Yesterday was my last day at the Chennai office.  For both lunch and dinner I went out with most of the team and they over-fed me both times.

For dinner I got the authentic Tamil-Nadu treatment.  No plates, no silverware, just a banana leaf, a rice-noodle naan type thing (I’ll get the name of it from Sriram today) and serving ladles.  After sprinkling some of the drinking water on the banana leaf and wiping it down with our hands (“cleaning” it, apparently this is the normal first step), We were served soup and the main course.  It was amazing food.

After dinner we went to go see a Tamil moving (that was actually a dubbed over version of a Malayalam film), called Panthaya Kozhi.  The theater that we went to was, according to Sriram, the type that “normal, non-upper class people go to”.  They apparently have pretty nice theaters in other parts of the city.  In the end I got a fairly authentic Chennai movie going experience.  The rest of the guys that I was with were complaining after the moving saying that it didn’t have enough songs and dancing and there was too much of a plot… go figure.

I was half expecting this when I went to bed.  Yesterday was filled with it’s share of random fireworks being set off in the street.  Sriram warned me to keep an eye out if I go out on foot because you never know where these things will go off and people will assume you are alert.  Today has been a constant barrage of fireworks all around the city.  It is now almost noon and the fireworks haven’t stopped for more than 30 seconds, and that was a notable lull.

Diwali is celebrated here as the day that Lord Krishna defeated the demon Narakasura.  The fireworks symbolize this defeat.  Apparently elsewhere it has different significance, but equal festivities.  The holiday is also referred to as the “Festival of Lights” because during the days before, during and afterward, people place oil lamps in all of the corners of their houses to drive away the darkness.  In fact last week it wasn’t uncommon to see people’s computer desktops adorned with animated oil lamps in the corners of their screens.

Another significance, at least here, for Diwali is that it is supposed to be the day that all water is coming directly from the Ganges.  By washing in the Ganges river it is believed that all of your sins up to that point are washed away.  Because all water today is to have come from the Ganges people take a bath and then put on new clothes to mark that their sins have been washed away and that they are starting anew.

Sriram is going to try and take me around to see some of the celebrations.  His aunt died earlier in the year and according to tradition his family is not supposed to celebrate any festivals for one year.  This leaves him a little more free today to be my tour guide, which is very nice of him.  I hope to have some pictures at the end of the day to show what this is like.

On Saturday afternoon Sriram took me out shopping and touring around Chennai.  It was very neat.  The city is big and I got to see first hand how traffic can get.

We checked out a few shops and I bought some gifts to bring back home.  The hand crafts here are pretty neat.

It was getting pretty late by this time and we tried to get over to a temple near by Sriram’s house.  Because of the traffic we didn’t make it to the temple but I got to meet Sriram’s parents.  I had a very interesting conversation with his father about Hinduism and how it relates to music.

Sunday
On Sunday Sriram, Gokul and Paddy picked me up at about 7am to start the 90km drive out to Mahabalipuram.  We stopped for breakfast on the way.  It was really good.  As we got a little out side the center of the city (not very far), we started seeing what I can only describe as stray cows.  I say stray here in the same way you’d say stray dogs (which Chennai has a lot of).

About half way to the temple at Mahbalipuram we stopped at a very old temple called Tiger Cave.  This was a cluster of several very large rocks that were carved in to huge temples.

We drove for another 45 minutes and finally reached Mahabalipuram.  This was one of the more impressive sights of the trip.  This temple was build in the 8th century.

After walking around Mahabalipuram we continued on to another area that for the life of me I can’t remember the name.

We hiked around in this area for close to an hour.  Beyond that first structure there are about 5-10 other temples most of them quite a bit larger.

After hiking around for a while Sriram took me in to a active temple and I got to see first hand how Hinduism is currently practiced.  The mythology (their words not mine) is really interesting.  Similar statues to the ones I was seeing in the other older temples where here, and they were usually dressed up in gold armor or garlands and many of the had attendants the were nice enough to explain what I was seeing.  The main priest event said a prayer to Vishnu to protect my family and friends, you’re all in luck!

On our way back we took a detour in to the rural areas.  It was beautiful.  Lots of Rice paddies and a few small villages.  The country side is amazing, but it is clear that it is very underdeveloped.  After we turned back towards the city Paddy and Gokul wanted to stop at the beach.  The water here isn’t very sanitary (there’s a fishing village a short ways a way), but the water looks amazing and the sand goes on forever in both directions.  If I didn’t need to worry about hepatitis or parasites I’d have been out in the water in a second.

The most interesting part of the whole trip actually was this last leg.  I’m pretty sure I was the only non-Indian on the flight, and it was funny to see these huge families getting really excited at the gate as we were about to board.  Clearly this kind of travel is rare in India.  Under different circumstances I probably would have found this refreshing, but by this point I had been traveling for more than 24 hours and was running on close to 4 hours of sleep so it was borderline annoying.

The flight was pretty uneventful.  It is very funny what kinds of cultural differences that we usually take for granted.  One thing that I noticed was during the flight people would stand up in the aisle and chat with their friends.  I think on a US flight the attendants would ask people to sit down.  I definitely felt more crowded on that flight than I would normally.  Another funny thing that happened, actually on all of the flights, was that people would, upon arriving at the gate, very quickly grab all of their stuff and try to run up to the front of the plane so they wouldn’t have to wait.  This was hilarious at the time for me because it seemed like such a rude thing to do, but it didn’t phase the rest of the passengers since they were just as eager to do the same thing.

I’m guessing that most of the people who were traveling from Singapore to Chennai were using the trip to buy cheap electronics.  I’ve never seen someone check a 42 inch flat screen TV, but seeing more than one get backed up on a baggage claim belt was great.  That and the sheer amount of duty free alcohol!

I’m here!

I was met at the airport by Doug and KK, two of my co-workers.  Doug is an LA native and has been living out here for 2 months now, so he’s got a pretty good idea of what I need to know in order to survive.  From the airport, after the most terrifying traffic I had previously (but not subsequently) experienced, I was dropped off at my hotel.  The room is pretty nice and most importantly the AC works.  By this point it was midday and I was struggling to stay awake until dark so I asked Doug to grab me when he was heading back in to the office in a couple of hours.  I slept for 45 minutes, unpacked, showered, and changed.  And then I got to meet the whole office.  By this point it is Tuesday afternoon (my flight left LAX at 2:30pm on Sunday).  By the time I got back to my hotel it was all that I could do to stay awake until 8pm.  Before that though I had some delicious Indian food take-out.

I’ve been very fortunate to have some obliging hosts while I’m out here.  Sriram, the project manager for my main project has taken me under his wing and been making sure I get to see the sights and experience the city.  I didn’t have any tourist-y plans when I came out here, so having him tell me what is good to see is nice.  He has been giving me a ride to and from work since I got here and I’ve had lunch with him and most of the WebWrite team (my primary project) for the last few days.  Despite the lack of familiarity in this place I have felt nothing but warm welcome from everyone.

To come

Well, I’m going to try and get some video of my drive to work just so you can see how insane driving here is.  I already miss my chance at a picture of a cart pulled by an Ox walking down the main road as we tried to pass it.  But I’m sure something equally novel will come up again.  I’m going to keep my Flickr account updated with images and video as they come in.  This weekend I’ll be going out shopping, and I’m going to visit a Hindu temple thanks to Sriram.  I expect to have some fun stories come out of that.