We had today off for a national holiday in India (Republic Day)
celebrating 64 years of Indian independence. We watched some of the
Republic Day parade from our room. It was a major event with military
equipment, marching troops and bands followed by lots and lots of
elaborate floats and bands. We then met up with Jyoti and Dhalat, a
local Rotarian couple that the other SCAW team members had met
previously. They kindly took us for a driving tour of Chennai to show
us areas of the city that we hadn't been to before. We toured areas
with cottage industries that were arranged in a street by street
fashion; one street for textiles, another for car parts, etc. followed
by areas of the old City that had lots of historic buildings with some
magnificent architecture. We had a short stop at the Marina Beach.
It's a huge beach with some small fishing boats nestled in the sand
overlooking the Bay of Bengal and the large freighter ships plying it's
waters. There were not many people on the beach and we were told that
it is used more in the early morning and evening when it is not so hot.
Also, the sea floor drops off quite quickly and there are undertows
that make swimming here risky.
We were treated to a fantastic meal at the Cosmopolitan
Club by our lovely Rotarian friends. We started with some Indian
appetizers and a tasty fruit drink and just when we thought the meal was
finished another round of food showed up. Great eats.
Our final stop was a modern new shopping mall that
had 4 floors of stores with a 5 screen movie theatre. Lots of people
here, browsing the stores and escaping the heat. Unlike, home the
parking garage was manned by parking attendants to guide cars to vacant
parking spots and direct you to the exit. In typical Indian fashion,
someone made a wrong turn and got all the way to the exit before they
discovered it. The attendants stopped the exit lines, shifted some cars
around and had the errant driver reverse out of line and back into the
garage. Traffic then started flowing through the exit again. There's
always something to talk about when it comes to travelling the roadways
in India.
We had a nice day off and are planning our next distribution tomorrow, it'll be back to work in the morning.
Dennis for Team Chennai 2013
