Sight Seeing?
So I had an 8 hour layover in Chennai (again). I went over to the tourist desk and asked what I could do. The guy at the counter was quite helpful. He said, “Go across the street and take the train for 4 Rupees. Then get a 3 wheel taxi for 30 Rupees and go to the national park. Then take another taxi to the beach and up the coast. Then get on the train and come back to the airport.”
It sounded pretty good, but I didn’t check how much money I had in my pocket before I took off. The taxis were swarming all over me. I made it across the street (ummm, scary!), and onto the train. I got off and decided that I would just walk. Heheheh, “It doesn’t look too far on the map.”
Right before I took this picture, so school girls stopped me. They asked where I was from and where I was going. They advised me that it was probably too far to walk to the park. One girl said, “Look at you, you’re so white. So cute.” Then she pinched my cheek. They said, “Don’t forget us”, I offered to take a picture with them and they all ran away. 😀
So, I was hounded by another taxi. He wanted me to pay 60 Rupees for a ride to the park. I counted my money and I only had 55 rupees, but I still needed money to get back to the airport. The taxi driver said, “How much money do you make in the states? And you come here with only 55 rupees? sheeesh!!” Then he left me. I had to cross the road again, but this time there were many more lanes. There was a girl walking across at the same time, so I just waited and walked across when she did.
I walked for quite some time. I was smart enough to have some water with me. I was rationing it for my hike. I was carrying my backpack and pulling the video camera with me. It was very hot! I stopped after awhile and asked a traffic officer how much further. He said, “Not much farther, just about 1 more Kilometer”. Hmpft!!! Whatever that means!! I think that the trip to the park was over 2 kilometers.
I wasn’t sure how much further that I had to go, but I found this Temple and I stopped to take a photo for a bit.
by
I’ll have a long layover in Bangkok… in coincides with the LIVE time of Gen. Conf! So I’ll sit in this buddist country and watch Gen Conf! How about it???
I’ve had really good luck getting connected to the internet in most of the airports.