Flying the Good Times

We're now more or less all set up in Chennai. We flew here -- it's
about an hour's flight from Bangalore. It was great to finally be able
to take Kingfisher, United Breweries' airline and one of the better
ones. Just as the breweries' Kingfisher beer is "for the good times,"
the airline allows you to "fly the good times."

It was a good flight. Since most of my flights in India have been with
the bargain basement airline Air Deccan, it was thrilling to get
breakfast on the plane this time. (But even if we'd flown later in the
day, there wouldn't have been any Kingfisher beer available. Indian law
prevents any alcohol being offered on domestic flights.)

Best of all, the flight wasn't cancelled or delayed, an all-too-common
problem with Air Deccan. (Basically Air Deccan is for when you kinda
want to fly the good times, but would be just as happy staying put if
your flight is cancelled. For those "let's not and say we did" times.)

We're staying in a guesthouse -- an apartment that's been converted
into a hotel. There are 4 bedrooms with their own bathrooms, and then a
dining room and living room that's common to them. The place comes with
two servants, who clean the rooms each day and cook. Although it's a
little weird having guys hanging out in the place all the time, it's
been surprisingly easy to get used to having someone else make supper
and get the laundry done.

Chennai is hot, but not as horrible as we feared. Of course, it is
early in the year still, and most offices and stores have air
conditioning.

But Chennai is definitely as full of mosquitoes as we thought. I've
discovered that guide books, in addition to whatever other charms and
utility they may have, are great at crushing the little buggers.
Something about the large numbers of thin pages make them easy to close
quickly. Consider that my handy tip of the day.