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Chennai (Madras)
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2nd - 4th January 2005.
The fourth largest city in India has officially been called Chennai since 1997, but lots of people still remember it as Madras.
We flew here from Bombay, arriving late at night. It is a bustling city, very conservative, that sits on the recently Tsunami hit beach.
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Our favourite people in the world - the tuk tuk driver. This one was quite friendly though, mainly because he couldn't try to take us for a ride, literally and metaphorically speaking, (well, until his machine was repaired).
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We noticed alot of friendly people in this town. This banana man outside the train station, was so chuffed that Jason wanted to take a picture of him, (and he didn't even ask for money.)
We also managed to book several train tickets here due to the very efficient railway booking centre that not only had a proper queue, but a computer to tell you if there was space on a train. Very orderly and very unexpected from a city that has a newspaper section of "pothole of the day!"
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There are some sights in town, this is the High Court building. The second biggest in the world.
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We decided to visit Marina Beach to experience first hand the effect of the Tsunami disaster. Many people died along this coast of India. Here, a week later, we saw where boats were thrown over car parks, and into gardens.
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Pieces of a boat that have been collected by a fisherman hoping to reassemble them.
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Lots of fishing nets are scattered on the beach. Most will take days if not weeks to untangle and repair. No-one seemed to be untangling or repairing them, leaving us to draw the grim conclusion that their owners were sadly no longer.
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A boat motor.
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Traces of household items line the beach.
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Police are now patrolling the beach on horse back.
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We visited a shanty town by the beach where lots of people were gathered around, trails of battered stands show the effects on these poor people's lives.
In some places we were shocked to see how far up the waves had reached , and how some of the shanty towns had not been hit, despite being so close to the beach.
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The waves destroyed walls along the beach, most of them are already being repaired by workers.
We stayed in a hotel about 2kms inland because Claire didn't feel safe any closer. Our day trip to Mamallapuram, a nearby fishing village, gave us a better feel of how the Tsunami had affected life in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
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