The city bus tour we took this afternoon wasn't really much of a "tour" but we were taken to St. Thomas' Basilica which is here in Chennai. It is one of the 3 holy places where Jesus' disciples are buried. It was a beautiful Basilica and a nice short visit. There were young Indian girls visiting there at the same time and they asked some of our group members for pictures. Then, we went to the 2nd largest beach in the world. This sounds like a really awesome experience, right? Wrong! It was actually very sad because there was just trash everywhere. There was literally a huge pile of what appeared to be human feces right there in the sand. There were tons of boats and tents set up along the beach, but none on the water because there's a cyclone just off the coast right now. The waves were HUGE! Cyclone Thane is expected to make landfall just southeast of Chennai around 5 am tomorrow morning. We are supposed to leave Chennai to head south to Madurai at 7 am! Prof Raj says he's monitoring the weather very closely and we'll be in no danger. It was very windy and rainy all day today. Our outing was supposed to be a fun all day event, but the rain cut it short.
I hit the wall of jetlag on the bus ride back from the beach, so when some of the others went to a large shopping center, I came back to the hotel with about a dozen others to sleep. Our ballet got cancelled because of the weather, so I was able to get a few hours of solid sleep before our dinner banquet. We had Naan tonight and I like that (it basically tasted like a plain grilled tortilla) and we also had some more dipping sauces, some pasta salad and these chips that tasted like bugles. I like most of the meal tonight, except the pasta salad.. it had a weird flavor. Dessert was some sort of carrot and cheese dish that tasted like it was made with a heavy whipping cream. It wasn't too bad, but very sweet and thick. I had issues with texture again, and it was just too rich to eat more than a few bites.
We're back in the room now and it's 11:30 pm here. The hotel is charged by a 24 hour period, so we have to be out of our rooms by 6:30 am. Our buses for Madurai should arrive shortly after and we'll spend 6-8 hours on the road. Once we get to Madurai, we should have more comfortable accommodations. This hotel is strictly vegan, so there's not much food options. I've been told our hotel in Madurai will fix anything we want (albeit with heavy spices) :-)
Enjoy your afternoon there in the states, I'm going to sleep! :-) Love y'all.
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