Marina, Chennai

The Video

July 8: The train journey from Kodaikanal Road (three hours bus ride from the Kodaikanal Hills) to Chennai was excellent. They provided us the bed sheet and pillow for Rs 15 in the rail and that made the 8-hour journey ‘very’ comfortable, my neck tells me.

I stayed awake till 12 am typing one of these entries. When I woke up, we were already in Chennai Egmore (railway station). I wanted to sleep more! But the Marina was waiting for me. The beach that is. So we went directly to the beach that is not very far from the station and felt the coolness of the ‘Bay of Bengal’ water. The beach was dirty even in the early hour when very few vending stalls were open for business. Things including pieces of glasses were scattered all over the sand. But that didn’t stop us from playing with water and waves and taking loads of pictures.

We also went for a brief walk around the Chennai Central railway station from where we caught a train to Bangalore @1 pm. This 8 hour journey, done in an all-seater train (no sleeper class compartments), was pleasant as the train crossed via beautiful, green rural parts of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka that also included some huge rocks and small hills near the railway track.

We arrived at the Bangalore City railway station @8 pm. Another train to Lundi was waiting for us for the 9:20 pm journey. We hurriedly ate Dal-Bhat in an eatery just outside the terminal. The seats were not confirmed in the Sleeper class. They are still not confirmed now, 22:26, as I am typing these lines. We are sharing seats. Fortunately, my partner hasn’t shown up yet. I hope he doesn’t.

Tomorrow, there is a 4-hour bus ride from Lundi to Goa.

PS: Yes, as we two were trying to adjust ourselves in a seat, the TT came and said, a seat was available for us! Hurrey, we got separate berths for all of us.