Chennai February 1

This was a little more relaxed morning.  We needed to be down in the lobby by 9 am to start our tour.  We first drove to the Kalakshetra Dance and Music School.  We were only allow to take pictures of the grounds, which were very nice.  We sat and watched on class of dance students.  The students come from all over India.  Very impressive what they were doing.  I wish we could have taken pictures.   It was pretty amazing.  This was something different than what we thought we were going to do.

I did not get the whole name but I decided to publish anyway because it shows English, Hindi and Tamil

The girls going to their classes

a huge banyon tree

reflective pool

Then we went to a Hindu temple.  It was being repaired and had a lot of scaffolding around so we did not pay to be able to use our cameras.  We did have to be barefoot and the stone flooring was hot but not unbearably.  

garlands to take into the temple

Then we went to the church of St Thomas

one of 3 cathedrals in the world built over one of the apostles.  

note the Hindu symbols along with the cross.  The lotus flowers and the peacocks.  

We then went to try to do a little shopping.  We did not find much

Drove by the beach

busy street scene

We went to the Sangeetha restaurant for lunch

Note the banana leaf on the tray

this is what we had.

Then we went back to the hotel.  We tried to work on our blogs before we went our for dinner.  This is the strangest hotel.  Debbie and I are on a different floor from Sharon and Jeanne.  Our key cards only work to go to our own floor so if we want to visit each other we call and then agree to meet in the lobby and then follow the other person to their room. Crazy.