Midweek Trip to Chennai
A mid-week trip to Chennai, on 24th October 2007, wednesday was warranted in order to attend a surprise birthday party for a friend, Kodhi. More on the surprise birthday party in due time, for it needs a proper build up along with some heavy duty background details, in order to do justice to the efforts put in by Kodhi's Mum in organizing the whole thing.
The trip was planned and I managed to go with Skimpy (skthewimp), who booked tickets for both the onward and the return journey and hence deserves many thanks. What follows next here is like highly personalized one-day travelogue, and is hence behind the LJ cut.
Suffering from a mild bout of insomnia, I managed to wake up early at 3-45 and get ready. Waking up that early was actually a good thing because I ended up being clean shaven for the first time in nearly three months, prior to which I would only trim my beard and have a dirty stubble.
After reaching Majestic via an early morning bus from near my house, I rendezvoused with Skimpy at the railway station and we boarded the Lalbagh Express. Having known him only through chance meetings and having followed his journal regularly, it was good fun hanging out with him and putting general conversation, though the insomnia took its toll on me and I managed to crash while listening to some Arch Enemy on my ipod (no disrespect intended to Angela Gossow).
Skimpy and I had discussed the possibility of meeting some hot womans along the journey and hanging out with them, a dream that every single male traveller has, but it seemed like the wednesday morning train journey was filled with old people who were on their way to visit their children / grandchildren / great-grandchildren or were on their way to becoming permanent exhibits in some natural history museum, for they were so ancient.
After an uneventful but fun journey, we got off the train, with seven hours to kill until the surprise party. I had previously suggested having lunch at some standard South Indian joint which Skimpy had readily agreed to, but subsequently, I changed my mind and asked him if he was particular about any place he wanted to eat food at.
He'd had recommendations to this Thai restaurant named Benjarong on TTK Road in Chennai, and after boarding a pre-paid autorickshaw there, we proceeded to have a brilliant lunch.
The restaurant was very classy, and took good care of its clients, and we went there bang in the middle of the week as a result of which getting seats was easy. After I washed up in the ladies loo (by pure accident, for it looked neat and was behind the same big door as the gents loo), food was ordered.
This Thai restaurant had the standard menu, and with recommendations put in appropriately by the waiters, we managed to have a fulfilling hearty meal comprising of soup, some cutlet starter, some Thai Red Curry derivative with white rice and some on the house starter snacks. The snack comprised of Spinach leaves into which we had to roll in ginger, peanuts, some red chillies, some jaggery paste, grated dry coconut pieces and top it by squeezing a piece of lemon. Putting the whole thing into one's mouth and chomping on it was absolute delight.
Had there been more leaves on the plate, we'd have had a full meal out of it. The food was well made, served nicely and the music was just at the right volume, so that it was noticeable when needed, and relegated to the background if chosen to be ignored.
Skimpy made the observation that the place seemed like one where they would have one table filled by one party for lunch and two for dinner, and it was only during weekends or holidays that they'd hurry their guests up to ensure that those in waiting were serviced as well, for the number of parties per table would go up.
A neat, evenly paced meal, satisfying in all aspects, resulted in a bill of INR 540 with tips - decent enough and good value for money, if you ask me.
Once the meal was dispensed with, we still had approximately four and a half hours to kill, and being self-confessed bibliophiles, we figured the best place to do that was at a bookstore. Kodhi's Mum, whom we had called earlier to ask if we could help out in anything before the party had told us about a book-sale at Odyssey and we proceeded there, after chomping on some quality ice creams.
An over-rated Odyssey booksale and some more arbit time killing exercises later, which included staying within air conditioned spaces to beat the unforgiving Chennai heat, and generally waiting for the designated hour, we made it to Harrison Hotel, which we were hoping was called Harrison Motel so we could spooner it to Morrison Hotel, armed with our backpacks, two open umbrellas and a birthday cake.
Chennai seems to suffer from a lack of cute women, and both of us were glad that we were in Bangalore, where even if the cute ones were taken, we could still look at them and admire them, but from afar and be happy at having seen someone so pretty.
A well received surprise party later, Skimpy and I returned on the last Volvo bus from Chennai to Bangalore, but not before doing some reconnaissance mission around the bus-stand and generally abusing the TN state transport buses, which we agreed we wouldn't climb into, even if our life depended on it.
This was the first time ever I attended a surprise party, and now that is one more things I can strike out on the list of life-experiences that I have had. Like I said before, the actual details about the surprise shall be put forth soon. Do visit Benjarong on TTK road if you can, for some mind-blowing Thai food.