Chennai contd....

I went to meet Jeanette at her school yesterday evening, it was quite handy cos she took me to the school nurse while I was there and they put some really good cream on my bites...I've woken up this morning with even more, I've got big bumps all over my hands and feet now!!

She took me to a cafe where they make fruit juices and smoothies...I had a chocolate ice cream milkshake, was really yummy, beats Mcdonalds any day!!

We had a full house last night, a colleague of Jeanette's and his friend were staying over for the one night, we ordered curry and watched some TV. I like the TV here, it's mostly English speaking, they run all the American sit-coms (as you can probably tell, the nightlife isn't as good here as in Bangalore!!)

So now I'm off to Marina Beach which is the second longest in Asia.

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Just got back from my day out. I caught a auto rickshaw to the beach....I'm getting quite good at haggling with the guys now, they really try to rip off any foreigners! I'm slowly building my confidence up these last few days as I've had to do things on my own, which is definitely a good thing. I had a long walk along the beach, I didn't actually go down to the water cos it's not really that kind of beach. This was one of the beaches that was caught in the Tsunami, although now you can't see any real damage. Basically it's just full of fishing boats and people doing their washing. I had another coconut water on the way to cool me down, I'm getting quite fond of them now. Lots of people were coming up to me and saying 'hi hi hi' again....they seem to love it when they see a foreigner, it's quite amusing! I've found the people here are a bit friendlier than in Bangalore, even the rickshaw drivers always have a smile. Jeanette recommended me to go to a cafe/restaurant in the city called Amethyst, so I took my book with me and had a nice lunch and read for a couple of hours, it was really peaceful. I'm also now addicted to chocolate milkshakes, I had another one at lunchtime, but it wasn't as good as yesterdays.

So, I'm heading off to Thailand tomorrow night, I have 2 nights booked in Bangkok, then I'm going to see where the mood takes me, hopefully some beautiful island where I can lie on the beach all day long....aren't you jealous!! I had a mail from Ric and he said he's hoping to get to Bangkok to meet up with me, so that'll be great.

We're off out tonight as one of Jeanette's colleagues has a birthday, I'm going to have a quick sleep as I have a bit of a headache from all the sun and driving around in the rickshaws, it's just mad and noisy in the city. I'm actually going to miss India, I'm just getting used to the madness and the Indian culture. I'm really going to miss the way the Indians wobble their heads when you ask them something, it takes a while to realise whether they're saying yes or no!!!