It's been some time since we went somewhere on a trip. The last trip was of course to Pondicherry in the second week of Jan. I had enjoyed the trip more than the ones to Koorg and Madikeri, probably because I prefer the sea to the mountains. Hills rather, since I haven't been to any proper mountains as far as I remember. One thing I do not like about hilly terrain is the winding roads, which invariably make me feel sick if I am travelling in a car, which is mostly the case.

I had gone to Chennai a month back. I had gone there alone, to meet my father, who had come there for a meeting. The meeting was in a hotel/ beach resort called Fisherman's Cove, which the hotel owners claim, is the best hotel in Asia. While it did not appear to be something totally out of the usual, it was actually pretty good. I had accompanied my father to the hotel, and while he attended the seminar, I spent time in the hotel's lounge and the beach.

The beach was very nice, clear, unspoilt and not crowded at all. There was a cool breeze blowing across and it was very pleasant to walk along the soft white sand. I had a lot of time to spend, so I went to one end of the beach and sat down on some rocks, and contemplated about life for some time. The scenery was beautiful and the weather pleasant. But I soon got bored of sitting there. A lone person sitting on a clump of rocks in a deserted beach, with not a human soul within miles, may be a pretty picture to paint, specially for greetings card, but it is definitely not very enjoyable for the lone person for prolonged periods of time!

I came back to the hotel lounge and sat there. Observing the people milling around while sitting unobstrusively in a corner was definitely more interesting. The hotel staff were going out of their ways to be nice to the guests. Someone at the reception was giving away shell necklaces to everyone. As the day progressed, quite a lot of guests came to the lounge to lounge about! Presently a couple of provocatively dressed girls and a guy with chinese features came out and started to sing english songs. I suppose they were singing famous songs, but being illeterate in western music as I am, I didn't recognize any. The guy was singing pretty well. The girls were more busy smiling at the guests and dancing lightly to the rhythm.

There were quite a few foreigners, presumably Europeans, among the guests. A few of them went to the beach later in the day and sunbathed. What enjoyment they find in lying around on the beach under scorching sun, I will never know. And it was really hot by noon-time. Most of them were however sunbathing next to the kidney-shaped swimming pool. The pool did look cool and inviting.

We had our lunch there. It was not regular hotel cuisine, some caterers had been hired to cater for the seminar guests and their families. The food was okay, nothing particularly great. But I suppose that was to be expected. I never enjoy the food at such parties.

We returned to the hotel where we were staying after lunch, although most people stayed back for the cultural programmes and games to follow. I returned to Bangalore next morning. The short break was quite refreshing except for the fact that for the last twelve hours, I was worried about something at work following a phone call received on saturday evening.

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I was not planning to write about the Chennai trip at all, when I started. But then I didn't have anything particular in mind, so wrote whatever I thought of at the moment. Going by the number of comments on the previous post, I should probably stick to writing more about romantic stuff, than give a dull account of a weekend I spent long back doing nothing!