Marina Beach, Chennai

 Marina Beach. 

Kids are kids, everywhere.

 

 The street market on the beach.

 John gets his 100 rupee glasses.

The view from our hotel roof.

Sunday, February 25^th.

Today after breakfast John and I decided to take a tuk tuk to Marina Beach. When we went up to the room we found John’s massage guy in our room. He works for the hotel and has a pass to all the rooms. We asked why he was there, and he said something about our friend wanting a newspaper. We said we had no friend here and that we already had one delivered to our room. He couldn’t or wouldn’t tell us why he was in the room, so I said let’s go down to reception. He talked to someone there in their language and then I filed our complaint. I don’t really think he is a thief, but I never got a satisfactory answer to why he was there. Then after that he still had the nerve to ask if I wanted a massage like John yesterday.

Marina Beach is apparently the second largest beach in the world. It was about nine kilometres away and the ride was fairly tame because it was Sunday morning. When we got there, we found a large expanse of sand before we got to the ocean. The beach is not well maintained and littered with pieces of rubbish. There were little kiosks selling drinks, or fruit or snacks. There were lots of waves for the people to play in. The local people don’t waste the little money they have on fancy bathing suits, the men wear either their underwear including shirt, or all their clothes. The women and girls wear their saris and although most just wade we saw some sitting in the water and getting very wet. It was very interesting to watch the families playing in the water or taking selfies. There were several men on horses who would take people for rides across the beach.

We hung around for a long time and then walked back to the road through a makeshift shopping mall of wooden stalls selling all sorts of different things from foods, to trinkets, to watches, sunglasses, toys and there were even two or three tattoo shops. John wanted to buy a pair of sunglasses, as he had broken his and then an old pair of mine. Before he went in he figured out what $4 would be in rupees and was already to bargain and haggle, but when he asked the price the guy said 100 rupees, about a dollar and a half. He was quite surprised.

When we arrived back at the main road we walked north for a bit just to get a bit of exercise and see what was going on. We walked past a temple, a memorial, a navy facility and a foul, polluted river that offended our noses. 

We hired another tuk tuk and headed back to the hotel. When we got there, we decided to relax in the room and wound up watching Titanic and watching Two Ronnies videos on YouTube during the commercial breaks.

We went downstairs for our Intrepid group meeting, met up with the two women and a Canadian man from Ottawa and we discovered together that we are a day early. The meeting is tomorrow. So, we sat and talked for a bit and shared some of our stories before splitting up. John and I opted for dinner out again and then came back to the room for the rest of the night. There is no bar here as it is under renovation and despite being told that room service has beer, they do not. We have decided that this is the ‘yes, .. yes,… yes… no’ culture. When you ask about something, they will always say yes because that is what you want to hear and they want you to be happy, but there is never any follow through.