Indian Epic, Pt. l: Chennai and Mahabalipuram

Hello! As some of you may remember from last year, April is the month in which Khmer New Year happens. What this means, technically, is that everyone has three days off of school to party, play games, drink to excess, and just generally celebrate the arrival of the New Year. What this means in reality, however, is that the whole country essentially shuts down for the entirety of the month of April. Due to this, most volunteers plan to take vacations during this month.

Last year, as you may also remember, I went to Bali for six days with my two lovely lady pals, Amie and Amelia for Khmer New Year. This year, since Garrett and I now had previous experience traveling  together to Vietnam and found that we proved able to not kill each other during that amount of time, we decided to further test our travel compatibility by raising the bar and going to.... (where??): INDIA. Here, we would be in each other’s company- without pause and in a very challenging environment- for 18 days. That's right, everyone: 18 days. We figured that if we were still on speaking terms after three weeks together, we might really have something here.

So, let’s begin, shall we?

~~~

It all started in Cambodia, on March 30^th, where we left Phnom Penh in the morning to head up to Poipet, the border town of Thailand and perhaps the most undesirable city on planet earth. This place is full of sleazy sex tourists who come for the casinos (since gambling is outlawed in Thailand) and serves solely as a decent stopover point when traveling internationally from Bangkok. We stayed the night in a miserable hotel, crossed the border early the next morning, and tried to forget our sorrows by reveling in the smoothly-paved streets of Thailand and ample choices at 7/11 of pastries and puddings with delicious fillings like mung bean and taro pieces. We took an express van to Bangkok, and after exploring a little in the popular and touristy Khao San Road, headed to the airport and boarded our plane, landing in what seemed like no time in India…

First stop: Chennai.

Chennai is crowded and dirty and smelly and delicious and hot and populated by about 6.6 million people (still and all, only the 4^th biggest city in India…), and gave us a pretty accurate first impression of what to expect throughout our travels in this crazy country...

We arrived at our hotel late, and having only had plane food for dinner, were hungry for a snack. We decided to venture out and find something; around the corner from our hotel was a small restaurant, which was still serving food at 11 o' clock.

We each had a bowl of idly, which are small rice patties topped with a mixture of tomatoes and lentils. We’d heard so many warnings from people prior to our departure about not eating food unless it was steaming hot, and these were only lukewarm, BUT WE WERE HUNGRY so of course we ate them and then proceeded to worry the entire night about getting sick… Our worries were unfounded, however and we woke up the next morning feeling refreshed and ready for our first full day in India.

Our first full day began as every day should: with breakfast. The hotel had a continental breakfast, which was DELICIOUS and included in the price of the room, so we were not shy, as you can see. The thing that looks like a donut hole in front is just that: a savory donut called a vada (pronounced “vahrah”) you eat with daal, or lentil curry. The rice patty topped with the green, soupy-looking stuff in the back is called idly- the same thing we’d eaten the night before- and the tortilla-looking bread off to the side is called chapathi, which is a wheat-based flat bread popular in the south of India as a substitute to naan, which is mainly eaten in the north. The overfilled ramekin in front is a potato masala and in the far right corner is an overflowing cup of chai (I told you, we didn’t hold back...), which tasted suspiciously like tomato soup. The stuff that looks like fruit in a cup is, well, fruit in a cup (I didn’t have room on my plate!).

After breakfast, we waddled over to the travel desk in the lobby of our hotel to talk to the guy there about what to do in Chennai. He recommended we go around for the morning with a taxi driver, and while we weren’t wild about spending the 800 rupees (~$15) on personal transportation for one morning, we figured it be the best option in order for us to get a feel for the city and get a better idea of what it would be like when we decided to “go it alone” later with public transportation.

We started out at a temple called Kapaleeshwarar, which had an impressive gateway tower adorned with many sculptures of different Hindu gods.

“Should we have our arms around each other? I don’t know, we read in the guidebook that touching is inappropriate... We should probably just stand as awkwardly as possible.”

At the second temple we visited there were beautiful gardens and a sanctuary inside where people could meditate.

Afterwards we ended up at a popular bazaar called “T. Nagaar,” where we sampled the local fares, sucking up coconut water from a straw and licking the grease of samosas off our fingers as we walked around, soaking everything in (and sweating everything out…)

We watched these chaat (snacks) being made: begun with empty shells and then topped with curd (plain yogurt), a tamarind-based sauce, a mint-based sauce, slivers of dried and then fried ground chickpeas (which Garrett and I first mistook for shredded cheese heh), and chopped cilantro.

Final product.

Our second order of business at the bazaar, after food, was to find Garrett a murse. That's right, everyone: a murse, otherwise known as a man purse. Garrett had his wallet stolen while we were in Bangkok, so he (we) decided this would be safer, and obviously more stylish…

Option # 1

The winner. He loved this murse way too much, you guys.

Another thing we did while in Chennai was get far too many sweets from this place, (which was unfortunately [or fortunately] located right next door to our hotel):

Such as this:

... an amazing, ghee, or milk fat-based dessert tasted which like sugar cookie dough topped with a layer of chocolate… Heaven, in other words. It cost about 8 rupees (~15 cents) for one dessert, so you can see why it became impossible for us to exercise any self-control when confronted with endless varieties to try...

The coiled, orange sweet in the middle is called a jalebi and is a slightly citrusy bundle of fried dough, with a hard shell exterior and slightly soft and juicy interior... We made it a point to try and compare jalebi throughout India. 

Also, I’m not embarrassed to say (ok, I am a little) that I'm pretty sure we tried every dessert in this display case over the course of our 3 ½ days in Chennai.

Our second full day in Chennai, we got up the courage to take local transportation. We walked to the bus station across the street from our hotel, and waited for a bus to take us down to the beach so we could go running.

Luckily, this wasn't our bus...

Our bus wasn't too crowded, and we were able to quickly (and cheaply: also for about 8 rupees, or 15 cents) make our way to Marina Beach to be amongst those who wanted to get in some early morning movement before the start of the day.

Marina beach looks a little bit like what you would imagine the post-apocalyptic scene of an amusement park to look like, with skeletal frames of ferris wheels and merry-go-rounds littering the horizon and abandoned food carts sinking into the sand.

Ravens dotted the sky out to the Bay of Bengal and homeless people stretched out on blankets or rice mats, sleeping until the sun became too unbearable to ignore. We ran by a group of Indians practicing laughing yoga who directed deep belly laughs and waves in our direction as we passed. Garbage covered the ground and the smell of rotting fish overwhelmed the senses in waves...

As we walked back to our bus stop, a man fell into step with us and we started chatting. His name was Sandir (pronounced like sand + deer), and he walked with us for half an hour to the bus station, giving us tips and suggestions on what to do in Chennai as we went. Taking his advice on getting out of the city, we decided to take a day trip to Mahabalipuram, a village not too far from Chennai renowned for its 2000 year-old temples, but perhaps even more intriguing to us for its promise of the mystifyingly named “Krishna’s Butter Ball…”

Day trip!

Little did I know I’ve been drinking the high-calorie kind of water my whole life.

Heh.

Over the course of our travels in India we saw many of these markings outside of houses, which we learned are meant to protect its inhabitants and ward off the evil eye.

Fishing boats.

Classic feet in ocean picture.

The first temple we visited in Mahabalipuram was the aptly named "seaside temple," located on the Bay of Bengal.

We’d gotten over our fear of touching in public at this point, having seen Indian couples holding hands and putting their arms around each other.

Second temple we visited in Mahabalipuram.

There are goats everywhere in India!

Here it is, folks: Krishna’s Butterball. As you can see, it’s not *actually* made of butter. I was sorely disappointed.

On the way back I befriended this nice lady on the bus who saw me admiring her garland of camellias out of the corner of my eye and proceeded to pull off a sprig to put in my hair and dab a bit of her red bindi powder on my forehead. Made my day.

For our final day in Chennai we decided to just explore the surrounding area a bit on our own.

We started at the Government Museum, which had an impressive and stately exterior, made even better- as I'm sure you will agree- by these dinosaurs:

We then went back to T. Nagaar to catch anything we might have missed the first time.

…like this amazingly greasy piece of perfection, which was basically a deep fried ball of potato with cumin and turmeric and without which our lives would have been rendered incomplete.

omg

We wandered into a sari shop to get me “fitted” for a sari and so I could get an idea of how much fabrics cost/which colors I was interested in/how in the world to put one on…

These ladies were very nice and didn't mind my taking up their time to try on various saris

For dinner we gave the restaurant from the first night a second try, this time in the safety of normal working hours when hot food is much more readily available. This large, curried potato and onion-filled crepe, called a masala dosa, would come to be a staple of our diet throughout our time in India, eaten for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Finally, we boarded our first ever night train in India, with which we would come to be very familiar over the course of our travels. This is what Garrett did for the entirety of the trip:

While I did this:

… That’s it for Chennai! Stay with me as I journey onwards to Mysore, birthplace of Ashtanga yoga and one of the quaintest cities we visited in India. I can’t guarantee I will be more concise in the upcoming posts, but I will try, since what’s to come is a long saga with many more adventures to share. I’ll also try to space these posts out a bit so as not to overwhelm you with reading material from this blog. Please enjoy and don't hesitate to give me feedback if you’re like “SHUT UP LEAH AND JUST SHOW US THE PICTURES ALREADY” etc. Thank you for visiting and look out for the second part of this epic very soon… :)