Clark travels the world

The Chennai Flower Market

My sister and I failed to properly book train tickets to Bangalore for the weekend, so we ended up having to settle for the bus. Not so bad, except that we had to get to the bus station... The CMBT as it is known is about 10 km north of where I live, and nearly inaccessible by train, which is totally irritating. This means, the methods of arriving at the CMBT are rickshaw, or local public buses... Both are slightly difficult options for tall westerners trying to fit into Indian sized things. Happily, everyone knows exactly where CMBT is, as it is the largest bus terminus in all of Asia!

However, we had no idea how long it would take us, so we caught a rickshaw to make sure we could get our bus tickets and board the bus in time. We overcompensated. Our bus to Bangalore was at 10:30 AM, we got to the bus terminus and had tickets in hand by 9:15AM. So we went for breakfast and looked around a bit.

What's this? A huge market across the street? Why, yes I will go explore that for an hour.

It turns out, that Chennai's Flower market is directly across the street from the bus terminus. Crossing the street to get there is mildly harrowing, but once we each made it in one piece (one piece each) we had some good exploring to do. Funny enough, all the pollution seems to have disappeared in the market. It is the first time I have been in a large area of Chennai without having to endure some really bad smells. Generally, one will be lucky enough to walk by some fruit vendors or flower vendors on the road and get quick olfactory reprieve from the dust and dirt and filth and piss that pervades the rest of chennai's air, but here was all flower smells! This market is also quite large and sort of reminded me of a huge farmers' market in the south or midwest, but selling almost exclusively flowers. Here are some pictures to demonstrate (courtesy of my sister's camera).

A good Friday night in Chennai

With a trip to Bangalore hanging in the near future, I'd decided it was time to have people over to my place finally. I'm friends with several German exchange students at IIT Madras and my good Italian friend is visiting my institute for a few months as well as having my sister in town. Sadly, as is well known to all westerners living in Chennai, and all avid readers of this blog, there is no nightlife here. It's not Chennaice. It's not even close. Perhaps, if one has certain necessities (money, driver, spouse, hates having real fun) it can be considered "Chennot bad." But "Chennaice?" The more I hear that phrase over and over in my head, the more I think about how ridiculous it is to me.

So anyway, I had to make up my own night life. I invited the Germans and the Italian over for drinks on my balcony. We commenced our activities in the mosquito full night at midnight. First though, we had to get the germans to my place. Did I mention I hate rickshaw drivers in Chennai? I got on the phone with their driver who was coming from less than a mile away and told him exactly where to go, with about 4 BIG landmarks. These landmarks included... I major thoroughfare, a river which divides the city in two, the Tamil Nadu State Judicial Academy (not a small place) and the only state bank of India ATM within several blocks. Of course, he said he knew where that was. He was lying. But after more discussions and some more coaxing, I finally managed to steer him with a little yellow mosquito taxi full of four fully grown germans to my place. I don't have much in my place, but luckily, I had just stocked up on booze because of all the visitors we've been having recently. So we had plenty to go around. I also opened up a bottle of Lebanese table wine and passed it around just to show off how good our wine is in lebanon (and also convince more people to visit). We drank for a little under two hours. Then everyone got tired and went home. But hey, at least (as the Modern Drunkard says) "The only one allowed to announce 'last call' is the floor." There was no last call, just tired people who went home under their own choosing.

So it wasn't perfect, I didn't have a nice iPod selection to play, nor AC, nor enough furniture to sit on, but by God (by the many gods) we had ourselves a Friday night like it should be (almost).

Letter from my sister

The Pondicherry trip wasn't all that bad, except for the filthy bathrooms and the runaround we got for our only full day in town. That aside, we had a nice semi-relaxed time in a beach town (with no swimming) and the decaying remnants of what was once a nice french colony. To boot, we got to drink actual beer (Tuborg from Denmark) even though it isn't very good, at least it tastes like beer. But my sister summarized the entire trip nicely in this succinct note;

Dear India,

If something in on the menu it should be in the restaurant.
If the ATM doesn't work, the bank should.
Also, pick up the trash.

Love,
Amanda

P.S. Here's a wiki link to mexican food.

The nicest bathroom in the world

Perhaps that's a slight overstatement. My sister and I were drinking at the expat bar in Pondicherry. I really like that place, but typically I just go for a couple rounds and chat up whoever is there, because a crazy international crowd of lazy asses (one which I am definitely one) make up that scene. My sister asked how the bathrooms were, I couldn't remember, because the last time I had been in that bathroom was December 1st. So I said "It's not too bad if you have to stand up." Leaving it as a partial warning, but not remembering anything particular about it at all. Being a guy, I don't give that much thought to bathrooms. I usually don't have to touch much, and if the sink is really filthy, I just wash my hands elsewhere (the public sink, or the hotel which is not far away). So my sister came back and said "Good news, I did have to stand up." We had a good laugh about it. She had taken pictures to demonstrate the poor quality of the bathroom. Note, this is at the Qualithe Hotel....