Day 1

I reached Chennai yesterday by 10 pm. And Dipanjan's flight would arrive at 2 am!

After a long, lonely journey to Chennai, the only thing left to make my life more miserable was waiting for more four hours sitting inside the airport. I looked in my phone. It was 10.10 pm, and my battery was a run short to make a half-century. I started to watch the movie "Dishoom", and thanks to the battery of ASUS Max, I could watch it fully!

It was around 1.50 am, and Dipanjan came.

We spent the whole night inside the airport, planning all the things that are to be done the next day (today!). We eventually booked a hotel and at around sunrise we checked into it. We needed a small nap before we could start exploring.....CHENNAI!

We woke up in the afternoon. Our plans for Mahabalipuram got spoiled, as it's quite far and we had a train to catch at night. If only we woke up earlier.....

Once we got ourselves freshened, we searched for bong restaurants, but nay, it was in vain. At the end we made our way to a North-Indian cuisine.

After the eating has been done, it was time to start our Chennai-darshan. :D

We started with the Ispahani Centre. A decent sized building, hosting a variety of shops. But what we were interested in was it's Game Center. We found it's location and proceeded to venture into the unknown game.

It was named "Nuclear Countdown". In brief, some naughty scientist has planted a bomb, and you need to defuse it. Sounds easy, right? It was not...
We were taken inside a room. It had lots of components and monitors and a 45-minute timer as well. We had to find clues and decipher codes ( trust me, they were quite tricky! ) and defuse the bomb within the alotted time. Else, you know.....

We played well. Actually we could find all clues but when it comes to deciphering codes, one of the ciphers took it's toll and we were almost nearing a defeat... when suddenly things got better, we kept on solving and finally could defuse the bomb 8 mins before it would blast :P

I am extremely amazed by the game. There were many other games as well of the same genre, and they were costly, but totally worth it.

We proceeded to games of another genre. Virtual Reality.

In one game we were in an open airbaloon, and things were going right until an eagle came and bursted our baloon. In this situation we were provided a small plank leading to another baloon and we had to walk on it without falling down.

It was a thrilling experience! I struggled a lot but couldn't finish the game. Dipanjan came like a boss and aced it!

We played two other games as well, in one we were in a spaceship in alienspace, fighting with other spaceships, and in another we had to ride a dragon and collect eggs placed in several places while maneuvering the dragon. It was mesmerising! I performed excellently in these games and levelled the score with Dipanjan. :D

Next we went to St. Teresa's Church. It was huge, boasting a nice ambience as well.

We continued towards Marina Beach, but everytime we took an entrance it directed us only to some other place. The beach was in plain sight though.

We visited the Anna Memorial. A great weather, a friend beside, we felt good! After the hot and harsh weather out here the whole day, this provided some relief!

And finally! We found the right entrance to the beach! The waves were definitely not gentle, but I felt so good as they kept on arriving, periodically striking my feet.

We spent some more time there, playing shooting games and checking out the surroundings.

And finally, it was time to say Goodbye to Chennai. We have already boarded the Nilgiri Express that will take us to Coimbatore, and it has already started soaring while I am writing these things here.

It was a great experiece here. The next time I would come to Chennai I would make sure that I have plenty of days at my disposal!

Tomorrow awaits a new day. Udayan is joining us tomorow morning.

Coimbatore, here we come.