Chennai Express

Hello,

Vacations must have started for most of the kids reading this....it must be getting boring for some of you, because there is nothing to do at home...even I was in that kind of condition, so me and my mom decided to spend 2 days in CHENNAI, not just for fun, but to get our visa.

On 30th of March, we started packing for the journey which didn't take much time as only 2 of us were travelling. On 31st of March, we took a cab and went to the airport. I don't know why but many people take the phrase "better safe than sorry" in a literal manner because mom insisted that we leave for the airport by 2 in the afternoon, even though the flight was at 6 in the evening. As expected, we reached the airport by 3:30.

For the next two and a half hours I had to sit and think what to do. To kill some time mom and I went to a restaurant to have snacks, but it hardly took 10 minutes to eat.

In desperation to do something, I started roaming around the airport, looking for something to do. After half an hour of continuous searching, I finally found a desktop in a corner.

I went over to the desktop and switched it on, there weren't any games in it, so had to play online games.

The desktop was pretty useful as one whole hour passed by playing games on it.

At 6 we boarded the flight and by 6:30 the plane was flying in the air. This trip was VERY short. It took us only 40 minutes to reach Chennai whereas it took us one and a half hour to REACH the airport by car.

After that we landed.

We took a taxi and went STRAIGHT to the hotel.

The hotel was called THE PARK, very strange name if you ask me. I opened the door and felt a good dose of cool air blowing by my face. The whole hotel was air-conditioned. That was pretty awesome because you can’t find good hotels in a place like Chennai.

More than the Hotel, I was interested in the room we were staying in.

THE ROOM in THE PARK was REALLY NICE, but I really had more expectations from their perspective of king sized bed, THE BED in THE ROOM in THE PARK was very small. I guess they had really tiny kings in Chennai.

One hour later mum decided to have dinner, two minutes later she was having second thoughts.....the prices in that hotel were just too much. One dosa's cost was Rs.550, whereas we could go to a restaurant and get the SAME dosa for Rs.30. There was a mini-bar below the TV, which had loads of stuff in it. My mom was about to open the chips packet, but then I showed her the price of OPENING the packet. A normal chips packet for Rs.10 was for Rs.50 here, I made it a point to ask the staff what benefit will they get by increasing the prices(except for the money), but I couldn't, so I decided to watch TV.

My mom went “the” bathroom in “the” room in “the” park to take a bath. The staff of this hotel likes the word "THE" a lot! There is a "the" added to almost everything here,

THE COMB

THE SHAMPOO

THE MOISTURIZER

THE DENTAL KIT

THE SHAVING KIT

THE PENCIL

To some extent it’s OK but now it looks like madness.

By 10 in the night mum decided to crash in the bed, I chose to watch movies but after 10 minutes even I went to sleep.

The next morning I woke up by 8, brushed my teeth with THE BRUSH, took a bath using THE MOISTURIZER and THE SHAMPOO and combed my hair with THE COMB. By 11 we both were ready to go get those visas. Now many things pop up in your mind when you think about visa but for me, I get reminded of standing in really long lines for hours together. By noon we reached the so called 'office' where you get the visas. The first thing I saw there was a line. I and mum had to stand in a line for one and a half hour for our turn. There was a security check in the starting, after that was the INTERVIEW. When my turn came I had to stand in front of a screen behind which a lady was sitting. She first asked for the passport and the papers, which I gave, and then asked me a VERY SIMPLE question, "what is your name and when were you born?" This is the height of hopelessness, even after staring at my passport for 2 whole minutes she's asking me what my name was. I answered the questions anyway. She took a picture and gave a stamp on the paper. I waited for mum's turn to get over and we both rushed for the exit. As soon as we came out there were auto drivers offering us a ride. We accepted one of the many offers and went back to the hotel

After staying in the hotel for an hour or so my mom wanted to explore the area. We walked about a kilometer and a half, turns out mum forgot her phone, so we walked all the way back to the hotel, got the phone and walked again. Luckily there was a chroma showroom so we pass some time there.

It was getting dark so we decided to grab dinner “outside”, because eating the over-priced food in the hotel was not worth it. Mom bought a pizza, coke, chicken wings, some dessert with extra chill flakes, but mum thought that it wasn't enough so we had to search for a restaurant which sold dosas that were WORTH THE PRICE. After walking 2 kilometers we found a chaat place that sold dosas also. We ate the dosa, and rushed back to the hotel. We were losing daylight.

We reached the hotel, ate dinner and slept.

The next morning I woke up by 8 and got ready. We had breakfast in the hotel, which luckily was complimentary, and went for the second step to get the visa. We went there, and as always, had to wait in a line. When we got out of “that” line we got into another line which lead to another which again lead to another. After waiting in about 6 different lines I and mum had to stand in front of a big screen behind which an American lady was sitting.

She asked mum general questions like what is our purpose in the United States, total salary, etc. The only question she asked was in which standard I was.

After that we gave our passports to her and rushed to the exit.

We reached the hotel, packed all things that belonged to us, and checked out.

After having lunch in a shop, mum bought a book from a near-by store, took an auto and went straight to the airport.

We checked in at 1:30 even though our flight was at 9 in the night. All the good stores could only be found if we went pass the security check and we can get pass that if we have a boarding pass. Unfortunately, we can only get those passes 4 hours before departure time…which means that we had to wait for 3 and a half hours for the good shops. We were getting roasted alive in there. After some time mum decided to take a walk around. Few minutes later she called me and told me to get all our bags and meet at the nearby ‘café coffee day’. When I reached the destination, I found out that mum had found 2 recliners next to the store. We sat there comfortably, ate ice cream and chocolate, mum got herself a cup of coffee.

At last it was 5 and we both got the passes and checked in.

The shops inside there were just incredible; there was a KFC in the end, a pizza hut next to it.

There was shop which sold maggi also, we bought that first. Then mum went back to reading her book and I went around exploring the area. There was a book store there too but there weren’t any good books there.

I didn’t even notice the time pass by but by the time I noticed it was time to go.

We went past the gate, boarded the flight and went back home.

This trip was really good and I wish I go to Chennai once again.

Thanks for reading!