Some of our group decided we wanted to stick a foot in the Bay of Bengal and get an idea of what swimwear is acceptable in India, which lead us to venture down to Marina Beach, the longest urban beach in India (approximately 14 kms). Though this was a great idea in theory, we neglected to realize just how hot the temperatures in India really are. Today's peak heat index was around 119 F, which made the near a half-a-mile in length trek through the molten sand incredibly difficult. We thought our Keen sandals and cheapo Old Navy flip flops might have actually started melting under our feet!
While exploring the beach, enjoying the refreshing laps of waves and views of catamarans and fishing nets, our group of six girls certainly drew a lot of attention. Kids stopped to point and stare at the white women, and we had several people take pictures and videos of us! One adorable little girl wearing a beautiful orange sari was so excited when she saw us that a giant grin broke across her face, she waved, and warmly called out, “Hello, welcome to India” in our direction. Although some of these encounters were pretty adorable and we were aware that we would probably get heckled, we did not expect what happened next. While enjoying a much-needed moment in the shade, our presence began drawing several local beggar children and vendors trying to get us to take a picture with their ear-pierced, pacifier-wearing monkeys. Although we repeatedly declined and began moving away, one of the monkeys was encouraged to leap up on the leg of one of the girls in our group. Poor Nancy literally had a monkey death-gripping her pants! Luckily, we all escaped without any monkey-related injuries!
After the beach, we decided to rickshaw it over to the National Art Gallery in Chennai. We saw some incredible architecture, sculptures, paintings, and coins, but most importantly got to enjoy the air conditioning! I'd love to share some photographs of the things we saw, but apparently we needed to purchase
All-in-all, it made for an interesting day!
Very cool Erin. That's awesome that you're venturing out and that you're finding people to be friendly the world over. I'm also glad that you were dressed accordingly and no one thought that your group were prostitutes! :-)
ReplyDeleteWe were very careful not to exposure the shoulders - don't want people thinking such things about us! :) However, we've learned that it's much more acceptable to have bare shoulders here in Chennai than in Thanjavur (rural community we're headed to next) because of the urbanization and tourism.
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