India – Chennai

by Amy ~ June 23, 2007

Ajay and Anusha’s wedding was the catalyst for our India trip. Zvonimir and I became friends with Ajay at Wharton. When Ajay invited us to his wedding in Chennai, India I was very excited. I had always wanted to visit India and was even more excited to attend a traditional Indian wedding!

Anusha and Ajay arranged a guest house in Chennai and driver for us. Our experience was fabulous! We stayed in a 3 bedroom apartment with a chef, two waiters and a director. Each day the director would ask each of us what we wanted to eat for each meal. The staff would then shop for and prepare each dish we had requested. The food and service were exceptional at the guest house!

We visited the Georgetown market in Chennai, a fascinating market where you can purchase a different type of good on each street – for paper, you went to Anderson street, on another street you could buy any type of nut or bolt you wanted, another street you could purchase fruits and vegetables. We were the ONLY westerners in the market and we felt like WE were the tourist attraction! We had many people approach us to ask where we were from or ask to have their picture taken. People were just as fascinated with us as we were with them.

Zvonimir fell ill after one of the wedding ceremonies so we stayed in the guest house while Andrada and Lyndi headed to Pondicherry (I read the Life of Pi on the trip so we were sad to miss Pondicherry). Instead, the housemaster took us shopping to a local jewelry store…. I bought my sister a few rings but upon returning to the states I learned they were fakes…. Guess I wouldn’t recommend buying gems in India unless you know your gems! I bought them from a well established store with no other tourists and still got ripped off – oh well at least I didn’t spend a ton!

We also hit a bit of a snag in our travel plans while in Chennai. The area known as Rajastan was having riots regarding equal wages and equal opportunitiy among castes. Our travel plans had us spending the following week in Delhi, Jaipur and Agra, which was the area having riots so Lyndia, Andrada and I spent a late night re-working our itinerary.

Make my Trip was an Indian travel site Zvonimir and I had used to book one of our flights. We spent many hours on hold listening to the *Make my Trip, Plan my trip* jingle. In the end, we were able to re-work our trip to and keep our original desinations – and we have a song stuck in our head anytime someone mentions Make my Trip!

View our Chennai photos.