I havnt blogged in a bit, been a little busy, was on holiday for a while last month and had planned to have a blog entry for most of those days, however just got to one – so here it is : )
We are at Chennai airport. The land of people with three stripes at a bare minimum across the forehead if not more! I have a feeling that the stripes have a lot to do with the seniority of your position in terms of age. Some older dudes here even have four lines and I’m convinced as the head lines recede they’ll add on more. Adidas would really cash in on this place, their marketing strategy is made for this zebra city : )
South India is an amusing place, we asked the manager if we could head to a diner after getting a few drinks at The Leather Bar. Now mind you I was at a bit of a distance I knew the question being asked and I could see the manager move his head sideways, in what I thought indicated a no-no gesture so far, but turns out he was saying yes. Long and short of it, when people want to say yes they like to make it look like a no. I was tempted to ask a question that would get me a no answer and see if he would nod his head while saying it, but you can’t really ask if he would be ok with me paying the bill with Iraqi coins just to get that noddy gesture going.
The driving around the city was amusing, I’ve always felt it’s really nice to get local in terms of the food, music, clothes and language in any place you visit, wherever you go some of the sand always sticks to your feet you know. However I think Chennai’s music isn’t quite the symphony sore ears look for! Ten minutes into the drive with the local radio station buzzing in the background, Sheel and I started experiencing a mild buzzing in the head that was soon turning into headache! That music has to change : ) I figure it’s a cultural thing, the handwriting looks like squiggles and it just translates into the music too! Just kidding A R Rahman’s from here man and AR got soul! The local food is really nice, chili stuff but that appam and the rest of the deal is just awesome. We went to this place called kumarakom, great place, apparently they have a live band too and the manager told us we should have gotten in earlier to “yenjoy it” ~ and I was thinking to myself narrow escape!
Anyhow it was an amusing night out, didn’t really see much of chennai but more on the way back, the heat was already getting to me. One last thing I noticed was the locals really like to roam and the local dress is a “lungi” which basically looks like a giant bed sheet, that you wrap around your waist. I figure it’s a good idea you like moving around the city, it’s hot and you want a place to crash ~ hey you’ve got your bed sheet already! Now if only we had a turban going we’d have a pillow too!
Either way bye bye chennai for now and time to say hello to Sri Lanka, land of Ravana, Sita, Gita and Papita!