After Egypt we flew to Chennai India (of course via London just to be direct :S) to do a deployment training session for our colleagues there. Chennai is very much like Egypt in many ways, but different in others. First, driving in Chennai is similar to Cairo except on the other side of the road (left side like the British). There are a ‘few’ traffic signals in Chennai, but they are the exception rather than the rule. The biggest difference on the roads is the extremely high proportion of motorcycles, scooters and bicycles versus cars. This may be due to the relatively high price of gasoline compared to Cairo where cars were the norm. As a result, traffic in Chennai flows a bit better since the 2-wheeled vehicles just scoot between cars and get out of the way.
Chennai was also a real dichotomy between modern office buildings with traditional housing. Not far from the modern office building we worked in there were huts with palm thatched roofs and walls. It’s quite interesting to see modern buildings with Cognizant and others sprouting up among the otherwise traditional landscape.
My travel companions (ET and Wayne) and I continued to suffer from upset stomachs we brought with us from Cairo. We have dubbed the condition Baboon Butt (for reasons that should be obvious from this picture)
Due to our ailments, we spent much of our ‘free’ time at the hotel and weren’t very exotic with our restaurant choices. We did, however, get out of Chennai on our last day in India to the town of Mahabalipuram. It is a VERY cool place with impressive temples carved out of solid granite. There is also a HUGE relief carving on a rock face.
We had lunch at a spot along the beach on the Bay of Bengal. We (ET and I) had a ‘quick’ dip in the water but as it was early afternoon, the sand was too hot to even walk on. I’ve never felt sand that hot before in my life. The beach was completely empty except for us crazy Canadians.