Swish

This post could be entitled 'Lobster Genocide' or perhaps 'I love it when a plan comes together'

Part 1 : Lobster Genocide.

Weekend was ace. Got very drunk on friday night. Dingy back room bar of dubious legality. Much fun was had by all, got to know some of the locals who work here and a few of the other guys who have flown over from the UK. Learnt a bit of 'Indian' dancing which was mad - the homorous bit is that all the other indians when questioned admitted the guy doing the teaching was possibly the worst dancer that they have ever seen and that no-one they know would be seen dead dancing like that. Stitched up again.

Considering we only got there after 11 we thought it was a bit rude for them to call last orders at 12. Our revenge for this was, in fact, the last order itself which then took several hours to drink.

Saturday was good - saw some temples and stuff (specifically Ashore Temple, Five Rathas and the Butterball - the crazy big boulder thing).

Someone elses photo's of these can be found here. (Ignore photo's 4 and 5 cos I didn't meet the family and I have no idea who the last two are)

Good day out. For the evening we had arranged that we would have some food then go out 'clubbing' (proper shirt an shoes affair) - however our meal finished us off after the day so we and a single drink in the bar and nearly passed out. Food was good though - the Hotel has a 'Kebab Factory' eatery. Odd place - you get a series of kebab style dishes (no - not a pitta with some unidentifiable meat and loads of shitty sauce sprayed over it and you don't get threatened by the chavs standing in the corner), delivered to your plate which you eat (strangely). All very nice but I managed to order the worst cocktail ever (salt round the rim? What the hell is that all about). Food was generally delicious though.

Sunday we went to Chennai's market which was ace but very busy and provided the, so far, most traumatic 'encounters with the ill, needy, disabled and desperate'. Eye opener indeed.
The market itself was... well... a bit shit. If I wanted ripped off DVD's, crappy shorts, shit watches (actually I did need one of these so I bought one - 55p), and tat then I was in heaven. And gold stuff... lots of gold stuff.

Also tried to buy silk but it all got very confusing and I left empty handed (Sorry Z). I'll try again next weekend - there is apparently a whole town that specialises in silks so I'm gonna get a trip over there booked and hopefully I'll get something.

After that we went for food - ended up at a Japanese/Korean place (well - when in Rome...). Very nice and (it wasn't me this time) we ended up with lobster again. 5 of them (hence the genocide - they were all swimming about in a tank as we went in). Lots of other food - very nice.

Couple of beers in the at the Aviva house later then home to bed.

Wonderful - gotta cut this short as I need to do some work now (more on that in part two).

Missing you all. P