Chennai, India

We arrived in Chennai, India, early yesterday morning, Sunday, April 1, for a 1-day visit.  Chennai, formerly known as Madras, is a port city located on the the southeast coast of India along the Bay of Bengal.  It is the capital of the state of Tamil Nadu.  Chennai has a population of just under 10 million in this country of 1.3 billion.

If Chennai is at all representative of the rest of India, and I have no reason to think otherwise, then we have begun to witness first hand what a complicated place India is:  teeming with people, so many of whom are living in what for us seem to be desperate (and certainly unfamiliar) conditions, but who are also beautiful, gentle, and apparently quite happy.

The port itself is very large.  Among other things, it hosts a major container ship operation and is home to several naval and coast guard vessels.  I have no sense of how often and in what numbers cruise ships come here, but yesterday we were the only game in town.  (Remember, you can enlarge any photo by clicking on it.)

      

As I looked out from our stateroom veranda, I could see the gangway being lowered into place, as well as lots of other signs of preparation for our disembarkation.

                                       

There was the customary local welcome, that this time included a gift to each of us of a yellow rose as well as a local brochure guide.

  

We were directed to the terminal building to be processed through immigration and customs.  We already had clues signaling the extent to which the Indian government is bureaucratic because India's visa application is several pages long, much longer than that of any of the other countries we've visited that require visas, and asks a number of questions that seem ridiculous.  We obtained these visas months before the cruise itself began.  The day prior to our arrival we were told by ship personnel that, in addition to the visas we now had in hand, we needed to fill out a separate entry form, and were also given e-visa sheets of paper that the ship's purser prepared for all passengers.  All of these documents -- our passports, visas, arrival entry forms and e-visa paper -- we were to present inside the terminal building.  Once inside, I was struck by the number of uniformed officers of one sort or another who were in that large hall.  I should have taken more photos than I did to illustrate that fact, but only took a single photo of 3 uniformed men at a table.  There must have been at least 50 uniformed personnel, many more than in any other place we've been.

  

Fortunately, the processing was handled efficiently.  Immigration officials had at least a dozen computers set up to facilitate the process.  We were next shown to our respective excursion buses and, for the first time on this whole trip, even there immigration officials were checking and cross-checking everyone on the bus.  Here's the officer on our bus who did the final check and then rode the bus until it passed through the last gate out of the port.

Our excursion guide at this point humourously said we were now free to blend in with the 1.3 billion Indians.

We drove along Chennai's Marina Beach for quite a distance before turning off onto another road.  Marina Beach is more than 8 miles long and at all points very wide.  Here's some of what we saw on this early Sunday morning drive.

      

Our first destination was Mylapore, described as Chennai's cultural hub, where we were to stroll along several streets to take in views of a Dravidian-style temple dedicated to Shiva and visit the local market and shops.  When we got off the bus, right at the edge of the street (there was no sidewalk), I peered into a narrow open doorway and realized it led into a barbershop.

  

We almost immediately passed a Jain prayer hall and I was shocked to see a swastika on the upper part of the building.  Little did I know that the swastika is an ancient religious icon used in the Indian subcontinent, East Asia and Southeast Asia as a sacred symbol of spiritual principles in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.  Well, you learn something every day.

  

We also passed an ark-like structure that, along with other artifacts, was recently pulled around the perimeter of a particular building as part of a Hindu religious festival.  According to our guide, 60 to 65-percent of the residents of Chennai are Hindu, 15% Christian and most of the rest Muslim.  As was the case in so many other places we've visited in Asia, we were told they all live together in harmony and religious tolerance.  Hmm.

                                        

During the course of our walk, we came upon so many examples of the ever-present carvings of some of the inumerable Hindu gods.

                                      

Fruits and vegetables of all sorts, as well as flowers and various jewelry/trinkets, were being sold on the street, all making for a very colorful scene.  Note the cover photo at the top of this blog.  Most, but not all, Indians are vegetarians.

                                              

And just observing people and kids on and near the street, often with their friendly and welcoming smiles, was a treat.

                                          

Buildings in this area, along with some sidewalk paintings and other random street scenes, were also interesting.

      

Our guide approached a resident in his doorway and asked if he would be willing to have our tour group come through his home.  He agreed.  (I saw the guide give him some money when we left.)  As you can see, the residence consists of several very small cubicle-like rooms and a courtyard.  It was so dark in there as we passed through that I couldn't see what was in the various spaces, but I just clicked away with my camera which does very well recording images in low light.

           

At one point on our walk we passed a fortune teller.  One of our group decided to go for it.  The way the fortune teller operated was to ask the man's name and then let out of a cage a parrot who proceeded to go over to a pile of tarot cards and flick through them, one by one, until he decided to bring one to the fortune teller.  On the basis of that selected card, his fortune was told.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get close enough to photograph the parrot as it was doing its thing.  Very funny to watch.  Note the parrot's cage next to the fortune teller.

  

In time, we re-boarded our bus and were taken to an access point for boarding the local elevated railway system that locals refer to as the parakum rail or "flying train."  Because it was a Sunday, there was hardly anyone in the terminal, on the platform or on the train.  Our guide explained that if it were any other day of the week we would have encountered crowds that would have pushed us onto and off of the train.  I don't know whether to consider ourselves lucky or cheated out of the real thing.  Note the sign indicating which numbered railroad car is for ladies only.  Ladies are free to use any car but can also choose the "ladies only" car. 

      

We rode the train from our entry stop to the 5th stop down the line from there just so we could experience what it was like.  The views from the train revealed so much:  glimpses of neighborhood areas, lots of very shabby housing mixed with better housing, university buildings, a cricket stadium, young men playing cricket in an open lot, a specialty hospital, etc.

                                                        

After this train ride we were bussed back to the ship.  Janis and I had signed up for a second excursion after lunch.  It was styled as a "tuk-tuk & temple" tour, but when we boarded the bus our new guide was quick to say "tuk-tuk" was an incorrect designation since tuk-tuks are Vietnamese and India isn't Vietnam.  She said the correct terminology was "autorickshaw."  Sounds Japanese to me.

Well, this blog post is much too long already, so I'll try to abbreviate my report of what we saw on this rickshaw ride.  We drove along the beach road to and from a neighborhood different from the one we were in during the morning excursion.  Here are select photos of what we saw darting in and out of traffic, as only these little vehicles can do.  Glimpses of life in Chennai on a Sunday.

          

The neighborhood itself offers a variety of local color as well as an elaborate temple different than the one we saw in the morning.  As for the man spread out on a cart, he was just taking a nap during the rather intense mid-afternoon heat.

                                                           

The final grouping of photos I'm including in this blog post is of cattle roaming this particular neighborhood and eating garbage piled up along the streets in different places.  Our guide explained that these creatures are not strays but, rather, have specific owners for whom they are a profit center because of the milk they produce.  That said, she went on to explain that after being milked in the morning they are let out to roam during the day specifically so they might forage for food on their own and thereby limit the cost to their owners of feeding them.  She said that between 4 and 5 in the afternoon their owners stand on a street corner so that their cattle can see and go to them, at which point they (man and beast) walk home together.  Our guide insisted that the milk the street cows produce is healthy fresh milk.  Really?  On a diet of street garbage?  One more thing:  she said 600 to 800 such creatures choke to death each year on plastic they ingest while foraging.

            

We are at sea today and tomorrow on our way to Cochin which is located on the southwest coast of India.