The End Of The Long Train Journey

The journey to Chennai went pretty smoothly.  There were a couple of disappointments but they were minor.  The first was a lack of Chai man throughout the journey.  We thought we'd be able to drink gallons of the stuff, but it was not to be.  We could have had gallons of coffee but then we wouldn't have slept.  Not a good idea!  Also we had to wait about 3 hours for our food to come but that wasn't too much of a hassle.  It just meant we kept some Indians up past their bedtime!

When finally came into Chennai at just after 6am the next morning to be greeted by a very friendly taxi driver.  We had to sort our bags out so he obviously thought we  were naive tourists so waited for us.  He then offered us a taxi to our hotel for 500 rupees.  We told him to go away so he waited about 10 minutes and didn't pick up any fair.  He wanted to negotiate by we weren't going to negotiate with someone trying to take the piss big style.  We went outside and got the cab for about 60 rupees.

He wanted to negotiate by we weren't going to negotiate with someone trying to take the piss big style. We went outside and got the cab for about 60 rupees

Riding through the streets of Chennai that morning gave us a reminder of what we felt like when we entered Mumbai 2 and a half months before.  The only exception was that we didn't see any expensive shops on the way.  It was all poverty.

We only stayed in Chennai for a day as we'd planned on spending our last few days relaxing in a quiet beach town named Mamallapuram.  We did have a hairy moment when we tried to get to the bus station however.  We wanted to go the the central station which was meant to cost about 30 rupees.  Every rickshaw driver wanted 100.  Eventually after sorting the language out we found out the buses didn't run from the central station to our destination.  We had to go to the newly built bus station.  After that we were sorted, and on our way to yet another beach!