It was amazing to see Jonny again after four long months apart. Our first stop in India was Chennai; an enormous city where you can see such contrasts between the rich and the poor.
On our first day we met an auto rickshaw driver who agreed to give us a tour of the city, however whilst being driven around (for a lot more money than we should have really paid) it soon became apparent that he not only didn't know much about the city but didn't speak very much English either. It was still nice to be driven around and get a feel of the city and we saw some very interesting sights. We drove down by the coast where we saw fishermen and their families living in tents made out of posted ripped off Walls because their accommodation was ruined in the recent tsunami and has not yet been fixed. It was shocking, and such an eye opener to how some people have to live, when we had a nice comfortable hotel to go back to.
We visited the beach the next day again. It was huge, with hundreds of stalls run by people trying to scrape a living. We even saw people with tattoo needles giving out tattoos on the beach. They didn't look very hygienic.. Me and Jonny decided it was definitely best to turn them down..
We spent a couple of days exploring the bazaar district. It was ginormous and sold everything you could ever imagine. It was probably the size of Kidderminster!
We went to an international music festival which although was very different to the festivals me and Jonny visit in the UK was still very fun (and as usual we snuck in a cheeky vodka in pepsi!) Jonny recorded some if the music on his new mic and we met some performers afterwards.
The next day we had our first taste of Indian public transport and got a cramped, non air conditioned bus to Mahabalipuram, a town around 45 minutes outside Chennai where there are some stone carvings done thousands of years ago using ancient stone masonry techniques. It was beautiful.
We then visited Pondicherry where we stayed for a few days. Unfortunately it had been torn apart by a huge cyclone just ten days before our arrival and we saw huge tree trunks strewn across the streets. Pondicherry is built in a French style and in some areas you feel as if you really could be in the south of France. We got some bikes and rode to the beach to watch the sunset which was lovely, but quite scary as the roads were very busy, but I just kept ringing my bell and we got there and back safe.
We spent a couple of days exploring, and eating good food before our journey to Cochin to meet Becki and Tom who had flown out from England to meet us!
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