India. Tamil Nadu. Chennai, City Review and the Last Day in India

Chennai (Madras) — the capital of Tamil Nadu and fourth city the size of India. There is no subway and, in our opinion, transport infrastructure generally poorly developed. During the entire time of our stay in Chennai, we have never not enjoyed the happy trip to a city bus. Number of people wanting to ride the bus usually so great that some people simply can not fit in the cabin, and hanging from the door. On the other hand, this kind of travel completely free because of these passengers to collect funds for travel can perhaps Spiderman.

We came to the city in the afternoon , by train, especially taking care of the place for the night. First, we rely on our own strength, but quickly disappointed because attracted to finding local taxi drivers. If you are lucky stop rickshaw diligent and you'll be able to explain the situation to the driver, you can quickly find relatively inexpensive otelchik.

Opposite our hotel is located a small dairy farm:

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Further parking Local Business Center:

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This syringe each cow receives a dose of an unknown black liquid — one can only hope that this vitamin. The procedure is painless and very technically — for a minute prick gets each "patient."

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On the walk to town. View of the Pycrofts Road:

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The city has many narrow streets:

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Central streets are much wider:

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The order on the streets of Chennai protected valiant police who ride around on these vehicles is quite civilized:

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Along the road elemental of flowers is:

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And watermelon:

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A quarter of the urban population lives in slums.

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After crossing the river, we got to the beach Marina Beach, which is very similar to the native Ukrainian flag and is a must visit place all tourists:

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This is one of the largest beaches in India. His length of about 13 km. In some places there are mobile merchants of interest:

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From here on out fishing chennayskyh an army of anglers are fishing boats along the coast:

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During the day they serve vacationers excellent shelter from the sun:

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It is relatively clean. But you will not see the traditional beach holiday for us — nobody ocean swims, and local residents are limited to contemplation.

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In 2004 a tsunami destroyed most of the fishing houses located on the beach. The government removed only a small portion of the affected, the remaining returned to their dilapidated homes.

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Nearby based fish market in the morning you can buy fresh fish first hand:

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Like other cities of India, Madras decorate various churches — first we visited Kapaleeswarar Temple, Shiva Temple:

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The building obarvlyuyut hundreds of different architectural compositions:

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At the temple found here are wonderful birds — guinea fowl:

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Traffic lights in town we have not seen, but some traffic intersections controlled regulators:

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Christian denominations represented in Chennai Cathedral of St. Thomas and the Church of the Virgin Mary. Judging by the number of seats (most of did not get the shot) there are many followers of Jesus.

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And complete religious themes Ramakrishna Math Temple:

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This cultural program was our rickshaw who invited just 50 rupees per hour (about one dollar). Funny price, even for India is interested in us, what's the trick? The truth began to emerge about an hour. Once monuments ended, the taxi driver took us to the grocery souvenirs. To his credit, his motives, he did not hide and honestly say that will get a percentage of our purchases. And even if we do not buy, it expects a small bonus. The majority of these stores are designed for tourists, where prices are much too high, so buy nothing we met.

Especially in front of us expected trip to Sri Lanka and Indian handmade held to a backpack precious place. By evening we visited three such shops. What is interesting — every time the price of souvenirs decreased, but purchases from us has not waited. Similarly, you can carry on and hotels — from expensive to cheap. Actually, we will not hurry and were not mind if our driver will earn yourself some bonus. At the end of the trip, when the time of payment, he called unacceptable for us worth 1,000 rupees (20 dollars) — is two hours short journeys, to the same hour of which took visiting souvenir shops. Taking into account the number of spent fuel, labor costs and depreciation, we offered him his, in our opinion, adequate, the price at which he had to agree.

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This story made us wonder — what is the real price of all souvenir tsyatsok by Indian labor cost? So the next day, before leaving, we decided to find a store with prices for locals or at least learn the real price elephants, statues of gods and other traditional local souvenirs. In general, if brief, helped us a cop who suggested the location of public store gift items.

The word "state" initially was concerned , but in this case was the absolute truth — we found a shop which had everything! And all the goods were price tags. And the prices are several times less than the cheapest that we happened the day before. Imagine the level of charges. It is difficult to guess — for which scant money Indian craftsmen produce all these elephants.

In general, we recommend a cheap gift shop and other products in Chennai, if we are not mistaken, it is in this area. In any case, ask the police state gift shop and we will tell you the right direction. The same should work in other major cities, and the availability of price lists will be proof that you have got the right address.

Local range:

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