helped. We were innocent on that one. The bad part was that I still had bare feet, Roscoe at least had socks. The front room was somewhat sticky, but the back room was really something.

We went outside and this guy was asleep as he was guarding the swimming pool. He woke up and followed us around smiling and gestured we could go in as long as we took our shoes off. The pool area was covered by a huge blue tarp thing. We think that was to keep out the hot sun, but it could also be for the soot or black dust that was everywhere around the city and port area. The pool area was really beautiful. Jeff said I should have tried to wash my feet in it, but I was on good behavior.

We then passed this guy who was fishing in this litter filled water.

Back on the bus and driving through the streets was eye opening.

We stopped at a hotel and had refreshments and then back to the ship.

Jeff was done, but I wanted to ride the shuttle back in and see what I could see. Roscoe decided to come along and we decided that if we didn't want to get out when we got there we could just ride back to the ship.

We took the shuttle to a really fancy hotel and then the two of us decided to walk around on some of the back streets. We were right with the people so I didn't feel comfortable taking pictures. Here was poverty mixed with new American Stores like Nautica and Benetton. We couldn't figure out who would shop there enough to keep them in business. One of the Tuk Tuk (little yellow car) drivers decided he would get us to ride to a mall.We didn't want to go to a mall. He must have pestered us for half an hour. I let Roscoe deal with him while I tried not to break an ankle or get cut on the foot. At one point we went into Nautica to hide out so he would leave. He just stood outside the door with his hands on his hips waiting. We finally gave up and went back out on our walk. Eventually it just got to be too much to view all of the poverty, the sights and the smells and we went back to catch the shuttle.

This picture was taken as we entered the side street, but I never took any more.

As in the world over, best were the people.