THE DETROIT OF INDIA

Honestly, this caption I took from Google and there is literally no connection to what I have penned. I had no idea what to put as my 3 days of the journey was rather awesome because I traveled with my parents, but very ordinary in terms of the city, maybe because I didn't explore much. Chennai is nicknamed as "The Detroit of India" because more than one-third of India's automobile industry is based in the metropolis. Whoever is reading, add this to your 'knowledge' if you want to.

How fantastic it would be to travel with your whole family and explore together. It's not necessary to always fly abroad to explore, traveling means to discover unfamiliar places and to meet new people for the first time. There are 29 states in India and we traveled to Tamil Nadu, Southern part of India, that too by train. It took 16 hours to reach Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu and the journey was amazing. I could savor each and every beautiful scenery throughout my journey.

Our journey began just about 5 pm. Now till 8pm, people were selling tea, coffee, vada, Badam milk plus dinner meals inside the train. We all just took tea as we brought food from home itself. Now by 9, it's the time to sleep, and then the lights were turned off and we set our berth with bed sheets and pillow and off to kip. "Chai Chai, Coffee Coffee". Now they have this weird tune when they call out "chai". And yes, by 7 30 in the morning they embarked on their work and I got up hearing to this creepy tune. Around 11am, we reached the Chennai Railway Station. We already booked the hotel through OYO, so we took an Uber as that was way cheaper than Ola and went straight to the hotel. Now the bad news was the day we arrived, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, M. Karunanidhi passed away. The whole sector in Tamil Nadu was not working as they announced a public holiday. Thus we just wandered around the hotel for that day.

The following day we had buffet breakfast from the hotel itself. We first set our journey to Marundeeswarar Temple. It is an old temple which has been a place of worship for people with diseases and various problems with their wellness. The place was really calm and it automatically generated a positive vibe. Then after the temple visit, we exited to the Phoenix Market City. The mall was huge, filled with international branded shops and also the IMAX theatre, their interiors were beautifully built. We had lunch from the food court itself. Now we were looking for a nearby beach as the roads were really crowded. It took 1 hour to pass over 10 kms to reach Elliot's Beach. We chilled there for an hour and left back to the hotel. We were staying in Old Mahabalipuram Road and there was a food joint. Now this place was crazy. It was like small stalls filled with different varieties of food. The food was comparatively cheap and very tasty.

The next day, as usual the breakfast over here was truly satisfying . And yeah the street food we had yesterday night made us stay a little longer in the washroom the next morning. So guys be careful. We had to check out as we wanted to move to a different locality. We booked a hotel through OYO in T. Nagar as this can be called as the main center or the city of Chennai. I left to see a friend as he was staying nearby, whereas my parents moved to a mall. We went to the longest natural urban beach, the Marina Beach. A set of activities take place here daily attracting large number of crowds. Selling food, snacks, ice cream, game stalls, horse riding etc. After this we moved to the Palmshore Restaurant Santhome. Try out the Chicken Almondine Sizzler over here, it was one of the best. Quite expensive, but the food was good. Then we exited from there and I directly went to the hotel. The next day we had to catch the train back to Kerala.

At present the people in Chennai were very friendly and genuinely helpful. The city's vibrant culture, restaurants providing international cuisine makes it convenient for expatriates to live here. There is immense disparity between the poor and the rich. The traffic and the drivers freaked me out. We wanted to explore a lot more, but we had a limited time. To discover many beautiful temples, amazing beaches and park, modern restaurants, hopefully I will visit this place one more time.