Chennai Times

I have never visited southern India, but have read and heard a lot through my colleagues and known associates, to me; prima facie it appeared to be a different country within the country. A lot of told-untold stories regarding compatibility of food, language, lifestyle, cultural, people and specially the cabs drivers and the way they charge.

Destiny gave me a chance to visit Chennai the happening city of Tamilnadu, city blessed with rich heritage and cultural values, boasting on longest and beautiful beaches. I and my colleagues happened to visit Chennai for some official purpose. When we were about to land the city I can sense that the stay is not going to be comfortable at the city, the sky appeared very cloudy and a cyclone hitting the eastern part of India few days back created some unrest in the atmosphere.

We landed at Kamraj Airport; the airport didn’t appeared as a treat to eyes, there was a lot of restructuring happening and I personally felt that much work is needed to make it more presentable to the audience. After getting out of the terminal we were roaming around in search of a prepaid taxi counter, and after a small search we were able to locate one, when we were looking for the prepaid counter a lot of people wanted to understand where we wanted to go… to my surprise they can speak English fluently, there command over English was better than few of the white collared executive I have interacted.

Anyways this was the second surprise, we got loaded in a Cab, but here the driver didn’t understand any language other than the local language, it went difficult for us to make him understand where we wanted to go exactly. We gave him the counter slip which we got from prepaid counter and he drove us the way. The guy appeared to be genuine and decent. During the course I tried to interact with him but he preferred to keep mum; language barrier... :)

After finishing off with our jobs we wanted to go back to our hotel and were looking for an auto rickshaw, I remembered a learning which I had through my own reading experience, it suggests pay only 70% of the fare asked for especially if you are in Chennai, With this learning we managed to strike a deal with the rickshaw and reached the hotel.

Annsun Botique Hotel, located in the heart of city; ambiance and room was very good and I found it a very good and convenient option for business travellers. The hotel owned by a gentleman named as “Sundar” (meaning “beautiful”) and it seems that he has nicely crafted everything for his establishment. We had our supper; it appreared to be a fusion of North and South recipes having a gentle touch of south preparation and spices.

After having yummy dinner we had a small walk in the nearby lanes and called off the day as we had many challenges waiting for us the next day.

Image source: tamilnadu.ellamey.com