Back to the mainland, after two hours of flight across the Bay of Bengal. Back to the chaos and noise of Chennai, the city with too many cars and too few attractions. But I was pleasantly surprised by the neighborhood of Alwarpet with its many trees and quiet side roads. Still an Indian city but almost stylish, in a country that favors functionality over design and style.

But I still got to practice my skill of crossing a busy eight-lane highway by just walking into traffic. A lot. Don’t try that at home, you’ll definitely get killed.

They have the usual temples, a cathedral, a squalid promenade where fishermen offer their sparse catch, and a really quiet eco park called Tholkappiar where you need to buy tickets online for 10 cents except that only seems to work for Indians. The friendly guards just added me to an Indian couple and I got to save the 10 cents.