11:05pm
Sundays here have some similarities to home. Some of the stores, restaurants, etc. aren't open today and most of them open a few hours later than usual. After breakfast this morning, we looked up some sights to see that are closer to the hotel than the places we went yesterday. With a pretty vague idea of where we were going, we left the hotel on foot. Not too far down the street we waved down a couple of autos and told them to take us to a mall called Spencer Plaza. It was a quick ride and cheaper than a usual auto fare. This mall was not even close to the incredible Express Avenue mall. It was huge like the EA, but not nearly as modern. Inside, the ceilings were low and the stores were more comparable to the outdoor market type of stores. They had the usual Nike, Puma, Reebok, and New Balance stores that seem to be in every mall here, but they were a little bit smaller with less of a selection. After quickly exchanging some dollars for rupees at the exchange station and peeking into a phone store, we headed out of the mall and onto the streets in search of another auto.
After 20 minutes of haggling with drivers who wanted to rip off the dumb American kids, we met Baba. Baba is an auto driver who overheard our broken conversation with another driver and chimed in with an offer to squeeze all four of us into one auto and take us to all of the places we wanted to see for a total of 600 rupees (around $10). Since this offer was less than half the cost of the other offers we had gotten, we agreed and hopped in. It wasn't until halfway into our first ride that Baba told us everyone calls him "Crazy Baba". He then started singing Tamil songs and occasionally yelling "YEEEEHAAWWWWW!!!!" in an effort to make us laugh. We found this pretty funny until the 3rd or 4th ride with him.
Our first stop was at the Valluvar Kottam. To be honest, I had no clue what this place was until we arrived. I had seen some pictures online and thought it looked pretty cool so we added it to our list. The Valluvar Kottam is a massive stove monument built in the 1970's in honor of an Indian poet and philosopher. As you can see in the pictures, it is designed to look like some sort of chariot with huge stone wheels 10 feet in diameter. Like almost all Indian monuments, it was covered with incredibly detailed carvings and artistry. After taking some time to walk around the monument and take pictures, we called Baba and got back on the road.
Next we headed to the Egmore Museum. This is a government-run museum arranged like a large college campus. The different buildings around the campus consisted of a geology gallery, a sculptures gallery, a bronze gallery, and a contemporary art gallery. It was pretty strange to see priceless 7th century sculptures, paintings, etc. on display in buildings with no air conditioning in a city that gets hotter than Arizona in the summer. I wasn't particularly fascinated with the things we saw with the a couple of exceptions. After all, it was a museum, not an amusement park. The coolest thing, for me, was seeing the huge 7x12 foot oil paintings (some of which were 200+ years old) of the British chief ministers that used to hang in the government mansions.
My favorite part of the day came next. Baba took us to the other side of town to see the St. Thomas Basilica. It wasn't quite as mesmerizing as St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, but it was still a very old, very massive catholic church. Seeing the tomb of St. Thomas was just as unique and borderline creepy as I remembered the tomb of St. Peter to be. We walked around and read all of the posters about the history of the church and St. Thomas himself. Every time a Pope has stepped foot on the church grounds is well documented on large posters. We made our way outside to take in the view of the entire church and paid an auto driver 10 rupees to take pictures of our group. As you can see in my picture below, not even a panorama was able to show the entire church.
We left the church hungry and tired so we told Baba to take us to the best restaurant close by. Of course, it ended up being a traditional South Indian restaurant. They had cold bottled water and chicken masala so I didn't have any complaints. Finally, Baba took us back to the hotel so we could relax and catch up on schoolwork.
My favorite part of the day came next. Baba took us to the other side of town to see the St. Thomas Basilica. It wasn't quite as mesmerizing as St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, but it was still a very old, very massive catholic church. Seeing the tomb of St. Thomas was just as unique and borderline creepy as I remembered the tomb of St. Peter to be. We walked around and read all of the posters about the history of the church and St. Thomas himself. Every time a Pope has stepped foot on the church grounds is well documented on large posters. We made our way outside to take in the view of the entire church and paid an auto driver 10 rupees to take pictures of our group. As you can see in my picture below, not even a panorama was able to show the entire church.
We left the church hungry and tired so we told Baba to take us to the best restaurant close by. Of course, it ended up being a traditional South Indian restaurant. They had cold bottled water and chicken masala so I didn't have any complaints. Finally, Baba took us back to the hotel so we could relax and catch up on schoolwork.
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