Chennai – Ian Louis Harris

India and Sri Lanka, 29 January to 26 February 2011, placeholder and links

We needed a long and complete break after the loss of Phillie, Janie’s twin, in December. But this holiday was a long and ambitious one by any measure.

We were planning it at very short notice, by our standards, of course, but fortune smiled upon us in that planning. The Central Plains of India; Chhattisgarh and Orissa (Odisha) can be quite politically volatile, Foreign Office advice yo-yos between “no problem” and “only go if need be”, due to Naxalite/Maoist activity. But what a fascinating tribal part of India it is.

Anyway, it was a safe time to go at that time and the plan, through Steppes East who were excellent on this one, was to use the family of the Maharajah of Kanker as our guides in that region. This was a great idea; Jolly Deo, the Maharajkumar, was the perfect host and guide. We learnt lots and had fun along the way.

I long ago posted the weirdest story from that trip; the day I was press-ganged into being a live cricket commentator, which was published on King Cricket a few months after the event.

We were also fortunate in the Sri Lanka leg of the trip; an opportunity to have a large villa in Galle Old Town all to ourselves for the price of a hotel room came up, by virtue of the villa only recently coming back onto the holiday market following a long-term family stay. I suppose our experience there was a bit like a cross between AirBnB (except without making life hell for the neighbours) and Lastminute.com.

In short, there were loads of adventures to write up from this holiday – pages and pages and pages of the stuff….

…and they are all up there now – pretty much one posting per day. The posting for the first day of the holiday can be seen by clicking here or below:

Journey From London To Hyderabad, 29 & 30 January 2011

Here are links to the photo albums, which I divided up into six short albums, one for each “leg” of the trip:

If you are really keen to explore my hand-written notes, just to make sure I have written them up properly, here they are in pdf form and good luck to you:

Here is the Steppes East itinerary, also available for download – at least you’ll be able to read this one: Itinerary-Wormleighton.

Finally, there are photo albums on flickr of the pictures that didn’t make the cut for the main albums – there are some gems in there nonetheless for picture lovers:

Goodbye Aditya, Goodbye Southern Asia, Time To Go Home, 25 & 26 February 2011

Took exercise in the suite and also took a little sun before checking flights and then breakfast.
Aditya breakfast included juice and fruit, kola kanda, breads and danish, sausages, eggs, baked beans, roti potatoes and yoghurt!
Took more sun and reading until about 1400 when we washed, paid up, finish packing and left Aditya with Samantha pronounced Saman-dthe.
Very long drive, horrendous traffic and Ged started to panic a bit although we reached the airport with a good 90 minutes before takeoff.
Comedy urgent search for club lounge and many many security checks.
Then at Chennai we had a farcical transit missing the chance to go out for a few hours in favour of some comedic transit fun including upsetting security by sitting on the only free seats and BA having to go through the motions of taking us back in baggage wise and reissuing our boarding passes.
Still we spoke some interesting folk e.g. the Norwegian businessman pulling out of Sri Lanka and a nice bloke from DHL outsourcing to Chennai.
Amazingly we and our luggage arrived home in a timely fashion.

From Chennai, India, To Galle, Sri Lanka, 13 February 2011

Rose early to pack and take breakfast. We leave the hotel at 9:15 and Muhtu picks up “Wing Commander” Senuwasen along the way, who chats a lot but ultimately does little for us.
We check-in, buy some cancer sticks for the Duchess and hunker down in the club lounge, where I write up quite a lot.
Board early, Take off early and land early. We actually make contact with the driver, Tuma, before the time we were even due to land!

Some confusion over our destination (41 Lighthouse Street, wheras he thought the Lighthouse Hotel). Then a money stop, water stop, and several attempts to borrow a knife or scissors to liberate Daisy’s medicaments.
Daisy spends much time on phone to Aranthi (a.k.a. George).

Met by Prageeth and Roshan at 41.
We have booked dinner at Galle Fort Hotel. Lovely ambiance, but set meal – still quite a good one. Thai fishcakes, followed by chicken malaise style (not) with a gado-gado salad with corn fritter, prawns, and kerpuk, followed by sorbets (home-made) washed down with a Rose D’Anjou – probably will eat in from now on though.

South Africa v Zimbabwe World Cup Warm Up Match, Chennai Stadium, As Reported On King Cricket, 12 February 2011

This report for King Cricket relates to a small part of our India & Sri Lanka trip, which I shall write up more comprehensively eventually, for which the Ogblog placeholder and links can be found by clicking here or below:

India and Sri Lanka, 29 January to 26 February 2011, placeholder and links

Here is a link to the King Cricket piece, which relates to just one of the many places we visited in Chennai on 12 February:

South Africa v Zimbabwe World Cup warm-up match report

King Cricket published the piece on 18 April 2011. Just in case the above link goes duff, I have also scraped the report to here.

Frankly, some of the comments are better than my report – it is worth reading for them. King Cricket can be like that.

Touring In And Around Chennai, Tamil Nadu, 12 February 2011

All the album pictures from our Chennai touring are in the following album:

001 12 Feb 2011 Ekambareswarar Temple, Kanchipuram P1010792

Rose early with Daisy still fuming about the power incident [last night].
Set off for Kanchipuram with guide Sanjay and driver Muthu, of course. Ring Vikram in Delhi on way to get him to sort out our room/attitude problem.

First stop, Kanchipuram, the Ekambareswarar Temple. Stunning temple, still in use.
Then a quick once around the Kanchi Kailasanathar Temple– a dead or ruined temple but in reasonably good condition.

Leaping locals at Kanchi Kailasanathar Temple

Ged [that’s me] downed a drinking coconut (fleshless). Then on to see jacquard silk saris being made – we bought three cotton shirt/kurta things there.

We arrange extra trip to cricket, so agree to do edited highlights of Mahabalipuram. First stop, Bhagriratha’s Penance and the Mandaras, bas-relief’s in rocks and in some porticoes respectively.

Then on to Pancha Rathas (Five Rathas) very elegant ruined temple site which we explored quickly.

Then we set off for the MA Chithambaram stadium. Sanjay points out highlights of Chennai proper on the way (e.g. Saint Thomas’s Church and the ultra long beach).
Then the stadium. Sanjay helps us find the gates for the best seats (Rs.500 not the 200, 100 or Rs.50 seats for us) and takes his leave of us. Unbelievably putrid smell from the toilets. Mr “No Smoke, No Photo” on security and waiting. Loads of people taking photos so we join in only for Mr No Photo to challenge us. Daisy sorts him out.
We see the end of the Zimbabwean innings – and start of the South African innings. Then leave to find Muhtu.

I have written up the cricket element of this day in more detail – click here or below, where you’ll also find a link to the relevant King Cricket piece on the topi c :

South Africa v Zimbabwe World Cup Warm Up Match, Chennai Stadium, As Reported On King Cricket, 12 February 2011

Lots of traffic and interesting scenes on the way home. Find lots of gifts in our room and rapidly a call from the manager who tells us dinner is on him!
Of course we have been moved to the front table as requested last night. He comes down to meet us, everyone (staff) fawns over us while the guests all gawp at us.
We try bouillabaise, then I tried lobster, Daisy tries Khuta fish and we get mash, fries and lots of veggies, just as we asked for them.
As well as the Wasabi mayonnaise we tried yesterday.

The unlisted pictures from Chennai are in the album below:

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