A Passage to India
Air India Not So Express
Being cheap as always, I flew Air India Express, Air India’s “budget”, point-to-point subsidiary, to Chennai (Madras). The one way ticket with taxes included cost me just S$267 (US$175), which, if you think about it, isn’t that great but (1) nobody will sell me an affordable one way ticket on a regular airline (2) nobody will sell me an affordable ticket into Chennai and that departs from another city (3) nobody will sell me an affordable ticket that’ll let me stay for as many days as I wish. So Air India Express — on a one way ticket it was. If you’ve ever been to Changi Airport when there’s a flight leaving for Chennai, it doesn’t really matter what airline it is. Singapore Airlines, Jet, Air India, Air India Express, it’s all the same: snaking queues, a billion people in line, together with the TVs, rice cookers and other cargo they’ve purchased in Singapore. I sighed, and got into line at Row 1 (the check in row was Row 4).
By the time I finally arrived at the check in counter; they couldn’t find my name in the computer.
It wasn’t until 20 minutes before the plane left that they finally saw fit to issue me a boarding pass.
The Singapore-Chennai flight is usually a direct flight, but on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays the plane stops in Tiruchirapalli to offload its Trichy-bound passengers, refuel, and to continue the remaining 45 minutes to Chennai. The stop wasn’t supposed to take more than half an hour, and we were to arrive in Chennai at 1.30pm. This being India, after all, land of Stretchable Time, if time moves at all, at 3.30pm we still hadn’t moved an inch from the Trichy airfield. My perspective of time must stop each time I’m on Indian soil, because I hadn’t even realized that until the other Indian passengers raised a ruckus. If not for an extremely hot Air India Express stewardess (who had me absorbed in the flight safety demonstrations — in Hindi and English), I might swear never to fly Air India Express again. I’m cheap like that. Besides, they’ll start flying to Mumbai and Pune in October, so I can’t swear off the airline just yet.
Beach Life
When we finally arrived at Anna International Airport, the only other foreigner on the plane was a European boy, so we cleared customs pretty quickly. On a whim I agreed to share an auto rickshaw with him to Triplicane. I should have known better. Not that I want to judge, but he was the sort who had his nose stuck in the blue Bible (the Lonely Planet India); he was curious why I had no guidebook of any sort. I mumbled something about just following my gut feel, and vaguely mentioned how the Lonely Planet in any form offered me absolutely nothing, because it came from too much of a Western perspective, one I cannot and do not share. Their restaurant recommendations are always horrible, too. At that point he became defensive, and I rested my case until we got to Triplicane. (True to stereotype, he also refused to look at any hotel which wasn’t listed in the Lonely Planet; and wandered off to the Broadlands — that infamous, derelict, crumbling place with that despicable anti-Indians policy. I got myself a very good room on a quiet street with absolutely no foreigners at considerabhly less than what a crumbling room at the Broadlands costs.)
His parting words were, “There’s nothing in Chennai.”
He’d been there for ten seconds, and wasn’t planning to stay for more than ten hours. We parted ways.
Contrary to the according-to-the-guidebook European traveller’s declaration, I found Chennai to be a lovely, good sized city. It’s true, you know, what they say about the south being laid back and hassle free. In many ways, Chennai feels like a larger version of the Little India I know and love, more so than the rest of India, because of the shared Tamil culture. Although I’d never been here, it feels like I’ve been here… well, forever. And that’s a good thing.
A striking thing about this city is how integral the beach is to its identity; if you ever fly into Chennai, you’d notice the long stretch of beach — the second longest stretch in the world, apparently — right in the city, and the Bay of Bengal. I’ve been to the beach three times in the two days I’ve been here; my preference is for Elliotts Beach, on the chilled out Besant Nagar, where you could eat a bhaji, drink masala tea, ride a horse, or just sit on plastic chairs on the beach.
There’s also a great concert coming up on Saturday (Live Earth), I’ll be going to Mahabalipuram that same day, though if I had more time I would have done a tour of the Enfield factory (the legendary Enfield bikes!), or gone to Madurai; there’s plenty to see and do in this city. No matter what guidebooks say.
possibly related
Dilemma /
Going, Goa, Gone /
The Malabar Rampage /
On the Road with Mum /
Into the Heart of South India /
Madras in Two Parts
A Passage to India
Air India Not So Express
Being cheap as always, I flew Air India Express, Air India’s “budget”, point-to-point subsidiary, to Chennai (Madras). The one way ticket with taxes included cost me just S$267 (US$175), which, if you think about it, isn’t that great but (1) nobody will sell me an affordable one way ticket on a regular airline (2) nobody will sell me an affordable ticket into Chennai and that departs from another city (3) nobody will sell me an affordable ticket that’ll let me stay for as many days as I wish. So Air India Express — on a one way ticket it was. If you’ve ever been to Changi Airport when there’s a flight leaving for Chennai, it doesn’t really matter what airline it is. Singapore Airlines, Jet, Air India, Air India Express, it’s all the same: snaking queues, a billion people in line, together with the TVs, rice cookers and other cargo they’ve purchased in Singapore. I sighed, and got into line at Row 1 (the check in row was Row 4).
By the time I finally arrived at the check in counter; they couldn’t find my name in the computer.
It wasn’t until 20 minutes before the plane left that they finally saw fit to issue me a boarding pass.
The Singapore-Chennai flight is usually a direct flight, but on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays the plane stops in Tiruchirapalli to offload its Trichy-bound passengers, refuel, and to continue the remaining 45 minutes to Chennai. The stop wasn’t supposed to take more than half an hour, and we were to arrive in Chennai at 1.30pm. This being India, after all, land of Stretchable Time, if time moves at all, at 3.30pm we still hadn’t moved an inch from the Trichy airfield. My perspective of time must stop each time I’m on Indian soil, because I hadn’t even realized that until the other Indian passengers raised a ruckus. If not for an extremely hot Air India Express stewardess (who had me absorbed in the flight safety demonstrations — in Hindi and English), I might swear never to fly Air India Express again. I’m cheap like that. Besides, they’ll start flying to Mumbai and Pune in October, so I can’t swear off the airline just yet.
Beach Life
When we finally arrived at Anna International Airport, the only other foreigner on the plane was a European boy, so we cleared customs pretty quickly. On a whim I agreed to share an auto rickshaw with him to Triplicane. I should have known better. Not that I want to judge, but he was the sort who had his nose stuck in the blue Bible (the Lonely Planet India); he was curious why I had no guidebook of any sort. I mumbled something about just following my gut feel, and vaguely mentioned how the Lonely Planet in any form offered me absolutely nothing, because it came from too much of a Western perspective, one I cannot and do not share. Their restaurant recommendations are always horrible, too. At that point he became defensive, and I rested my case until we got to Triplicane. (True to stereotype, he also refused to look at any hotel which wasn’t listed in the Lonely Planet; and wandered off to the Broadlands — that infamous, derelict, crumbling place with that despicable anti-Indians policy. I got myself a very good room on a quiet street with absolutely no foreigners at considerabhly less than what a crumbling room at the Broadlands costs.)
His parting words were, “There’s nothing in Chennai.”
He’d been there for ten seconds, and wasn’t planning to stay for more than ten hours. We parted ways.
Contrary to the according-to-the-guidebook European traveller’s declaration, I found Chennai to be a lovely, good sized city. It’s true, you know, what they say about the south being laid back and hassle free. In many ways, Chennai feels like a larger version of the Little India I know and love, more so than the rest of India, because of the shared Tamil culture. Although I’d never been here, it feels like I’ve been here… well, forever. And that’s a good thing.
A striking thing about this city is how integral the beach is to its identity; if you ever fly into Chennai, you’d notice the long stretch of beach — the second longest stretch in the world, apparently — right in the city, and the Bay of Bengal. I’ve been to the beach three times in the two days I’ve been here; my preference is for Elliotts Beach, on the chilled out Besant Nagar, where you could eat a bhaji, drink masala tea, ride a horse, or just sit on plastic chairs on the beach.
There’s also a great concert coming up on Saturday (Live Earth), I’ll be going to Mahabalipuram that same day, though if I had more time I would have done a tour of the Enfield factory (the legendary Enfield bikes!), or gone to Madurai; there’s plenty to see and do in this city. No matter what guidebooks say.
possibly related
Dilemma / Going, Goa, Gone / The Malabar Rampage / On the Road with Mum / Into the Heart of South India /