Chennai (Madras), India - April 20 part 2



bas relief

huge granite carving

 After the temple we head to Mahabalipuram, another city to visit 7th century monuments. This entire area is a World Heritage site dotted with huge granite sculptures or ‘bas relief’. These depict stories from Hindu mythology called `Arjuna's Penance' and `Descent of the Ganges'. These are very detailed and it is unbelievable that they were made in the 7th century with very basic tools! All along the road as we drove into this area were tiny workshops with sculptures carved out of the granite – some completed and for sale and some still in progress. I would have LOVED to stop and bought one, but we were on a tight time schedule and even the smallest of them would definitely put me over the airline weight restriction!

one of the many watermelon stands

We had a late lunch of local food at the ‘Taj Fisherman's Cove Resort’ on the Bay of Bengal. Used their western facilities and headed back to the ship.




another fruit stand

 The ride to the ship took about an hour and a half, but probably was only about 20K. The drivers here don’t appear to follow any sort of rules of the road. India like all of the other countries we’ve visited so far drive on the left side of the road, but here they only are on the left side some of the time. Most of the time they are in the middle and move over slightly when passing an oncoming vehicle. The roads are very bumpy and I was pleasantly surprised at how fine my stomach stayed.

Indian traffic

One thing that did meet my expectations in India was the garbage. It is absolutely EVERYWHERE! People seem to clean in front of their homes or businesses, but basically just sweep the garbage to the side and there it is for eternity. What you see mostly are plastic bags and shards of plastic bags, but there is pretty much any type of garbage you can imagine.




public bus



Something else everywhere you look are watermelons. It must be watermelon season. There are other melons also, but watermelons are the most common melons. There are huge piles of watermelons for sale almost on every corner.

I have to say I felt a bit stared at today. Not creepy stared at, but stared at like they had never seen anything like me before – I think some of them hadn’t. At one point a local asked a woman on our tour to pose for a photo. It was the weirdest thing…the area is very un-touristy and according to our guide many of the locals have never seen foreigners before.

more traffic

The first day we arrived here all of the areas directly leading to outside areas were covered in plastic. Apparently this is to keep the coal dust from seeping into every nook and cranny. This didn’t extent to our balcony which is filthy – we’ve set down the ship’s brown beach towels until it gets hosed down.