01 Mar - 02 Mar 2011 Chennai



 


South Asia
Republic of Incredible India, the world's biggest democrazy
Tamil Nadu
Chennai aka Madras
Egmore
Kennet Lane 15
Hotel Regal +914428191122
Adequate and just clean enough double room for only INR 520.- or US$ 11.50 per night. Professional Indian staff.


Click below for an interactive road map of the Hotel Regal in Chennai, which we would recommend, and for directions:
N 13° 04.53' E 080° 15.73'










Overnighting in Chennai, the capital city of Tamil Nadu and the biggest industrial and commercial centre in South India, exploring our hotel’s lively but filthy neighbourhood in the vicinity of the busy Egmore Train Station where (i) betel-nut sellers squat at their trade in odd corners along with ear-cleaners, (ii) street barbers dart about touting for scrapeable clients for their stalls outside and (iii) peanut-sellers wander through with hot smoking piles of nuts on their head baskets, and recognising the strong smell of India (Rudyard Kipling: “The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it...”) which has not changed a whiff since our last visit to the dirty and fascinating subcontinent three years ago, after we had crossed the Arabian Sea west to east, from Fujairah to Bombay, on our faithful ketch SY “Kamu II”.

"Each day has a colour, a smell..."


Taking the convenient suburban train from Egmore back to Chennai’s International Airport for only INR 6.- or c. US$ 0.10 per person, crossing thereafter the Bay of Bengal, this time without worries about calms and cyclones, thus flying comfortably with the top-notch carrier Jet Airways (“India's finest international airline; giving the world a better choice in the skies.”) in a brand-new Boeing 737-700 from India’s Coromandel Coast to the Andaman's Veer Savarkar International Airport, commonly known as Port Blair Airport, for INR 4,263.- or US$ 96.- per person, one way and all inclusive, being issued with a 30-day restricted-area permit for the Andaman & Nicobar Islands on arrival, free of charge, and taking immediately thereafter a cheap public bus for INR 5.- or US$ 0.10 per person from the airport straight into Port Blair’s town centre, a congested cluster of tin-roofed houses tumbling towards the sea in the north, the east and the west.



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