Chennai Adventures

Well, it's been interesting and certainly not boring.  

Yesterday (Monday I think??) I hired a driver from the hotel, to go and see St Thomas's (Santhome) Basilica, the beaches, and a few other sights nearby, including a little shopping.   Easy!  Except.  The driver didn't speak English other than 3 words.  Hello.  Come.  Beach.    (Also "come come" when I didn't butt my way through the crowds fast enough to keep up with him!).

Anyway, there must have been a bit of miscommunication with the concierge, because he took me to a very very busy Hindu temple "Kapaleeswarar Temple".  There were swarms of devotees there, and flower garlands everywhere.   I noticed my driver didn't have shoes on, and I soon learned that there are no shoes allowed on the grounds, so my Birks were left outside the grounds with thousands of other shoes.  Also there are no "non-Hindu's" allowed inside, according to the multi-lingual signs.  My driver (I never did learn his name) didn't seem to care, and pulled me along in the deep crowds (even though I kept pointing to the signs), until someone started yelling at him.  Anyway, it was an experience to be immersed with the crowd.    When we finally left the grounds, my driver forgot about my shoes (since he didn't have any to retrieve?).  I however remembered, and happily and a bit to my surprise, was able to find them again.  

This picture is from Wikipedia, I was too overwhelmed at the time to take out my phone to take any photos. 

Next stop was St. Thomas's Basilica.   Saint Thomas the Apostle is believed to have died in 72AD in at this location in Chennai, and there is a tomb here where it is believed his remains lie.  First, there are way way less people around, and plenty of parking.  And for a Catholic shrine that has been visited by popes, it is not exactly well kept, especially in the museum part...

Me at the Basilica  

No crowds!  

Next was the beach   We went to "Edward Elliot Beach”  which seems like an inappropriate name for a beach in Tamil Nadu? 

There were hardly any people at the beach either which seemed weird to me, but using sign language of some sort with my driver, he seemed to indicate That people would arrive later in the day around 6 PM.  But it’s pretty dark by then, so maybe I understood incorrectly?

Here is my driver walking to the shore  

And the beach dogs, which I tried to avoid since I didn’t get the rabies shot recommended by the travel clinic. They warned of dog bites.

And here’s me on the Bay of Bengal at Edward Elliot beach 

 Still trying to figure out how this blog works on my phone, will fix glitches later   Maybe