Chennai

Am here, alive and far less overwhelmed than I thought I'd be! After all that worry that even having lived in Thailand would in no way prepare me for India (so much more of everything - more crowded, more noise, more poverty, more crushes of people), you know what? India reminds me a whole lot of Thailand. It even smells the same - it's (almost) a bit like coming home.

We flew over Lake Van (stunning, snow-capped mountains in the last moments before sunset), Iran (a carpet of lit-up villages under a starry sky and one long, very bright highway connecting - I think - Tehran and Qom). Pakistan, India. Indescribably beautiful. I laughed at myself a little for my penchant for sitting transfixed in front of the seat-back screen showing the different scale maps of the plane's current location, watching that instead of the in-flight programming. But the world is fascinating.

Arrival in Chennai at 1 a.m.: actually quite relaxed, airport practically empty. Bathroom was squat toilets - Ah, I know this, my tired brain thought. This is just like Thailand. Everything easy: change money at the exchange counter, book a taxi at the prepaid taxi counter. Show my passport to approximately four different officials at different stages of the exiting the airport process.

Rain, palm trees, honking trucks. Warm, humid air, the general building style immediately and visibly different (but again, just like Thailand), everything square and concrete and molding a little in the humidity. And yes, one of the first things I saw on the main road from the airport was a cow by the side of the road.

The taxis are these marvelous, ancient, cute, little cars, no idea what type, but black and white and old and maybe British? The windshield wipers didn't work, so the driver kept leaning out the window to wipe the windshield clear with a cloth. Vehicles squeeze themselves through the smallest possible spaces and then some, and red lights seem to be entirely a matter of personal choice. The taxi driver was actually very good and got me into town safely, but I think I'll stick to trains as much as possible while here...

2 a.m., arrival at the hotel my friend who lives here booked for me - they don't have a reservation in my name. They're full, or maybe just "full." Finally, they do turn out to have a room - in the more expensive class. Fine, this is India, that's how it works, the lines between tipping, baksheesh and flat out bribery blur and it's 2 a.m., so anything is better than having to hunt for another place now. Whatever.

Then the first thing I have to do in my drab but functional "executive" class hotel room is kill a cockroach. Small moment of panic and homesickness, because really, I can deal with just about any kind of inconvenience, but please, not cockroaches... Breathe. Sleep at 3:30 a.m. under a blanket and the overly blasting AC. (Seems to have only one setting - but maybe the cold will keep further cockroaches away??)

Breakfast this morning was various puffy pancake products and mysterious sauces. (Thanks to Anna N, who sent me a link about South Indian breakfast foods the day before I left - indeed, my breakfast matched those pictures!) Everything seems to be automatically vegetarian, and the tea comes automatically as chai, milky and sweet. Love.

I'd planned to let myself sleep/hide out in my hotel room as much as necessary today, being lame as a traveler but allowing myself to acclimate slowly. But through the breakfast room window, India was calling me, hot and busy and bright. And very noisy (every imaginable type of honking). So I went out to wander up and down the high road in front of the train station, just absorbing.

People move as a mass so it's easy just to go along, crossing the road when everyone else crosses, obeying some invisible law of balance between bus and pedestrian. Women selling food from makeshift carts, men selling chai, everywhere tuktuks and rickshaws and packed-full, open-windowed buses. Stray dogs scrounging. A family of goats. Just chillin'. On the sidewalk.

To my surprise, everyone pretty much ignored me, even most of the rickshaw drivers. Almost all the women wear saris, to the point that the ones in jeans and t-shirts look kind of out of place. I saw just one other white person, a middle-aged man, and there was that odd foreigners' moment of mutual recognition, like, Weird seeing YOU here. Where you feel like you should greet each other just because you both stand out so much, but then, why would you greet each other just for being European?

Time to go. This afternoon: train to Vellore, where my German friend Lena is doing part of her medical student internship, then we're going traveling together for a few days.