Chennai, Tamil Nadu

We took a nighttrain from Mysore to Chennai. The train was surprisingly clean and smooth for Indian standards, atleast for a while. After settling down for half an hour an Indian boyschool class of 12 year olds invaded our wagon. This was nice for a while (they finally had a chance to practice their english which wasn't good at all yet), asking politely our names, nationalities etc. Their teachers were walking up and down the train counting the boys and their seatnumbers while looking with who they would share the compartment. Two friendly chubby female teachers decided to change their berths from our compartment for others (so they would not have to climb up the highest beds in their sari's) so the kids felt they had freedom to go a little wild; not sleep when they were told to. Unfortunately the boys got then also a little too friendly with Mariska asking how much money she has, about bankcards, camera and so on. We decided at this point to turn off the lights hoping that they would get the message and try to fall asleep. A couple of them decided instead to keep Mariska awake begging for coins. Only after multiple threats about getting their teachers (and Mariska waking me up to intervere) they decided to play good little boys and atleast pretend to be sleeping rest of the night.

Winter on Chennai Beach, notice the man with a woolly hat

Chennai is again a big city, this time equipped with a beach (too strong currents for swimming though). We are staying in Triplicane district in Indian Zam Zam Guest House in a small cell like room. Atleast the price is ok, 300 inr - 5€ / night.

Zam Zam

Chennai feels a lot less "westernised" than it's (IT) counterpart Bangalore - so we are forced for a change to live with a diet of pure indian food ;)

From here we have flights at midnight to Colombo, Sri Lanka. From Colombo we are planning to leave directly to Galle, and from there finally back to some beaches.