My well-worn strappy sandals scuffed the airport hall at Chennai (Madras), India. It was 11 pm already and surprisingly, the modestly-spaced Chennai airport was abuzz with arriving Indians. Yes, you heard it right – Indians from the southern part of the subcontinent!
From my Tiger Air flight that left Singapore 4-5 hours earlier, there were only 2 Asian in that flight – me and a Singaporean looking dude – and 1 Caucasian guy. The rest were Indians. So you can probably ascertain how many tourists the South was receiving these days.
And damn hot it is here! About 33 degrees centigrade – and in the middle of the day, no aircon shopping malls or cafes to cool the smouldering heat within.
But enough of the airport stuff. My destination was Pondicherry, a quaint French-colonized coastal town three hours south of Chennai. It was a long but pleasant drive in the dark through what they call the ECR (East Coast Road) which traces the eastern coastline of India all the way from Chennai to Pondicherry. My trustsworthy driver, a burly South Indian guy who speaks little English, was nodding his head off at the wheel. I had to keep making polite conversation to him = like “the road seems better now than before”, or “what are those cute lights on top of the mountain” just to keep him awake and us free from harm.
The burly driver was pissed off with me – and for good reason! I mixed up the dates of my arrival, so the poor guy had to wait at the airport from 11 pm to almost 6 am the night before my arrival. The result was he charged me double – 1,500 rupees (US$30) for the actual pick-up, and another 1,500 rupees for the morning I didn’t show up. Ouch!!
We stopped at a roadside café at 1:30 am. There were still men going in and out of the café – mostly truck and bus drivers. I find the situation funny. Little Asian girl drinking a cup of milk tea at roadside in the dark of night with only burly drivers for company. But I was not alarmed, for in India, at least in the rural areas outside of Chennai, crime was a manageable minimum.
Almost just 2 kilometers away from the Guesthouse, my sleepy driver hit part of a steel barricade fence lying halfway across the road. He kept on driving. When we pulled up in front of the Guesthouse, driver walked out, took a look at the front steel fender of our circa 1960s vintage car and said, “No problem!”. The fender didn’t even sustain a scratch!
It was 3 am already. Welcome to Pondicherry!!
Tags: blogging, blogging in Pondicherry, Chennai, Fabulous in Pondicherry, India, lifestyle, Madras, Pondicherry, sightseeing in India, sightseeing in Pondicherry, Southern India, Tamil Nadu, travel adventures, traveling in Pondicherry
