lost4good

Narda writing in Italics Terrell going on and on no italics

27 September Sunday

Quick note we did not have AI re-write any of this…any eye-rolling parts are from my own meanderings during a self-imposed ignorance of machine generated musings based on zillions of other writings, none of which resemble my voice at the ripened age of 79.

So, AI tried to re-write just my first sentence…forget it mate.

This is our Chennai blog. Normally (just kidding none of our blogs are normal or they are all normal in the sense that they are as written), we would begin our blog with the arrival at some far-flung space on earth, usually far from our home in Adelaide, South Australia.

However, this story of Chennai begins two days before we left. We were eating dinner, watching Itchy Boots (our favourite YouTube show with a Dutch girl – from Narda’s home in Utrecht, Netherlands, riding her motorcycle alone around the world – we are on Season 8) and I was eating my corn-on-the-cob when my front tooth became embedded into the corn. Don’t ask why. I don’t know. What a panic. I did not want to spend the next two-months in India without a front tooth. I know I fancy myself as a bogan – a bit of a hillbilly, but this was too much. I rushed to AI for help, Tonight (Australian time) a tooth broke off whilst eating. I will not have time to get it repaired before we leave (flying via KL, Adelaide to Chennai). AI suggested I go to a dentist; Chennai Dental Mission listed as #1 Rating: 4.9 (777 reviews) when I first get to India. I wrote the Dental Mission telling my sad story, saying, “… and you were the first to come up. Is there any chance of getting an appointment Thursday the first? Hopefully I will not have lost the tooth by then. AI says this can sometimes be done in a day. My phone number which is also WhatsApp (I will get a sim card when arriving) is +61… I am travelling (Australian) and will be in Chennai only from Thursday October 1 to the 3rd – leaving for Kolkata on the 4th. Thanks, and let me know as soon as possible.”

Shortly after, Anna from Chennai Dental Mission sent me an appointment for Thursday 10.30 am.

28 September Monday

Confirmed our appointment with Chennai dentist in the morning when I got up feeling immensely sorry for myself.

29 September Tuesday

Packed and took a bus to town, staying at a hotel to be up early and at the airport Tuesday morning for our forever flight to Chennai.

30 September Wednesday

Our first time ever travelling with someone. Chrissy is from Chennai. She is in our morning Zumba class at the pool at the ARC in Campbelltown. Narda mentioned a year ago that we were going to India. Somewhere along the way over the year, we all agreed to go to Chennai together. We would be together in Chennai for a couple of days then go our separate ways.

Malaysian Airlines to Kuala Lumpur – good as usual. Five hours in KL then on to Chennai arriving 10.30 pm.

We met Chrissie and her son Shaun at the airport. Nice brekkie. The check-in was easy, apart from my scarf going rolled up in the runners of the security which held the folks up for a while. Oh well.

The first flight was uneventful. I watched an action movie called The Trent. Full of giant fish and action. Good for the trip. Food was good.

Then we wandered around in KL airport. Nowhere to sit, unless you pay $100 plus. So we parked ourselves in the restaurant. I ordered nasi goreng…. better to stay with what you know. It was good.

We met an interesting guy from Adelaide who was a biologist heading for Kerala. He told us a story about a previous experience there where he was stalked by a panther!

I have to say, one of the nice things about traveling is the interesting people you meet.

The second leg was uneventful and short.

Chennai arrived at 10.30 hassles with new immigration format. We have a five-year visa for India and filled out a paper form. We got to the front of the immigration line only to be told we had to go back and fill out a form online. We went to where some computers were and could not figure out how to do it. As always, we found some young chaps and they too had difficulty with the webpage and finally gave us some paper forms to fill out which we took to the immigration dude and he pointed out all the mistakes we made in putting the address where we were staying. What a mess. All the airports are doing this now. Everything is supposed to be done online. The only easy one we found was London and that took minutes and got us through immigration into the USA very quickly.

Then the border crossing. Shocking. We had a 5-year visa. In Mumbai past year, it was so quick. But this time they wanted another document with the address of everywhere. Sounds easy but it took ages because it had to be digital and we had no internet. FFS!!!

So, we finally got to our stay after 3 am after a significant search.

Lovely place. Everything’s there. They clean for us, give us brekkie every day, beds are comfy.  An alley complete with nipple dogs aggressively protecting their pups.

Then finding our stay. It was now 1 am and we got an airport taxi, and the driver could not find our address. We drove down the lane where our stay, Sree Devi Grande, existed, though we did not know it at the time. We got to the end of the lane, motorcycles on both sides, making it almost impossible to drive, and there was no where to turn around. There were some large gates to a home, and I managed to open them which set off some buzzing sound, but no one came out. Our driver, inch by inch, managed to get in and back out enough to drive back down the lane. Of course, I closed the gates before driving off. Back on the main road, we asked people where the Sree Devi Grande was, no one knew. But we were told to go back to the lane we originally got stuck in. The driver backed up against oncoming traffic back to the lane we were just stuck in. Now it was two am and a lot of traffic that we were backing up against. Because I did not have a sim card with a local phone number, I could not call Sree Devi Grande, but we reached them on the driver’s phone. Finally, we found the place, no name or number on the huge, locked gates to the property. Long story short we got to bed at 3.30 am Thursday.

01 October Thursday
We were both wide awake at 5 am, one and a half hours sleep – since Adelaide. Not able to get back to sleep we walked around the neighbourhood, had some tea at a roadside stand and went back to the Sree Devi Grande where Chrissy was just getting up and the owner/caretaker brought us breakfast, which was lots of Indian foods, which I am not sure of the names of.  We got a phone call from the Dental place checking I guess to see if we got to Chennai. We told the relieved sounding voice we would be grabbing an Uber soon.

My first impression of Chennai Dental Mission, https://www.chennaidentalmission.com/,  was looking through the window and thelady at the reception desk seeing me and her relieved smile and a wave. It is a long trip from a lounge in Adelaide to arriving in the middle of an Indian city at the dentist at 9.20 am for a 9.30 appointment. The people there were all so friendly. Long story short three doctors looked after me, Ex rays and lots of checking and the first appointment lasting less than an hour was 350 rupees or about $3.50 dollars USD. In Adelaide to have a checkup and teeth clean it is about $200+ USD ($260 Australian).  We got an Uber home, half hour nap ate breakfast leftovers and an Uber, this time in a tuk tuk or motor rickshaw I think is the current proper name to go back and finish up my tooth situation. I met the head doctor, Dr. Praveen Perumal, and Dr. Radha Vellayappan & their Team. They did an interview and video of Narda and me with me telling my story of breaking my tooth on an ear of corn to arriving on their doorstep. Chennai Dental Mission
72/1,AH Block, 5th Street, Annanagar, Near NAC Jewellers/Living room, Behind Arvind Stores.

We got lots of photos together and everyone was so sweet.

In the evening we took an Uber with Chrissy to Marina Beach. We asked the driver to wait for us until 9.30, it was now about quarter to nine as we were going to just walk along the boardwalk and grab a bite to eat. All the beachside carts with food looked a bit suspect and we did not want to eat something and get sick so we took a tuk tuk to a restaurant where we had a large selection of dishes put in front of us and we chose a few and by the time we got to where the Uber driver dropped us off it was 10.30. I thought he would have left by then, why wait for three old people for an hour. But there he was, waiting. He drove us home, and the funny part was that we were all asleep in the car by the time we got to Sree Devi Grande.

See our traffic infused clip…

02 October Friday
Friday morning Chennai Dental Mission rang me via WhatsApp to check that all was OK. Chrissy and Narda and I took a metro to a nearby shopping centre. The metro station is a three- or four-minute walk from Sree Devi Grande. As most people go to India for some sort of spiritual awakening or confirmation or stroking or to see historic sites, shrines, mosques, cows, we look for shopping malls.

We had an overpriced shopping mall coffee, then for a hair wash at Toni and Guy (Toni and Guy is everywhere, even in Adelaide and we have been to them in Pakistan. Narda had her hair all fancy for Brendan and Sofie’s wedding in Lahore a few years ago) Of course, they are very expensive compared to local places. Our hair wash with a five-minute massage was $52 USD for the two of us. Usually, we pay about $20USD for the two of us including a half hour massage. Narda had her toenails painted. I asked how long they would take to do her nails, and the girl said 45-minutes. I said What??? I do them in five-minutes and of course Narda said “that is why I am paying to have them done”.

The bottom line is that it was Gandhi’s birthday and I believe a holiday. The shopping mall was impossible to eat at as the food court was so crowded it was impossible to get to a counter. Of course, now being in India, having ridden a few metros where we were absolutely squashed together so we barley breathe I realized this is India and there are a lot of people everywhere.

We popped into Hotel Virudhunagar Chettinadu Restaurant next to the phone company at 88 Acrot road, Gowi Chitra Garden, and I had paneer masala, Narda tomato soup. We took a tuk tuk to Pondy Bazar. Pondy Bazaar, officially called Soundarapandianar Angadi, is a market situated on Sir Theagaraya Road in T. Nagar. It is a huge area with block after block of shops, street hustlers, too much traffic. Feeling local, we went to McDonalds and had ice cream. Narda and Chrissy were interested in clothing. I took lots of photos with my zoom lens and reminded Narda that our suitcases were so full we could barely get them closed. Maybe a deterrent as she did not purchase any new garments.

03 October Saturday
Slept ok up at 5.30 – walked to local shops bought sketches sandals for $5.20 USD – (they sell for $120 in Australia) see above with Narda’s red toenails. / home most of day – Crissy left at 2 pm to go visit her friend and go to other destinations of her family. We won’t see her again until December when Narda and Chrissy will talk during the Zumba class in the pool and others around them will complain that they are talking whilst the instructor is hoping around like a pork chop getting us all to dance or move or whatever.

In the evening we saw there was a large restaurant across the street, and we could not walk across the multi laned highway, but there is a crosswalk from the metro station, 10 cents each to cross the road) to get to dinner at Nahdi Mandi Restaurant. We both had the Paneer masala which was the best we have had in India so far (2-days granted) it is a gravy, a rich, creamy North Indian curry made with paneer, onions, tomatoes, yogurt or cream, and aromatic spices and I had a watermelon drink and Narda a pineapple drink and a yummy order of buttered naan all for $9 USD. The last Paneer Masala I had in Adelaide was $15 Australian ($9USD) / per person without the naan and juice. I remember it being about $30 USD by the time we were done and having the same amount.

04 October Sunday

Crissie stayed with us. She was picked up yesterday by Mollies driver.

We just had a delicious Indian meal in a restaurant across the road. Paneer masala.  Yum.

So now we are in the airport waiting to go to Kolkata. We left very early. The train was half empty. Security was very thorough. There was talk about the the recent incident when a pilot tried to stab his Indian co-pilot in an attempt to down his plane and kill the passengers who were all Jewish. The Indian co-pilot was stabbed in the neck and head causing the plane to start a direct descent. Despite his injuries he was able to open the door to passengers and alerted ground staff  and so averted a catastrophe.

We left the Sree Grande homestay this morning early. The stay was really good, brekkie delivered each morning. The boys also cleaned up after us.

Beds were comfy, and we could go out walking, or use the close-by Metro which took us to the airport.  So here we are, way to early, having just had a nice Indian breakfast : Lassi, Dosa Masala. Pretty nice.

Up at 5 am, left house 6 am – saw tuktuk in front of the Sree place and got it to the train station two blocks away. We gave the driver 100 rupees (about one buck USD) and he was very happy with that.  The train from our station went to the airport (70 rupees or 73 cents USD for the two of us) and we were there by 7 and checked in for our flight at 11.45. We found a good restaurant and had a dosa, coffee, and a sweet lassie. Not to worry about being a diabetic I had a Krispy Kreme cheesecake jelly donut and more coffee then we flew to Kolkata, which will be our next blog. Thanks for bearing with me with this long, drawn-out tale of an almost toothless stay in Chennai.  

In today’s paper @ the airport in Chennai I was scrolling through the want ads for no particular reason – though I must admit having your parents look for your partner when you are in your 30s is sort of strange.

When I was 30 – I had done the 1960s in California, taking LSD hundreds of times and lots of other things, been in a cult-pseudo religious in Hawaii-California- Cheyenne, Wyoming – Kansas, New York and Baltimore, Maryland for most of the 1970s – and my parents were extreme Methodists (Wesleyan Methodists, John Wesley broke away from the Puritans as they were not strict enough) so it is just as well that they did not find me a partner in rural farming Clifton Park, New York, or my gay brother who died of AIDS in 1992, though they could have hooked him up with Marta, https://martawaterman.com/ who still loves him and has written a book about him; “Robert J. Adsit, Artist Extraordinaire”. And she is doing well living in Woodstock, NY at age 83 teaching exercise stuff online, an excellent pianist/musician and sometimes actress. They were in the same class at school back in the early-1960s. Of course, I changed my name from Adsit to Neuage so finding me a partner would have been even more difficult in rural NY. By the time I was in my mid-30s I was a single parent with two boys living in a foreign country (Australia)…see Leaving Australia – Before the After (free book) Leaving Australia; Before the After

Next writing will be our stay in Kolkata which we will post after our three-weeks there – when we are in Mumba – first of November. Cheers Narda & Terrell. Of course, we will be posting video clips before the next chapter is up over at https://www.youtube.com/terrellneuage

homepage is https://neuage.org