9 January Chennai International Airport
Although I could have checked out
this morning, I had paid for an extra day so that I could come and go from my
room until heading to the airport tonight. The day began with a dosa breakfast
at the guesthouse and some journal writing, then I caught an Uber taxi north to
the Government Museum, a group of historic buildings with wide-ranging
collections of modern Indian art, ancient brass statues, archaeological finds,
natural history, and folk art. The museum got started back in 1851, making it
the country’s second oldest museum after Kolkata’s Indian Museum (1814), and
moved to its present site in 1854. On my previous visits to the museum over the
years, the National Art Gallery had been dilapidated and closed. So I was very
pleasantly surprised to find this beautiful building—in a traditional
Mughal-Jaipuri style with a pink sandstone façade—repaired and open. The
high-ceilinged main hall exhibits highlights of the museum’s collection, mainly
paintings. A gallery in back features works by Raja Ravi Varma (1848-1906), an
Indian painter and artist who used his training in European academic art to
express purely Indian subjects. He became widely known by making affordable
lithographs of his paintings available to the public. I found the paintings very
appealing. Just to the west I visited the Contemporary Art Gallery, a large and
diverse collection of paintings—actually mostly Modern Art—by Indian artists,
including more by Raja Ravi Varma. A temporary art exhibition on the ground
floor had a few intriguing paintings. I skipped the Children’s Museum and headed
to the Bronze Gallery—three floors with what’s said to be the richest collection
of bronze idols in Asia. South Indian Hindu bronzes predominate, with the first
two floors showcasing mainly Shiva and his family while Vishnu and his family
reside on the top floor. Small groups of Buddha and Jain images appear too.
Lastly I entered the Main Building, a huge structure, but only the two-story
front room was open with ancient stone statues of Hindu deities.
The
driver of the auto taxi back to my room had to negotiate very heavy traffic most
of the way—not a job I would like to have. In the evening I headed over to
Susindar’s house for one last visit. He kindly got a food delivery from
Sangeetha Restaurant of South Indian food.
Back at my room I just had
time for a quick shower and final packing before heading to the airport. I could
have walked to the nearby Nandanam Metro station, but got an Uber auto. In
complete contrast from Chennai’s bumpy and dusty roads, the underground Metro is
clean and efficient. A ticket to the airport was just Rs. 30 ($0.35). I rode
seven stops to the end of the line from where I could walk to the attractive
contemporary International Terminal. Normally I would fly back to Bangkok on Air
Asia, but the fare on THAI was about the same and would give me more legroom and
a bit better service. No matter which airline, the flights all seem to go in the
middle of the night. My THAI Flight TG338 was scheduled to depart at 1:30 a.m.
and arrive at 6:25 a.m., losing 1.5 hours from time zones. Check-in was a bit
slow because of the number of passengers on this full wide-body flight. Things
got delayed at Indian Immigration when the official very carefully went over all
my details, then stopped me because the guesthouse had failed to register me. I
had to wait at another desk to get a form and fill out accommodation information
before I could go. Security took a long time because of a mix of inefficiency
and meticulousness.
10 January Bangkok, Thailand
The Boeing 777-200ER
took to the skies on time for a flight due east across the Bay of Bengal and
Myanmar that took just under three hours. Despite the late hour, I enjoyed
getting a full meal of Indian food. On arrival in Bangkok I had a long hike to
Thai Immigration, which was very quick thanks to an express line for travelers
over age 70. An advantage of flying on THAI Airways is that it lands at
Suvarnabhumi—the main airport for Bangkok—with better public transport than the
Don Meuang Airport used by the low-cost carriers. I hopped on Bangkok Airport
Rail Link, an elevated train for a quick ride to Makkasan Station, where I
transferred to the MRT subway to the Lumphini Station, an easy walk to where I’m
staying. However check-in for my basic Airbnb room wasn’t until 3 p.m., so I put
bags in my storage unit across the street. I got back on the MRT line for a
short ride to House Samyan, where I watched the very strange movie “Soundtrack
to a Coup d’Etat” (2024) about Cold War drama surrounding the independence of
the Republic of Congo in the early 1960s. Afterward I took care of some shopping
before checking in. In coming days I will be enjoying Bangkok’s art scene and
getting ready for a group bicycle ride in northern Thailand, from Chiang Mai to
Chiang Rai.