Chennai is a Cluster Cuss!

Yesterday was rough.  In fact, the last couple of days have been rough.  Chennai is hard and I havent really been sleeping well.  Yesterday after work I was tired, but desperately needed to get more clothes as I only have 3 work outfits that I've been rotating and I was invited to go out to dinner on Friday.  A trip to FabIndia (www.fabindia.com) was in order.  So I googled it and found my closest FabIndia.  But it's not that easy here.

They Layout of Chennai as a city sucks.  It is known for this.  The other main annoyance is the auto wallas (auto rickshaw drivers).  They are notorious for being deceitful and hard to bargain with.  Therefore, getting anywheres here is already a challenge.  Throw in lack of any street signs (seriously), names that sound very different to how they are spelled, and people who are so eager to help that they will you give you wrong directions before they sa they do not know and you're pretty much screwed!

Chennai does have an impressive bus network (so they say), but navigating it is nearly impossible unless you've already physically been to where you're going.  There isn't a bus route map, so you can't actually see the location of the bus stops on a map.  Furthermore, the stops aren't really listed on the route!

For instance, I take bus 47A to/from work.  I can get on at 3 different stops near my house; Bethel Matriculation School, Ayanavaram water tank, or Kilpauk.  At work I can get off at either Valluvar Kottam or Nungambakkam Police Station.  You have to tell the conductor where you're stopping when you get on 'cause you pay by distance.  No matter what combo of stops I use, my ticket never says any of those names and always says I.C.F to Vidyodaya, or vice versa.  The MTC website only lists 12 stops (none of which are any of the 5 that i use) total on the entire route, which I know isnt true because my bus stops more than 12 times on the way to work!

So I attempt to make it to FabIndia yesterday after work.  I leave work around 545, rush hour, meaning that the bus will be packed like sardines, making everything that much more difficult.  I know I need to get off somewhere between Pondy Bazaar and T. Nagar.  So I make my best guess and then wonder around in every direction asking lots of questions until I finally make it there, at around 730.

By this time it was dark, I was running low on water, had no snacks as I had eaten my emergency snacks during work (stoopid), and was thinking, this is it, I'm finally going to have that breakdown I've been dreading.  So walking into air-conditioned FabIndia made me so happy that I spent Rs. 3,000 (~$65) and got 3 kurtas, 2 salwaars, a bottle of avocado hair conditioner and a much deserved FabIndia organic fudge brownie (jumbo sized).

Then I took a shared auto back to my work bus stop (turns out it was less than 5 min away) and got back on the ole 47A towards home.  As I sat there safe at my local veg restaurant (Hotel Sri Krishna Bhavan), eating Chappathi Kuruma, I realized that despite 2 hours of frustration and a near breakdon, the fact that I actually accomplished something on my own and didn't give up made it all worth while.  Chennai is a complete cluster cuss, but I'm having an absolute BLAST trying to figure it out.