After lots of goodbyes, I left Lysander Hospital on Wednesday evening and got a 10 hour night train to Chennai. It's the 4th biggest city in India and within 20 minutes I'd already got on the wrong bus and was completely lost!!!! I ended up spending the morning in the south of the city where the main temple is and there was an old man who showed me round and explained things which was really interesting.
I then went to another temple which was completely different to any of the others which I've seen and was surrounded in beautiful gardens (in which I sheltered for as long as I could justify!). I walked down then bustly rickshaw lined roads to a cathedral and then out onto Marina Beach which is the second longest beach in the world! I realised that when I tried walking up it at midday in the blasting sun....!! There were lots of men on the sand with their fishing boats and women selling the fish. It's an incredibly poor area, with little tiny shack houses all the way up the promenade, an area which was really badly affected by the tsunami of course. 
But it had quite a lot of character and there were groups of boys playing cricket every 20 metres!! I then decided it would be good to spend the boiling afternoon in the National Museum. I ended up meeting an Israeli guy at the entrance so we went round the museum together at a very slow pace in order to take full advantage of the AC! It was really funny because he had a guitar with him and three of the guards made him get it out and sing a song for them in Hebrew. One of them was clapping and dancing along!!! It caused quite a commotion and by the end of the session we were both severely photographed and even videoed by an Indian family! We then went to Fort St George where all the important government buildings are and also saw St Mary's church which is apparently the oldest British church in India. Stocked up on snacks and then boarded the Grand Trunk Express....
I soon settled down in my bunk and was quite happy to find that there was a family sleeping in the same compartment as me. However, as I closed my eyes to try and get to sleep, I could hear the guy on the bunk below me singing along to his ipod....noooooo....and there were still 31 hours of train-ing to be done I though!! Yesterday morning I was woken up by the guy on the upper bunk next to me so that I wouldn't miss the idli which was being sold through the window at a station.
He had 2 plates of idli and an egg sandwich on his bed about to be eaten - wow! I went down onto the seats below so that I could look out of the window and read my book but the ipod guy soon started chatting and that was it until he got off at 7pm! At least it meant that he didn't sing, and he was quite nice to talk to. When he got off the idli guy then came down from his upper bunk as the evening meals were coming round and insisted on buying mine too! I felt so bad because he must be so much poorer, he was even saying that his dad's a farmer so it's not like he is rich even on Indian standards. So yes, the journey passed really quickly and was really good fun!
I was quite worried as I got off the train because it was 3am. A rickshaw driver took me to what I thought was the hotel but then he told me to get out and walk "only half a kilometre" to where the hotel actually was because rickshaws aren't allowed near the Taj. Hmm.....I wasn't very happy. It wasn't really the lugging of my backpack but it was a really scary and run down area I had to walk through with the occasional man lying on a bench and lots of dogs wandering around. I don't think I've ever been so scared!! Luckily the hotel was a lot closer than 500m and I had a loooooovely (very much needed) shower before an even lovelier sleep on a bed!! Got up late this morning and went to sit in the hotel's garden restaurant where I had lunch and an essential coffee!
Will be in touch soon! xx
Besitos de Nana y mios xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx