Day 2: We arrive in Chennai, Tamil Nadu
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After an early morning arrival,
we experience peak traffic en-route to our hotel.
There we were given a warm welcome for our 1 night
stay.
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Monday 17th February 2025
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Before our early morning
arrival in Chennai, we were served a rather large breakfast. |
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Twenty eight minutes
to landing. |
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We got some good views
of the city as we approached. |
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We loved the whole Emirates
experience and resolved to fly with them again one day. |
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The immigration process
was slow, but not as slow as we had experienced when arriving
into the United States four months ago. It was also bureaucratic,
but we had been given fair warning of this beforehand. For
example, the "e-visas" (the clue being "e-",
believed by most people to mean "electronic"),
were not. Luckily we had printed several copies beforehand,
because they underwent much scrutiny and there were at least
three rubber stamps noisily applied to each one. In hindsight,
we felt grateful that all the correct stamps had been applied,
because these bits of paper were inspected many times during
the course of our stay. |
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After collecting our
luggage, we were greeted warmly in the arrivals hall by
our old friend Neil, with whom we had sailed many times
in the past. He would be our cruise director for this holiday.
There were only around 20 people in our group, the other
70 or so having arrived a little earlier on the British
Airways flight. Accompanying Neil were two representatives
from the local agent. A coach was waiting for us and soon
we were on our way from the airport to our hotel. |
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Neil had spent the previous
night at the hotel and told us optimistically that it had
taken him 30 minutes to drive to the airport to meet us
and that it would take around the same time to get back
to the hotel. What he didn't foresee was that he had missed
the Monday morning rush-hour and we hadn't! Our journey
to the hotel took 90 minutes, but we were so fascinated
by what appeared to be chaos on the roads, that we hardly
noticed how long it was taking. |
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After witnessing the
frenzy of Chennai's roads, we turned off the road and entered
the contrastingly serene grounds of the Taj
Connemara Hotel. |
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We were greeted in the
foyer by several more familiar faces from previous trips,
including Elaine and Sue (last seen on our Maritime Canada
trip) and Caroline, last seen on our excursion to the Iguazu
Falls and the subsequent flight to Ushuaia, before saying
goodbye as we departed on our Patagonian Odyssey trip. |
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We were given a welcome
pack containing a detailed schedule for our stay. We were
then escorted to our rooms, which had been made available
to all of us early in the day so that we didn't have to
wait until the usual check in time of 4:00pm. This company
really does know how to look after its guests. |
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After having a light
brunch in the restaurant, we took a nap and later explored
the hotel... |
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...before deciding to
take a late afternoon stroll beyond the hotel to get our
bearings. The roads were slightly calmer than this morning,
but were still very busy. |
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We found a shopping
centre and went inside. It contained a maze of passages
lined with small shops selling the usual array of things
you might expect to find like clothes, household goods and
electronics, interspersed with small restaurants. This is
the central area of the centre. |
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Retracing our steps,
we walked back to the hotel and then decided to explore
further in the other direction. |
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This is as far as we
got before deciding to turn back to the hotel. |
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We enjoyed a pre-dinner
drink overlooking the pool. The heat of the day had subsided
and it was very pleasant. |
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We were amongst the first
to arrive for dinner, which was served buffet-style in the
hotel’s ballroom. |
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It wasn't long before
we began to spot several familiar faces from our previous
travels. |
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There were some interesting
dishes on offer. We later found out that "jaggery"
is a traditional unrefined sweetener made from sugarcane
juice or palm sap and is popular across South Asia, Africa
and Latin America. It is known for its rich, earthy flavour
and golden to dark brown colour. |
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The dragon fruit looked
beautiful. |
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We were especially delighted
to see Janet, a lady we had met a few times before. She
told us she had been hoping to run into us again because
she remembered that we were sometimes accompanied by a bear.
Ever since, she’d been eager to give us a photo of
her own bear, Porgy, which she had brought along on several
of her recent trips—and conveniently had with her
at that very moment! We were both surprised and delighted,
and happily accepted the card which she had dedicated to
George (she had forgotten that his name is actually William)
and we exchanged contact details to stay in touch. |
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Our decision to be cautious
about what we ate in India had been forgotten at the first
sight of all the delicious looking food on offer! Afterwards,
we returned to our room and enjoyed a good night's sleep. |
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