Spending the past three days as guests at the Reddy family residence in Chennai has been a perfect ending to our time in India. Upon telling our friend and former colleague, Avi, that we were traveling to India he insisted that we visit his family in the capital of South India. Mr. Reddy and Avi's brother Rohit have been extremely gracious and generous hosts, serving as excellent tour guides and restaurant experts. We are so used to meticulously planning our time during each stop along the trip that it was a welcome change to sit back and be taken care of, especially after a fairly hectic ten days elsewhere in India!
We landed at the airport on Wednesday afternoon and quickly spotted Rohit and Ganeshan, the Reddy family driver. We felt instantly welcomed and excited for a more home-style experience in India. After we settled in to our room at Casa Reddy, we rested and relaxed a bit before dinner time. We had a great time catching up with Rohit and Mr. Reddy at a nearby Italian restaurant before calling it an early night.
Thursday morning Alex and I woke up at 5:30am to accompany Mr. Reddy to his daily - and extremely impressive - tennis workout at the Madras Club. We had a great workout and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, all before 8am!
Showered and ready to explore the city, we headed out with Rohit and Ganeshan to see the sights in Chennai. Our first stop was described as a standard South Indian temple but Alex and I have never seen anything like it - brightly colored deities and illustrations cover the outside of each shrine, creating fairytale-like scenery.
The colorful detail on the exterior of the temple roofs was unlike anything we'd seen before!
Rohit was also a great photographer for us at all the sights!
After visiting the Kapaleeshwarar Temple, Rohit showed us his grandfather's home before treating us to a traditional South Indian lunch. We hadn't realized that most Indian food in the US is actually North Indian so we were excited to try some typical Southern fare. We feasted on dosias, thin crepe-like pancakes, filled with potatoes, onions and spices and dipped in various chutneys. Very different from the curries we have gotten used to up north but just as delicious...and filling.
We headed to The Government Museum after lunch and explored some of the exhibits before the carb-heavy Indian meal kicked in, making us a little tired! We enjoyed seeing some of the historic artifacts - some items were nearly two thousand years old - but I'm not sure the museum should be on anyone's "must see" list.
After brief naps, Alex and I freshened up a bit for whiskeys and an upscale dinner with Rohit and Mr. Reddy. Southern Spice is a beautiful restaurant located in the Taj Hotel and definitely the best place we've been to in India. We feasted on local seafood dishes (fish curry is a new favorite) as well as vegetarian specialties and left feeling certain we wouldn't need to eat again for many days.
Friday morning we met Rohit and Ganeshan and drove three hours south to Puducherry for the day. Our first stop was Auroville, a very unusual spiritual commune built over the past 40 years. Designed by "The Mother" - the self-assigned moniker given to Auroville's founder - the commune was created in order to enable higher enlightenment and self-sufficient living. Alex and I felt a little like we had wandered into a developing cult but the golden ball structure was pretty unique (though we couldn't go inside because that requires many approvals and is only for those who truly wish to "concentrate").
The Matrimandir, a golden metallic sphere in the center of town.
We're definitely not converts, but it was an interesting place to visit.
We had a quick lunch in downtown Puducherry and then drove toward the beach to take the scenic route home via Mahabalipuram. We stopped to check out the 1,200 year old Shore Temple, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the Five Rathas - definitely one of the more unique sites we've been to.
The shore by the Shore Temple.
Sacred cows lined the perimeter of the Shore Temple.
Rohit snapped a picture of us in front of the temple.
I managed to get a solo-shot at the Five Rathas (most of the area was teeming with children on a school trip).
Hard to believe so much detail has been maintained this long, especially right by the ocean.
On our way out, we stopped to look at this huge wall carving. It's hard to get a sense of scale from this picture but the elephants you see were life-sized.
We arrived back at Casa Reddy exhausted and sweaty so we took quick showers before having a late dinner of tasty Indochinese food, a first for us.
We woke up this morning and managed to get in one last workout at the Madras Club before packing up for our flight to Dubai. We've had a pretty eventful stay in India and are looking forward to relaxing a bit (and, of course, celebrating my 30th birthday) in the UAE.