Off to the East Coast

One of the offices I'll be visiting and working from is in Chennai. My team is there, and I'll be spending five days. I'm looking forward seeing friends who used to work in our office in Charlotte, and to putting faces with the names I see on email chains each day.

Chennai, formerly known as Madras (yes, like the plaid), was the only Indian city to be listed in the NY Times 52 Places to Go in 2014 list (#26 - check out the beautiful temple photo). It is on the coast, off the Bay of Bengal, and home to two famous beaches.

There are temples dating from the 7th century, art deco buildings, and highly secured shiny new high tech buildings. Also -- I've been told by a semi reliable source -- that there is a temple near Chennai (only five hours by cab!!) that does not cast a shadow.

Home to a large expatriate population brought by technology, Chennai has huge malls, theme parks, terrific restaurants serving food from all over the world (Chithrapu has given me a list of his favs), sporting events, nature parks and cultural offerings. (Add Mickey Mouse and we could change the name to Orlandobad!)

And of course, we can't forget Kollywood.

I'm told a wonderful thing to do is have fish and Kingfisher Beer at a beachfront restaurant.