Nungambakkam

 At about 3:30am, I rolled over in my sleep and got woken by a large, cold, long, moving thing hitting my chest. I panicked. I hit it off me, twice, jumped out of the bed, and switched on the lights. It was at that moment I realised that what I had thought was a snake, was in fact, my own dead arm.

Aside from that one moment of bizarre panic (although from the pic, I mabey should have been scared of this guy!), things are pretty good! It turns out every rumour you've heard about India is probably true. As a result, I've realised most of my posts are going to be much longer than usual, so I apologise in advance.

Let's rewind back to the start. I mentioned in my last post about being taken to the wrong hotel, but the full story is a lot more fun than that. Having arrived in Chennai, I sorted out a prepaid taxi (top traveller tip!) and we set off.At this point, my driver, who until then had insisted he knew where to take me, asked where I was going. I showed him, my address, and he looked at be blankly. He'd never heard of the Park Pod hotel, and he looked terrified about not knowing where it was, too.

At this point, we hit the roads. You've probably seen how roads in India work from tele or something, but in real life it's amazing to see. The road I was on had enough space for 6 cars to go side by side, despite probably being designed for 4. On top of that, there was a tonne of people on motorbikes squeezing inbetween the cars, and many of the motorbikes had 4 people sitting on them (Mum, Dad, child and baby). The bikes on the roads constantly look like their about to be hit, and the cars drive right up behind them. For a first timer, it's terrifying.

The driver was weaving through these guys while trying to work out where to take me, his next idea was to find out from another taxi driver (while at speed and on this road), so we pulled up alongside another taxi, and they had a chat, at 30 miles an hour, with motorbikes with babies on cutting us off on the road.When we arrived (at the wrong place), the hotel sorted it out quite quickly, so there was no real cause for panic.

I've been treated to quite a few things in Chennai - it's home to the second largest beach in the world, which features quite a lot of birds that circle round in flocks. I saw it at night, and again first thing in the morning, and despite the hectic city nearby, it's really peaceful.

Perhaps more peaceful still is the Buddhist temple I visited. I was incredibly lucky, in that they let me go into the main chamber, which normally doesn't happen for white people, because there's a good chance I've eaten beef (I have). The temple is surrounded by images of gods, all incredibly intricate and colourful. The inner chamber itself has two guys standing there to give blessings. To give a blessing, you give a donation to the temple, warm your hands on a flame, and then get your head cupped by a golden cone. I didn't get my head cupped, again because of the beef thing (I didn't feel like pointing out the horse thing). It's really cool to be allowed somewhere that's so central to Chennai culture - it's quite religiously conservative compared to many other cities.

One quick word on the food - it's amazing! I'll talk about it more when I've had more dishes, but suffice to say I've been stuffing my face every day, and I'm still (largely) free of the Delhi belly (unlike the other two - I've just arrived in Delhi to two very ill guys in a hotel room).

UP NEXT: Delhi! Poos on shoes! the Taj Mahal! My ongoing battle to avoid the shits!