On our last vacation in India we managed to visit the beaches at Goa as well as Chennai. There was a huge difference in the lifeguad / beach patrol services at both places.

In Goa they patrol the beaches in jeeps equipped with surf boards and other life saving necessities. The lifeguards themselves wear sea-worthy wet uniforms. They do seem more prepared for an emergency. Of course non of that is of any help if the guy has fallen asleep under one of the palm trees at Anjuna or Vagator.

In Chennai, I like the idea of moving around on these smaller ATVs. Comes in very handy during the very crowded weekends. However, these guys are not really dressed for the job and will need to call for help in case of an emergency.

What do you think is the best option for these beach patrols?

I took the picture above at Chennai airport. This is at the section just after immigration.

As you can see, everybody (except Ro and I) were crowding at one spot, all of them trying to get a glimpse of the bomb. Yes, there was a bomb alert, with a guy in full bomb disposal armor and 2 sniffer dogs and they all still wanted to get as close as possible to the action.

I’m not sure if this is just us Indians in our usual inquisitive Indian mode, but who goes “near” the bomb. If I thought there was a bomb around, I would walk as far away from it as I could.

And our brilliant airport authorities just left the immigration counters running so people could keep piling up to watch all the action up close. Luckily, it was a false alarm. No bomb in sight. And we could all leave after a good 40 mins of watching the dogs and the armored guy take turns checking out the “un-attended package”.

Still, good job by the guy in the armored suit and his two cuddly sniffer dogs.

Chennai seems to have installed traffic cameras at almost every traffic signal. I took this pic near the airport.

Its a crooked pole (leaning against the fence) with 4 cameras installed. Quite a site to see!

If you think people in Kuwait cross signals while they are Red, go to Chennai for a real shock. Only a handful of drivers actually stop at these signals. Also, no one stops at or before the “white line” across the road. There are these count-down indicators which display how long till the next signal change and everyone starts to drive off once the counter hits 5.

Maybe people are waiting for more cameras?!?

Michelle highly recommended Barbeque Nation so we decided to go out on a double date with her and Shyam. Its a very neat “Live-Grill” concept. We reached the restaurant around 7.30pm and were taken to our reserved table.

We ordered our drinks and in a few mins one of the waiters came over, took away the wooden panel in the center of the table and placed a grill box in its place. It sank neatly into the table and we could see the coal burning in there.

The buffet service is very neat and the starters range from mushrooms and paneer to prawns and chicken all on skewers. The choice of flavour is upto you and you can brush your food on the grill, with your choice of seasoning, by yourself. There are a variety of sauces available to mix and match too. A very fun grilling experience.

Once you can no longer down the starters, there is a flag pole on the table which you need to bend down and then you can start with the main course. A wide variety of spicy Indian curries and pulses will fill you up to the brim, but don’t over eat! They do have a big spread of desserts. I tried almost all of them… Gulab Jamuns, Shrikand (in a tiny mud bowl), souffles, cakes, fruits and best of all ice cream with your choice of toppings.   

The only faults I could find was lighting and the badly designed restroom.

Also a live band usually plays numbers on request but they decided not to show up for us.  

Now for the ratings:

• Staff Knowledge: ****½ (4.5/5)
• Service: ****~ (4/5)
• Food Quality: ****~ (4/5)
• Price: ****½ (4.5/5)
• Location & Branding: ***~~ (3/5)

Overall Score: ****~ (4/5)

Next time I’m back in Chennai, I’m having dinner here again.

A hotel like this could become very popular in Kuwait. This is the Benzz Park hotel in Chennai. I thought my wife was joking about this place till I saw it for real. Just check out the restaurants and halls…
Porsche Multicusine Restaurant
Ferrari – The 24 hours Coffee Shop
Lexus – Bar
Rover Banquet Hall
Rolls Royce Banquet Hall
Volvo Banquet Hall

These Chennai traffic cops got style! Check out the pose! Looks like he dancing. 

The thing about the traffic in Chennai is that everybody drives crazy and I mean real crazy, especially my sister-in-law. There are cars, bikes, rickshaws, trucks and even people all over the road and the most amazing thing is that in the one week I was there, not a single accident. No body really follows the traffic lights or lanes or stops for cops unless they pose in the middle of the road like above.

I was pretty impressed when we visited Citi Centre in Chennai. Quite posh. I never expected to see anything like this in Chennai. There is a “Landmark” which is like the Virgin stores at Marina and another store similar to Center Point in Kuwait. In fact I think its the same since it looked very much alike and had all the same brands, but cheaper. The food court on the top floor is nice but very cramped. Hope to see more of these malls soon.

Decided to try a mini-thali for breakfast while in Madras. Yummy! The amazing part is this mini coffee that you get. Its really small.

While we were in Madras, we visited the Science and Technology Centre. We opted for the package that included everything. 

First up was the Birla planetarium. My first visit to a planetarium. When you enter there is this “studded” missile aiming at you. Seems its the “Zeiss projector” that plots all the stars on the dome above. A great experience from those reclining seats. Some other graphics get projected onto the dome as well like a huge mouse pointer and some low-res graphics and photos too.

Next was the 3D movie. Another first for me. I found it very cool though it scared my wife silly. There were scenes where this snake comes into you face and another one where an army of mice run towards you. Too bad it was only a 15 min show.

Last on the agenda was the Science center. This was extermely disappointing. A lot of exhibits, but hardly anything worked. The only thing that looked good was me sitting on that tractor!

On our way out we swung by this garden of science with various exhibits. One of them was this rat wheel. Fun till you slip and fall.

Worked on part of this logo recently for the Youth service Team of Madras (now known as Chennai). Am working on their website now. Hope to have it ready and uploaded before I go on vacation.