October 22 2010 / Chennai, India

INDIAAAAA.

So I woke up and went to get breakfast around 0800 or so, and then snuck upstairs in a group so I didn’t have to wait for Aegean Sea to be called dead last, as per usual.  The immigration officials gave my passport a big ol’ purple Chennai stamp, and after a while I wandered outside onto the patio, as the ship hadn’t been cleared yet.  There were a couple of drummers and pipe-players down below us, playing for us.  Chennai was muggy out—the sky is a dusty kind of orange, and there are modern buildings everywhere, as well as random Indian spires, a total mix of cultures and influences. 

Never have I ever been in a more humid place.  It isn’t even as hot as India typically gets, but you’re still just dripping sweat just standing in one place.  Julie and I decided to walk around outside before going back at 1:30 so I could latch onto her Chennai city orientation she was doing.  Chennai has ironically been the safest port we’ve been to—you need to carry your passport and customs form at all times, and there are two checkpoints just to get out of the port area.  So there was a huge line that it took us like 45 minutes alone to get out of.  A group of Indian people were clustered around a fence to our far right, and whenever we looked over and waved they would get really excited and wave back.  When we finally got outside, we walked for a while along the port area—everything is traintracks, broken-down buildings, and garbage is everywhere.  Upon passing the second barrier, we were bombarded with auto-rickshaw drivers trying to get us so they could show us around for “only one dollar!”  This was a level of annoying I was used to, because when we were in Ghana everyone would always be coming up to you with bracelets and stuff and trying to sell them to you or get your name or whatever.  Still, at a certain point you would think that they would just realize that we just wanted to walk—why on earth would we change our minds after saying no to the first ten drivers?

We quickly learned why—it’s a far walk to get anywhere.  You pretty much need a rickshaw to get you somewhere, as the main street we got out on doesn’t have any shops on it—just a couple of parks and some bus stations.  So we headed back after a while to hop on our city orientation bus, which only had like two other students—the others were all just faculty and lifelong learners. 

First we headed off to around where Julie and I had been walking around near—Fort St. George, which contains St. Mary's Church and the Fort Museum, all of which reflected the days of British India.  We had to go through security, and unfortunately for me I had forgotten I still had my pocket knife in my purse.  They put it aside and said that I could get it when I came out again.  We walked over to St. Mary’s Church.  While en route, I looked up to see a crow poop mid-flight.  Immediately, things hit slow motion.  I tried to dodge out of the way, but I was promptly shat on under the right arm.  Luckily Julie had hand sanitizer and Kleenex on hand.  The church wasn’t  anything particularly special, to be honest.  It was a white cathedral that had a couple of grave slabs out front.  Inside, an Indian man in a white button-down shirt was “speaking” to his congregation through a microphone.  He was speaking in Tamil, so I couldn’t be sure of what he was saying, but he was yelling pretty angrily.  It was kind of awkward.  Next we went to the Fort Museum, which was basically a bunch of statues and paintings of fat old white guys.  There was a neat area that had all these old gun, cannon and sword relics, where there were a few really cool blunderbusses.  I was trying to be interested, as British India IS part of India’s history, but I wanted to see India for its own culture. 

It took a while, but I bullied the guards into giving me my pocketknife back, as they tried to pull the “oh, it’s not in the pile, someone must have taken it already” trick.  Being as that at this point I’ve gotten pretty bullcrap savvy, I pestered them long enough to check everywhere, and lo and behold, it was in a drawer at the desk—fancy that.  We hopped aboard the bus again and drove past the Marina Beach, which is one of the longest beaches in the world.  It was long and was just a huge beach—lots of people were out there, though the most interesting part was seeing all the fisherman shanties that were built along the beach where people were selling fish they’d caught recently.  Goats and dogs littered the streets, as did crows watching the fish being chopped up.  At the end of the beach was a statue of Ghandi with his walking stick.  (“Don’t patronize me, Charles!”)  The guide kept trying to point my attention to the university on my right, the senate house, a former palace—and I glanced there way, but I was too enthralled with the thatched houses on my left, tiny stalls selling beads, huge looming slums underneath apartment buildings. 

We finally reached our destination, which was San Thome Cathedral.  It’s said that the apostle Thomas was buried in India as he was killed here as a martyr, and this is where he was buried.  We went down to see his tomb as well as the little holy relic that was besides it.  I felt really awkward there as a tourist when there were so many people around praying, but that wasn’t nearly as awkward as what happened next.  We entered the cathedral, where there was a FUNERAL PROCESSION TAKING PLACE, and walked along the wall and into an adjoining room.  I didn’t know why we entered the church—it just seemed really strange and disrespectful, even if we weren’t in their “space” or anything.  In the side room there was a dog laying down, getting out of the heat—looks like even pups are welcome in the house of God when it comes to India. 

FINALLY WE WERE OFF TO SOMETHING I WANTED TO SEE!  The ancient Kapaleeshwarar Temple, which resided in the thick of the city and is the oldest temple in Chennai.  It is predominantly for worshipping Shiva the destroyer and his wife Parvati.  The entrances to the temple are marked by these huge, towering pyramids full of colorful figures and scenes from Hindu legend, topped with the heads of dragons.   It was incredibly beautiful and absolutely astonishing to see the level of intricate detail.  It reminded me of a giant Lego tower, because of how beautiful it was.  :)  We took off our shoes and entered through the pyramid to the inner temple courtyard.  There were many one-room temple buildings speckled around that were shrines to different gods.  I’ve already discovered that my absolute favorite is Ganesha, who is the elephant headed god of good luck, compassion and beginnings.  We wandered around outside, and peered into the main temple room, which was marked with a sign that said “HINDUS ONLY.”  I watched an older woman light an oil candle on one of the trays nearby, and when she noticed me watching her, she said something.  I cocked my head, indicating I didn’t understand, and she clasped her hands, like in prayer.  I smiled widely and nodded, and she walked away.  :)  There are lots of roosters and cows around in the temple area—I didn’t realize that taking pictures of cows is actually illegal (as they are holy animals, the bull being Shiva’s animal), so I actually took a couple pictures of cows.  Whoops. 

Anyway, it was an amazing temple.  Driving back, Julie and I realized that we hadn’t eaten lunch and were starving for an Indian dinner, so when we got on board the ship, we had a couple of our guide’s recommendations in tow.  We badgered Jared until he finally agreed to go with us and then headed out, hoping in a rickshaw for a place called Woodlands.  We told them one dollar each for us to get there, which is high in itself—we’d been told that you can get anywhere in Chennai for a dollar.  Still, they agreed, though the switched rickshaws several times. 

Rickshaws are bright yellow death traps.  They are also the most exciting method of transportation ever.  They’re always dodging in between cars, honking obsessively, and swerving around.  I would lean practically my entire body out the door frame and would have to dodge back in.  After we were in the rickshaw for about a minute, the man immediately asked where we were going again (as we had switched drivers a lot).  We told him and he said immediately that he wanted five dollars each.  Now that was absolutely ridiculous, and we refused.  I told him repeatedly that if he didn’t like it, he better not expect us to pay him it, and that if he had a real problem with it he might as well pull over right now and let us out.  He would only shake his head in response and keep repeating. 

Chennai was really pretty by night.  We crossed a bridge over a still river that smelled intensely of sewage.  But anyway, when we got there we held out our three dollars and he started giving us crap.  I started arguing, and then Julie just grabbed the money out of my hand, threw it on his seat, and walked away.  We followed, and surprisingly the cab driver didn’t follow us in.  He was probably just thinking we would be pushover Americans, I guess.

The restaurant was amazing.  I ordered the most expensive thing on the menu, which was only two dollars, but due to a language barrier it didn’t come, so I just ate my butter naan and dipped it in Julie’s curry she got, as well as ate some of Jared’s fried rice.  SO GOOD, though I was sad I didn’t have a full meal.  Because we wanted to avoid the cabbies outside, we called a cab from the hotel and had an adventure trying to get back to port, as the driver didn’t speak English and thought we wanted to go to the airport as opposed to just the regular port.  When we finally got back it was late, though not too late, so Jared, Julie and I found Bryan and made him play Loaded Questions with us!  It was very delightful and made me miss my people at Chaptown.  :)