Chennai, and Mamabalipuram

Greetings to you all. Unbelievable - Maddy is eating onions, garlic and spices! Yesterday the group had lunch; it was a masala dosa. A rectangular plate was served to us with a huge thin crispy pancake rolled up on it, hanging over the plate. Inside was a wonderful potato and lentil mashup and spiced up yum yum. We pulled some pieces of bread off and dipped them in any of the three sauces on our plate. Maddy ate the whole thing AND it was too spicy for Anne! We flew Thursday from Delhi to Chennai on Air India; good 2-1/2 hr flight. Just hung out that day; met up with our tour group Fri. Sat we toured Chennai. Different from the north. Little colorful temples are everywhere here. The beautiful saris never stop. Our guide, Ganesh, took us on a local train for about one half hour, then we had the above-mentioned sandwich, then we took a tuk tuk ride. Tuk tuks are 3-wheeled compressed gas powered vehicles, holds 3 Americans and a driver. It would hold more Indians than us wide-assed Yanks. But the traffic is crazy and you are right in the middle of it while riding. Got back on the bus and rode to St. Thomas Basillica. Yep, there are Christians here, but 96% of population are Hindu. Back on the bus, drove to Mahabalipuram, City of 1000 temples. Ganesh's wife, mother, mother-in-law and 10-year old niece rode in our bus for 30 minutes. They told us about themselves and we asked them questions. Then the darling niece sang a song for us. The song was beautiful. She told us that her brother teases her all the time but misses her when she is gone from the house. Thinks she may become a teacher but I think she could be a tour guide! Had dinner last night with many courses, ate vegetables and fruit and didn't get sick, also ate beef! That was a surprise. Didn't think we would have beef for another week. Our hotel is on the Bay of Bengal, walked the beach last night just before sunset. Do you know we are 10-1/2 hours ahead of our friends back home? They chose the half hour so the entire country would be on the same time. Today we took the optional temple tour to Kanchipuran where we had to wear Punjabis. Loose shirt, baggy pants, scarf and socks. Sixth- and 8th century construction. Lots of amazing temples. We'll see more during the tour. Ganesh had another surprise for us. We 15 got off the cool, comfortable buses and loaded into the back of two small open stake trucks. These trucks took us through streets teeming with people, cows, bullocks and dogs so we were almost at street level. Our truck got a bonus and went through a couple blocks of vegetable markets. Namaste! We had a lunch at a spicy buffet and drove back to our hotel. Feel like chilling out for now. Going to Pondicherry in the a.m. Send good wishes to India, what a place! People, cows, bullocks and dogs -- all are just working hard to stay alive.

Train Station