So my last trip before #Lockdown was to Chennai. Not a leisure trip but to attend a conference at IIT-Madras. I was to leave Allahabad on the 4th March early morning by train and on the 3rd evening a piece of news flashed in Times Of India that visas for people from a few countries had been suspended. This was probably the first major step taken by the Government of India to prevent the outbreak of Corona in the country. Over the previous few days, I had seen big conferences including those of the American Physical Society getting cancelled due to the Coronavirus outbreak. The IIT conference starting on the 6th was to have several speakers and participants from Japan and I feared should the event get cancelled. With some hope, I boarded the train on my way to Chennai. While on board, I received an email that the event would go on as planned except that the Japanese participants would join in via video-conferencing.

I reached Chennai on the 5th afternoon and put up at the Youth Hostel in Adyar. The hostel is just 2 km from Besant Nagar beach. Over the next four days, I spent quite some time at the beach watching the sunrise or enjoying the cool evening breeze with some seafood, bhajis and roasted bhutta (maize). During the first visit on the 5th, I ended up exploring something that is marked as Broken Bridge on Google Maps. This place towards the north of Besant Nagar Beach and near to Theosophical Society is where the Adyar River meets the Bay of Bengal. The sunset from this place is something very memorable I got to watch on this trip. This part of the beach is very less frequented.

The next two days were mostly spent inside the IIT campus, a little forest within the bustling city. On the 8th I headed further down south of Chennai to visit the Madras Crocodile Bank. This is a research and breeding centre for reptiles and amphibians. They probably have the most number of crocs I have seen to date. Besides the different varieties of crocodiles, they also house snakes, tortoises and iguanas. The Irula Snake Catchers’ Industrial Cooperative Society is on the same campus. They work towards snake venom extraction for anti-venom production. For tourists, they held awareness programs including a demonstration of how snake venom is extracted. That same day evening, I ticked off one more destination of Chennai from my list – the Chennai Light House. This place gives a panoramic view of the Marina beach with the endless Bay of Bengal on the right and the Madras city on the left.

Finally, I was scheduled to exit Chennai on the 9th afternoon. As I had some time to spare in the first half of the day I went about searching for some snacks to carry back home. Thanks to suggestions from Quora and Facebook members I was able to get some of the finest banana chips and murukkus from Ganga Hot Chips, A2B and Grand Sweets & Snacks in Adyar. I reached Allahabad on the 11th and within another 11 days, Janta Curfew happened. Thankfully I am still safe. #StayHomeStaySafe

Pictures from this trip are on Instagram. Do check them out.

Note: This post is a part of my submission to a contest run by Tripoto on the topic “Experience: My last trip before the lockdown”