Still in Chennai

 The street market.

 Interacting with locals.

 Can you spot John?

 Helmets are mandatory... 

 Street scenes.

 The staircase up to Wipro HP service repair.

 Wipro office where I finally got my computer fixed by...

 Aravinth.

The traffic on the way back.

Monday, February 26^th.

John and I had breakfast in the hotel and met up with the two British women, Celia and Trish and the Canadian, Mark.

While I was typing up the blog last night, it dawned on me that the trip not starting until Tuesday, gave me an extra day in Chennai and that the part that was ordered was supposed to arrive on Monday. So, I called Aravinth and told him that I would be around for another day. He promised to call when it came in, probably in the afternoon.

So, John and I decided to hire another tuk tuk and go to a street market. As usual the ride was exciting. The market was large and was on several different roads. We walked along looking at the goods for sale, mostly clothes, shoes, cheap toys, and all manner of used cellphones and accessories. We needed nothing, but it was fun to watch the local people, as this was definitely not a tourist market. Many vendors said hi to us and asked where we were from. We had fun talking to them, as they were not trying to selling us stuff, they were just interested in us. We bought a coconut for the fluid and later an ice cream. When we had had our fill of the market we took another tuk tuk back to the hotel.

When I checked my e-mail there was a message saying that the part had come in. So, I quickly wrote down the address of where I was going and took the phone number as well (see I learned from last time). John had no interest in going and was trying to deal with his insurance company about his stolen phone.

I went down to the lobby and had them call me an Uber. When it came I jumped in and noticed that the leg of my shorts had ripped right up to the crotch. The material had just given way. So, I ran back up to the room and changed shorts. Then we took off. I knew from the last time that it was a long drive, but after a while I heard the GPS say make a U-turn and he didn’t. Then it happened a couple more times. It became apparent that he had no idea where he was going. He stopped once to ask some tuk tuk drivers directions. Then he messed up the GPS and lost the directions. He asked me where I we were going and all I could do was show him the address I had written down. I don’t know why he didn’t type it in again. The GPS had reset to another destination, so as he was driving around it kept telling him to make a U-turn. I asked him why he couldn’t just turn it off, but he didn’t. To make a very long frustrating and infuriating story shorter, after stopping and asking two other tuk tuk drivers for directions, he finally found the street and then the address. I gave him a 500 rupee note and said I wanted 300 back. He said he had no change and showed me on his phone that I was supposed to pay 397. I got really mad and told him that the set price was 197 and I was not paying for the hour he was driving around trying to find the location. So, I took the 500 note, went into a store and got change, then went back to his car to get my water bottle and threw the 200 in the car and told him that was all I was paying. He was upset, but just looked at the raving Canadian.

I went into the shop, met Aravinth who gave my computer to a technician and a half hour later I got it back and surprise, surprise, it worked!

I had Aravinth call me an Uber to take me back, hoping it wouldn’t be the same guy. This driver was much better, he knew where he was going, his English was much better and he gave me a bit of a tour on the way back. And, the fee (after a little discount because WiPro has an account with them) was only 127!

I got back to the hotel just in time for the 6:00 meeting with our new group and tour leader. We went up to the rooftop lounge and Thoufeeq (the guide) gave us a very thorough explanation of what we were going to do and what we needed to know. We are a group of ten, four guys, six women; no couples, a woman travelling with her university aged son; three Canadians, six Brits and one American; and this is a much older group than the Maldives group.

Thoufeeq took us to a little local vegetarian restaurant and we had a marsala dosa, which is a very thin crepe type bread with potato inside and four different dips. It was actually very good. Back to the hotel by 8:30 and off to the room. So we are ready for a 9:30 start tomorrow.