Vacation!

(I wrote this the day after we left Pune, when we didn't yet have consistent internet)

So we're here in our hotel in Mamallapuram / Mahabalipuram. It's no "Central Park by Inox" in Pune, but it's plenty nice. The Mamalla Heritage hotel has a rooftop seafood restaurant, clean and air conditioned rooms, and a very tempting pool.

Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that it's hotter here? Pune's weather was perfect, 70s or 80s during the day, 60s at night, and not very much humiditiy. Here in the state of Tamil Nadu, it's upper 80s during the day, maybe a few degrees colder at night, and way more humid.

Our second domestic flight, from Pune to Chennai, was quick and easy. We already had a flight under our belts, so we knew the tricks. For instance, you get to leave your shoes on at security, but you can actually have way less liquids and gels in your carry-on than you can at home. Most passengers here check their belongings, and just bring a little bag or nothing at all. Speaking of carry-ons, make sure you have luggage tags on them so that security can stamp them. If you try to get on the plane with a bag with an unstamped tag, you have to get searched all over again, after waiting for everyone else to get on the plane. We didn't make that mistake again.

An hour or two of sitting on the plane watching a thunderstorm in the distance, and talking about how amazing it was to be here in India, and we had landed in Chennai.

Once we landed we headed straight for the prepaid taxi stand. We had learned another lesson in Delhi about cabs and touts. This time we paid upfront at the government controlled booth. A car from the Chennai airport to our hotel in Mamallapuram, about 60 km, was approximately 25 bucks. We ended up spending an hour in the back of a sweet old Ambassador, windows down, on a new and well kept road (better than any in Chicago). Along the way we saw a bunch of political posters written in flowing Tamil, mostly with a giant picture of Jayalalitha. Look her up, the politics of South India are pretty interesting.

So our hotel is cute, the room is clean, the town is relaxed and calm. On our way to dinner at "Moonrakers" we saw more white people than I think I've seen in the past three weeks. Most of them seemed fine, but we definitely saw a few intollerable "hippies" having an "India experience", wearing "Indian" clothes I've yet to see on anyone outside of movies or California, and playing four chord songs to the shopkeepers at stores that only sell to tourists. I swear we're polite and open minded to everyone except pretentious rich "hippies".

Anyway, dinner was great. We're going to spend tomorrow admiring the stone carvings that the town is famous for, and one of these days I'm going to write out my thoughts from the past three weeks.