India Day 1

Well I made it to India, but I’m still waiting on my luggage. I just made my connection in Frankfurt to Chennai due to a 2 ½ delay leaving Washington DC. My flight from DC landed about 10 minutes before the one flight per day (from Frankfurt) was about to leave. Thankfully the airline literally held the plane for three of us coming from DC. We got taken off the first plane and bused to the other plane so we wouldn’t have to deal with the crowds in the airport. At that point I pretty much had no hope of getting my luggage to Chennai with me, but at least I didn’t have to hang out in the Frankfurt airport for a day.

I landed in Chennai at about midnight Tuesday/Wednesday and got to my hotel at about 1:30. Of course I couldn’t go to sleep; one cause it seemed like the middle of the afternoon to me and two because I had to wash the only clothes I had available. I finally fell asleep around 2:30 and was awake by 6:30.

I’ve not really had a chance to look around much yet, but it is clearly a different world here. Cattle walk on the main highway, trash is everywhere and I can clearly see the class distinction between those who work and others. I had heard there were two classes in India; the educated and the service class. There seems to be one missing, the poverty stricken. I was taken to a small temple this morning to view it and there were about ten women and young children begging for change. To an extent they were unrelenting, but clearly they had/have nothing and even a little change would have helped them. Not having any local currency yet I couldn’t help.

My luggage is suppose to arrive tonight and be delivered first thing in the morning. I hope so cause right now I’m starting to stink and don’t have the energy to try and wash jeans by hand tonight. Hopefully I can get an internet connection to post this at some point. Well the internet is working, but I can't get pictures to download, hopefully tomorrow.